to borrow a Massive Attack song title
Life is interesting; at least in my world. Sunday, I felt compelled to reach over to a book on the shelf in my home office and thumb right through. It was a yearbook from my junior high school. I haven't picked that thing up in ten years or more. Ok, so I have touched it when I moved or moved book shelves. I opened the cover and looked at the things people had to say about me so long ago.
I thought for a second and realized that I am a different person than who I was then but at the core I am basically the same. I was always a nice guy. So when I flipped the page and continued to read, I wasn't surprised to see more comments like that. I was fine until I reached the next page. There it was.
At the time they were the sweetest words ever written on paper. A girl I absolutely adored had said some really nice things about our friendship and they weren't just the words that you see written in every yearbook. They were special. They were to me.
I was shy and I never acted on the feelings I had for her. We were just good friends. That lasted another year and then High School came in like a wave of destruction. Not for me but for her. There were all of these new pressures. She went from the clarinet playing nice girl to the party animal hottie. It was terrific and over night. Now there was no longer room in her life for someone like me.
We remained friends but it wasn't something that was out in the open. We talked on the phone. I would stop by her house when I was in the neighborhood and we would talk for a bit, but it was never the same. We couldn't walk down the road hand in hand having playful conversation anymore. People with eyes just couldn't see that and I understood. I was happy with the portion of her life I was able to share.
Several months later all of that started to wane and I had to come to grips with the fact we were simply in two different worlds now. A few months after that, I had to come to grips with something far worse. I got a call to let me know she had taken her own life. My friend was forever gone. I didn't attend the funeral. I couldn't. I wasn't a part of her world and I didn't feel like I could be a part of that one either.
Michael was the guy who made that call. Mike was always a good friend in Junior High. We went to different High Schools and just lost touch. After Stacy was gone we started hanging out again. Mike was looking for something to cling to. I was too young to understand that. He spent a couple of holiday weekends with my family and he really seemed to enjoy my family. We hung out a lot.
One Sunday night he called the house and told me that I could keep the tapes I had borrowed from him because he didn't need them anymore. It was the weirdest most uncomfortable call I have ever had. I didn't see it. I couldn't. I didn't know what to look for. How could I know that would be the last time we talked?
Later that evening he took his own life. I didn't want to attend his funeral but he had become a part of our family. We all had to go.
I still have one of those tapes. The others have been lost in time. Journey. Separate Ways. I listened to that song over and over and over. I contemplated why one friend went her separate way and I lost her and how one friend could make his way back to me and I could loose him too.
Death became warped, twisted into something surreal. I could deal with death. I lost my grandfather. I cried a little but I got over it quickly. It wasn't something I had to dwell on. It was over just like the death I had seen before. It wasn't until suicide touched my life again that I was forced to find a way to deal with all of the emotions that I stuffed inside the corners of my mind all of those years.
This time it was someone close to me. Just as close as the friends but this time it was impossible to run from the feelings. I had to deal with it head on. I had to face all that had haunted me. Death finally struck me with a real face that I could not ignore.
This time it was my wife's twelve year old cousin. He and his older brother and sister were/are very close to us. We knew their friends and knew most of the things that parents only wish they knew about their kids. Our house was a safe haven for them. We weren't parents and you couldn't just come to our house and go buck wild. It was more like controlled chaos. I can say that the kids never did anything at our house that they wouldn't have been doing somewhere else.
Caleb was amazing. Truly. He was infectiously kind. A firecracker. Unfortunately, that just wasn't enough to keep him with us.
Death is unkind but suicide is far worse. It is so selfish and mean. I used to deal with death the same way someone commits suicide. I would take those horrible feelings and destroy them. I would turn the hate and anger and poison of natural death into that same feeling. I would be selfish and stingy; never showing or sharing my emotions.
My wife's grandfather passed in November. This was the first time I dealt with death in a rational, as normal as it can be way. I grieved for my loss and the loss of those around me. He was someone who I respected greatly and he felt the same about me. This time death was harder than it had ever been but it was cleansing and sweet. This time I dealt with emotion instead of being selfish and hiding it away so even I didn't have to see it.