Crushed

March 25, 2009

I've started avoiding MySpace like the plague but I feel like I have to put this up here cos I don't know what else to do with it.  It's nothing amazing.  Last Tuesday someone I actually cared about passed away and...I don't know.  This is what I wrote Saturday night, after the funeral.  I don't...I think about him everyday.  I've been on the verge of tears each day but today they're all just coming out.

21 March 2009

It's been 4 days since my friend Rick died.  Today has been one of the hardest.

I have never felt so sad about losing someone.  A large part of that has to do with the fact that I didn't get to know him better.

The grief is overwhelming.  Being around people makes it worse.

I feel like I haven't had a chance to talk about how I feel.  Sometimes I don't feel like I have the right to, sometimes I feel like some people don't deserve to know, sometimes I feel like, I don't know.

I was still in bed when Allen called Tuesday morning.  I heard my phone but wanted to sleep a little more.  Then it rang again.  I knew I had to answer it.  Allen told me he was gone.  That's when it started.  I cried off and on all day.  I was supposed to go in to work at noon  Almost immediately I called my boss.  I sobbed into the phone that Rick was dead, I wasn't coming to work.  It turns out I had been so upset when I talked to him that when I showed up Thursday, my next scheduled work day, he was surprised to see me.  Didn't think I'd be in at all that week.  They gave me a sympathy card.

I feel angry and jealous and just...I don't know.  Rick would've been 32 next month, like I will be.  Like everyone's said, he had something about him that made you want to be a better person but that also made you feel like you were good enough.  He accepted you as you were. 

I am so uncomfortable around people that these past few days have been a great strain on my psyche. [...] Like Allen said when we left the celebration, "one of the people you actually liked is gone."  Then he reminded me of the Swedish cooking show that would be on QED when we'd stop by to see him and Charissa some weekend days.  And I'm really stuck on the Disney World thing.  It was like the same day or the day after he got out of the hospital in December and he wanted to get a hot dog at Dee's.  He said, when I get better we're all taking a trip to Disney World.  I was like, man, I've never been and I really don't ever want to go.  But I knew I'd go for him.  Whatever he wanted. 

That day I had the courage to ask him if, as I had expected even though I hadn't known him before, if this time around was worse than the others.  I wasn't surprised, I don't know what the right word is, I guess I was, it was, refreshing to hear him admit, honestly, that yeah, this was worse than ever before.  And it was.  I can't begrudge him that.  I mean, how much can you take?  How many times can you fight your own body and come out victorious? 

Yet, still, part of you doesn't believe it can happen.  He's gonna get better.  He's got at least 10 more years left...

And the viewing, his body.  I always get upset at viewings when I look at the body.  Again, this one was the worst.  He actually looked more like himself than most bodies I've seen.  And I swore I thought he would open his eyes.  He would just wake up and this wouldn't be happening.  For a while I couldn't look at him.  Then I got used to it.  That was Friday.

Saturday.  It happened all over again.  We had to get in a fucking line for "final viewing."  Again, I held his hand, so cold but soft, wanting to sob, tears rolling down my face.  "Goodbye, my friend," I said to him in my head.  "I'm so sorry." 

He's going to open his eyes...