Wild and crazy

Fun, Infuriating, Sweet.

I’m pretty sure I had a post planned for this morning, some inane jabber about my rather decent weekend. But now.

An old friend took his life last night. I know the circumstances of the death but not the state of mind; not what he was feeling, thinking – what he felt drove him to that point. He was really truly like my brother.

He was my brother.

I didn’t have a particularly stable home life growing up, but I had a close friend blocks away, and her family was my family. Her siblings – my siblings. Her parents I still call mom and dad. There are so many memories churning, bubbling there to the surface.

My mother told me a long time that suicide was selfish. I think I had been trying to do something terrible with a lady bic; we were fighting. We fought a lot. I couldn’t make much of a scratch, and the next day things were not as bleak. I still feel that way – down in my soul. Selfish. It doesn’t mean I don’t immediately forgive him for not thinking of all the people he left behind. I don’t know his thoughts. I know that when you are feeling that black, you are selfish. You can’t help but be selfish – you only have room in your head for how you feel.

I hadn’t seen him in a number of years. I still spend a lot of time with his family – I attend his niece’s and nephews’ birthday parties, his sisters’ baby showers, get tagged in pictures by his mom. I don’t see any of them as much as I’d like – real life always gets in the way. But he was my brother, as sure as my own.

He will be missed by so many people - His parents, two sisters, one brother, one daughter, two nieces (and one on the way), four nephews and so many other people like me whose lives he touched.. No matter how black you feel, know that you and your life mean so much to so many people. Permanent solution, temporary problem. All of that. You are loved.