Gone?

I cannot help but realize this - whenever somebody leaves me, be it via leaving my workplace, moving away, taking a job elsewhere, I lose touch with people. They left me, so they are left out of my mind forever. Sure, every now and then a memory or two sneaks in. But this is different. The memory is there all the time. There are two memories. There are the great ones where I recall my 20+ year friendship with somebody. Then there is the memory of the night I heard the news. The day we sat in a circle of friends with our heads spinning around the situation. The day I saw your mother crying out. The day I saw you for the last time.

You left my life, like other people have before, but no in a way I have ever thought was possible. This has come up to me lately as this past Sunday I drove past your old house. The last place you were alive. I looked over while driving down the road but had to look away. 

I have been fortunate enough to get back to focusing on the things I need to do to get through the day like I am supposed to. However, every break or free second I have you on my mind. The family he left behind is very difficult to talk to, even though I know his spouse would talk to me in a heart beat. He is still totally all throughout my mind, but in order to not bring anybody else down I have kept it to myself. Almost like we are keeping no memories alive anymore. 

You know what else I have noticed since his suicide? There are a lot of put-off statements like "I would rather kill myself than XYZ..." It is weird, but I have never noticed. I know I always used to talk like that as well. I don't think I have even muttered these words in the 44 days since I heard about his death. I have heard several other people say it, and I shudder. I know it is just a way of talking and an expression. I know that I will personally never throw away a line like that, though. 

I am rambling a bit. I have tried my best to work through this on my own, but once in a while I need an entry to just get out the residual. I realize that I would also like to help somebody who may have lost somebody recently or help those who stumble across this and can see that it has been painful for somebody who lost a person they loved like a brother. I said earlier it has only been 44 days since the news spread. The past 44 days have felt like months on end. The past few years have flown by me and time has certainly been taken for granted. Maybe I am paying more attention to every detail of every day so that I may keep the image of my friend's corpse out of my mind. These details can be counted down by the second, and I feel like I am living through every second rather than looking up at a clock and seeing another hour or two has passed.

I know many of my friends have gathered their lives back together after this. Sure, I bet many of them have some sort of internal suffering, anger, questions. I have them, and it's because I once stood on a fine line between the choice he made and the choice I chose to make. Those people who know me informally and not necessarily as a confidant would think this was because of a painful divorce I went through. The divorce was painful because it was culmination of things combining in my head that formed who I had become, all coming to a flurry when I thought I was losing what was what I HAD THOUGHT was the best thing to ever happen to me. Eventually, after getting the help I needed, I concluded the best thing to happen to me was actually me, and I have been able to enjoy life since.

I do know the unbearable pain. I know what it is like to wish physical harm on myself to make it stop. I know for a few years I thought there was no other way my life could be. I used to privately live by a motto of "I'm only happy in my misery." It's a line from a song, and it was so applicable. Even after I had caught up with my friends after years of separation, I hid the pain. I still had my bleak outlook. Even though they could tell something was wrong and they tried to lighten my mood, I still came home to the same pain. 

I am still wondering and questioning why I am still hear, typing about somebody who isn't. It is almost like survivor's guilt. I have read a lot that suicide survivors have a guilt, but this is a little different. The survivor's guilt is more like a "what more could I have done" thing. Mine is similar, however more along the lines of "why couldn't I show him what I saw." May not make sense to you, but what if any other person I know crosses similar troubles to what my friend did? How the hell am I supposed to show them keeping their head above water still means they are swimming? That they still have that power within to keep themselves afloat and facing the right direction to breathe in the air of life?

Certainly I did not intend for this entry to take the direction it did. But you know what? If it is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that whatever I said or wrote is what I honestly and truly feel. No need to read through it and delete or change things. If I do that, then I keep them within. Just because I have not written anything in a couple weeks certainly has not meant that I have moved past this thing. His son's birthdays will keep growing in number. Our high school reunions will continually pop up. My family will grow, and he won't get to see it. Our remaining friends will have life highs and lows that we could have been through together. It is still a very real, weird, hurtful, painful reality to think about you not with us anymore. The finality of it always having to be this way is still unacceptable to me. Regardless, I am powerless to change it.

Thank you for reading.

I had a dream...

