◊♦◊
“I am still dreaming of your face,
hungry and hollow for all the things you took away.”
~ Everclear; Santa Monica
◊♦◊
I had never been to a morgue before. I didn’t know if they would let me see him. After all, we were nothing to each other—not the kind of family recognized during such times—but he was my very closest friend and I loved him voraciously.
He was on a gurney, covered to his shoulders by a white sheet. There was a draft from somewhere and the sheet kept waving gently on the air on either side of him, like angel’s wings, surreal and disturbing.
I kept thinking he would get up. He looked like he was sleeping. I know that is cliché, but he did. But there was blood splatter on his face and shoulders and arms and he had the grey pallor of the dead. My mind knew he was gone but my heart hadn’t caught up, still hasn’t caught up, after all these years.
The man there—would you call him an attendant?—took a picture of his tattoo. We’d gotten them together, and though my tattoo was different than his, they were both kanjis, Japanese characters. Mine says “spy”, his nickname for me. His said “silence”—the thing he craved the most, for the voices in his head to just stop talking. Now his is mine, as part of his headstone on my arm.
The attendant was accidentally cruel. He told me how they had tried to save him, how they had cracked his chest in the ER but it was too late. I saw the tubes coming out of his chest when he moved the sheet to take the picture. I know he was trying to comfort me, but it was the very last thing my friend would have wanted. He did not want to be rescued.
If he had, he would have called me.
◊♦◊
“I trace the cord back to the wall.
No wonder, it was never plugged in at all.”
~ Blink-182; Adam’s Song
◊♦◊
He had come for Thanksgiving that year. I made Cornish game hens and everyone had their own little stuffed mock turkey.
He didn’t stay long, but he came. So often did he disappoint me, canceling plans we had made. Our birthdays were one day and 12 years apart and we always planned to spend them together, but we never did. One year, I bought two tickets to Melissa Etheridge, his favorite right after Indigo Girls, but he didn’t go.
My then-husband went instead. I’m pretty sure he hated it.
◊♦◊
“Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody,
there’s a dead man trying to get out.”
~ Counting Crows; Perfect Blue Buildings
◊♦◊
We did see Melissa eventually, in Philly instead of DC. When I picked him up, he was a disaster. He had sent to his son to live with his mom, afraid the crazy would rub off on him. He was bereft without him, had not slept or bathed in days, and he had no idea when he had last eaten. When he did sleep, it was with his gun.
I knew he lied about why he bought the gun, but I seemed to be the only one concerned. I laid down in bed with him, and we talked and talked. I eventually convinced him to give me the gun. I managed to convince him to get cleaned up and go to the concert, too. His swan song, he said. He’d kill himself when he got home. One last hurrah.
He didn’t, of course. We had a great time and the storm lifted. We both knew there would be another, but we pretended all was well. There was nothing left for us to do.
When we got back to his house, he gave me the bullet out of the gun, the one he had picked out specially, the one that he wanted to end it with. Without it, he said, he couldn’t kill himself. That was the special bullet.
I still have it.
◊♦◊
“Everyone’s got to face down the demons.”
~ Third Eye Blind; Jumper
◊♦◊
We went to New York that year too, in December. We went to FAO Schwartz, rode the subway, saw the Christmas tree. We went to the hole in the ground that had once been the Twin Towers, reduced to rubble that September. We bathed in the horror, and then turned away and went to get a slice. I guess we could not stare at death too long.
We had a fight on the way home. I cannot even remember what it was about, coming for Christmas Eve, maybe. He hated Christmas.
◊♦◊
“Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody,
there’s a dead man trying to get out.”
~ The Counting Crows; Perfect Blue Buildings
◊♦◊
A few days before he died, I took him his Christmas present, a CD I had made of a bunch of old songs I thought he would like. I was pretty sure he was not going to come for Christmas Eve. Besides, I needed to see him. He seemed off and he flatly refused a phone call. He looked terrible, like he had not bathed in days, like he had been drinking heavily again. He took the gift and mumbled something, I can’t remember what, but he didn’t invite me in.
I sat in my car for a long time before I left.
◊♦◊
“I got a hole in me now.
Yeah, I got a scar I can talk about.”
~ Matchbox 20; Bright Lights
◊♦◊
At nine a.m., his roommate left to run some errand, leaving him at home alone.
