Omar
Death is weird. Well, death in and of itself isn’t weird. But like Chuck Klosterman recently reminded me in Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs, nothing is “in and of itself.”
My friend died. About a week ago, I think. Not sure. I just found out. From the little info I got, his 32-year-old heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And that was it.
We weren’t as close as we used to be — he moved to San Diego at the beginning of 2006, and we had been in sporadic contact since then. But it hit me harder than I would’ve thought (although I don’t spend time fantasizing about other people’s deaths, so I don’t know how I expected myself to react).
Normally, death isn’t weird. It just is. It’s sad and thought provoking and painful for the ones left standing. I haven’t talked to him, Omar, in nearly a year. Our last correspondence, a few months ago, was on fucking MySpace. Oh, and how did I find out about his death? On fucking MySpace. This is where death gets weird for me.
I know you want me to go off on how weird it is that I found out about his death on MySpace. But that’s not it — I’m trying to figure our how to make sense of the death of a no-longer-close friend? Close friends, I get it. Family, too. Those are easy to classify as superfucked, and you don’t make sense of it, you just learn how to live again and try to celebrate their lives (or the memory of them, at least). People I only knew of, like folks from high school — I get that, too. It makes you stop for, maybe, a handful of moments to ponder life and death and everything in between, and then you move on, vaguely wishing their loved ones well.
But this? This is too odd. It’s not like my daily routine will change. Shit, my yearly routine won’t even change. In the humdrum business of life, nothing has changed. At the same time, it feels like everything is different.
So here I sit, staring at some web site. I reread his friends’ blog post that discreetly informs people what’s going on. I go look at his profile, as if it’s going to answer some questions that I haven’t even found the words to ask. I reread the memorial info — they’re throwing a memorial party to raise money for the funeral, because (like most) his family can’t afford it. I stare blankly, unable to comprehend that someone I shared long work days and meals and drinks and laughs and advice with is gone. It was OK when the reason was that he was in southern Cali and I was in Seattle. It was even OK when he was still in Seattle and we were just doing our own things, checking in every so often so say hi. But now? Now I cry.
There’s nothing like death to make you feel like a shitty friend. I cry for not going to visit like I said I would every time we talked. I cry for not calling him enough. I cry for the times I was annoyed with him and brushed him off because I didn’t have the energy to be a good friend. I cry for not calling him on his birthday this year. I cry for knowing he had things he wanted to do and now he doesn’t get to. I cry for all the art he didn’t make. I cry because I wish I could just pay for the whole damn funeral so his family doesn’t have to bear that burden. I cry because I wonder if he knew that I really did love him; he really was a friend. I cry for not knowing any of his new friends enough for them to call me when it happened. Honestly though, I cry for me, because life dealt me a bad hand — my friend is gone.
I understand the grieving process is for the living. Crying for anything I did or didn’t say, or did or didn’t do, doesn’t do a damn bit of good for his peace of mind now. It’s all for me.
And it feels weird.