On Thursday night I was so completely drained. I had gone several days at that point focusing on everything else around me rather than continuing to picture my friend in his casket. I had woken up real early to travel around New Jersey for work, and when the sports talk radio bored me I listened to some music from the band Volbeat. They have a song dedicated to the lead singer's father, called "Fallen." Some of the lyrics in there brought forth some of the emotions I guess I was repressing. It is tough, 10 minutes before I arrive to a job site, to wipe away the remaining tears I have from this whole situation. After a long day at work I went home and was almost asleep by dinner time. I was quite the curmudgeon before I finally shut my eyes at a very early 9 p.m. What Was going to happen during my sleep I would have never guessed.

I don't know how long it was, but that's the thing about dreams. I don't know why they happen or if there is really any meaning behind them. So, I had a dream where my friend came back as an apparition, as a "ghost" of sorts. I don't remember where I was when I discovered him, but all I know is I was walking through some hallway, approaching a stair case. And he was at the top. I always imagined if I could somehow bring him back to just give him one more diatribe from me I would make sure he knew how bad this would hurt the people he loved more than he could ever understand. Instead, when I saw him, in his funeral outfit with a light yellow haze around him, I ran up the stairs. He appeared just like how the spirits of Luke Skywalker's fallen mentors would in the Star Wars films. Cheesy, I know, but hey it was my friend. And he could react to seeing me.

I ran up the stairs, and we extended our hands out for that quick handshake pull-you-into-a-hug thing we have always done. Only difference was this time my hand passed through his and I collapsed through his image, crashing into a wall. He turned around and said "Sorry man, but this is who I am now." I looked at his eyes, remembering how I wish they were open one last time so I could speak directly into them and let him know it wasn't worth it, but I was so glad to see him. All I could muster up was a "I'm glad to see you man."

I don't exactly remember everything we did, but whatever else I was supposed to do that day was no where near as important as spending time with him. I got to hear him laugh. One of my goals whenever I would hang out with him was to make him laugh so hard he would be squinting his eyes. He actually slapped his knees at a knee slapping moment. It almost felt like he sought me out, and this moment was for us. I think that much like in the Star Wars movies, he would pop up frequently. However, our day was approaching midnight, and then he broke the bad news to me. I can still hear the words from the dream...

"Duba, I hate to do this to you, but I have to leave you now. I know I have already 'left', but I have to move on. I don't know if I can ever come back or if I will ever see you again."

Then, I finally got mad. I laid into him. The worst part was it made no difference. It couldn't. Even though the positive feelings and outlooks I tried to provide him when he was alive made no difference, he could actually look at me, in his apparition form and I could see the regret in his eyes. I screamed at him that this could be an every day thing after we (me and all of his other friends/family) helped you get up and over your internal turmoil. I was yelling the question "Why couldn't you wait it out?!!" As I got madder and madder he slowly closed his eyes...the energetic glow around his spirit began to fade, and he was lost in the dust. I knelt down, angry, and then realizing that after I got to finally say my piece to him, he still wasn't around. There was dust left on the ground that stood under the fake image of his feet. I picked some up to remember him by and left. I went home, put the dust in a vial, and laid down next to my girlfriend and began to tell her of my day, and I eventually fell asleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night, rolled over to look at the clock and saw that it was 3:00 a.m. I realized that I was awake for real, and no longer dreaming. I got up and looked around, hoping to see if any of that dream was real, but I realized I was in a Z-quil induced stupor as I stumbled around. I could not go back to sleep. The thought he was right in front of me in that dream spooked me. The angry things I said to him do not make me feel better. Having the opportunity to be able to express these thoughts - the want to tell him it was irresponsible, selfish thing to do to his family, and the most hurtful thing anybody has ever done to me - did not make me feel any better. NONE of these things would replace him.

Do not get me wrong, I would love the chance to still let him know these feelings, but I would also be quick to tell him how those emotions are quickly replaced with sadness. I have been trying to memorialize him in my other forum. I had some fantastic memories with him. Unfortunately I can only see through the keyhole of the room that they are all stored in. At least I found that room. My vision of who he was for the first 32 years of his life are replaced with the last two times I saw him. It is rough, and I know the anguish and pain he kept inside was there all along, but when he started to wear it, it has made it very difficult to remember who he was before it came to the surface. The worst part of this to me is knowing that deep down he always had the potential to think so little of himself to actually pull this off. To actually one day go through with the unthinkable. There isn't one memory I can see through that keyhole where I don't look away because the image of him in a casket is plastered everywhere else in my mind.

This one was not easy to write for me, but through reading and rereading my own words, I realize that I am feeling a little better. I certainly lost something one month ago when I heard the news. It was more than a friend. At least I am starting to find the memories again.

Thanks for reading.