I was at work and my copy of the CD I had made him was playing in the background. Seasons in the Sun began playing. I do not know why the hell I put that damn song on the CD in the first place. Suddenly, I was sobbing and I knew he was gone. I looked at the clock. It was 9:10.
His roommate got home at 9:15. There was a bowl in the sink; he must have had cereal. His towel and the bath mat was wet; apparently, he’d had a shower too. For some reason, I never thought to ask why, his roommate went into his room and found him, lying on the blankets he used for a bed, in a pool of blood. Still alive. Still bleeding.
Sometime between 9 and 9:15, after a shower and a bowl of cereal, he went into his room, lay down on his bed, and shot himself in the chest.
He put the bullet pretty squarely into his left ventricle. It was over before it really began. They should not have bothered trying to save him. It was just more pain to endure.
But, why bother with cereal?
◊♦◊
“And maybe, I’ll find out a way to make it back someday,
to watch you, to guide you through the darkest of your days.”
~ The Calling; Wherever You Will Go
◊♦◊
That Christmas passed in a haze. I don’t recall a single thing about it, save where we lived. Not a single gift, given or received. Not whether we had a Christmas tree. It’s blank, like a piece of copy paper.
There is one thing I remember, but I can’t tell you how many days had passed since his death. I cannot tell you if Christmas had come and gone or if it was still on the horizon. But I remember.
The house we lived in was a cute little Cape Cod in Silver Spring, Maryland. Our bedroom was the attic, with sloping walls and a purposefully green iron bed.
His family had let me come and take what I wanted of his things. In truth, I wanted to take it all. Everything I left behind felt like a loss, like if I could keep everything, he might come back for it. Maybe this is why it is so hard for some people to clean out closets after a death.
One of the things I kept was a teddy bear I had given him. My dog had gotten it and chewed a small piece of fur from his head. I was angry at the dog for doing it and myself for letting it happen and at him for leaving me with his teddy bear anyway.
I was lying in bed, clutching the bear to my chest and sobbing, when, suddenly, a great peace came over me and I knew he was there. He had come back to tell me he was okay, that I would be okay.
People either give me a knowing smile or tell me I’m ridiculous when I tell them that. I know it is true. And even if it’s not, it makes me feel better and it does not hurt anyone else, so I keep right on believing it.
◊♦◊
“Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend, somewhere along in the bitterness.
And I would have stayed up with you all night,
had I known how to save a life.”
~ The Fray; How to Save a Life
◊♦◊
Someday, I will join him. I frequently wish that was sooner rather than later, but it keeps getting later every day.
Every year, the hurt gets a little duller. Sometimes I feel guilty that it does not hurt more, like it’s a betrayal. Life goes on, I guess, whether I like it or not.
He had promised me five minutes. Five minutes to convince him to stay. Or, failing that, to say goodbye.
I didn’t get it.
Capricious, he called himself in his letter to me, delivered post-mortem. A lie, I knew. Maybe impulsive about the day, but the moment, he had planned. At least that there would be a moment.
He spared me the pain of failure, of five minutes not being enough. He left me with something much worse.
◊♦◊
“I see the burden you gave me.
It’s too much to carry, too much to bury inside.”
~ Lifehouse; Only One
◊♦◊
The guilt is endless. There was surely something more I could have done, should have done.
I know that there wasn’t. It was never a matter of if, only of when. He had a thousand plans, of varying efficacy. Some he had already tried, unsuccessfully.
But this one worked.
◊♦◊
For crisis support:
Suicide Hotline
1-800-SUICIDE
National Suicide Prevention Helpline
1-800-273-TALK
National Adolescent Suicide Hotline
1-800-621-4000
Postpartum Depression
1-800-PPD-MOMS
Veterans
1-877-VET2VET
Covenant House Nine-Line (Teens)
1-800-999-9999
The Trevor Helpline
(For homosexuality problems & questions)
1-800-850-8078
If you are the one left behind, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has support groups and other resources for coping with your loss.
—
This post is republished on Medium.
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Wow. Thank you for sharing this Lisa. I’m sure it was really tough to write but perhaps also cathartic in some small measure. You successfully conveyed the frustration, pain and despair that you felt through this relationship, along with the obvious deep love. I’ve worked in mental health for years so understand the extremes of how depression can present and get frustrated with those who betray their ignorance with judgmental comments such as “just start working out”. I’ve also had close loved ones struggle with severe depression, which, at its worst, brought them very close to suicide and even, for… Read more »