The Fragile

This one's gonna be a little different.

They say that creative people use their respective outlets as a way to express their emotions... a way to shine their happiness, to rage with their anger, to engage in war with their frustrations.

And I would imagine... to cry with their sorrow.

What do you do when you can't speak without your voice cracking... you can't blink without tears covering your face? When your heart is breaking apart and all the glue in the world couldn't stand a chance of healing it?

I can't speak. I can barely think. I feel like the entire world is crashing down all around me. It just doesn't seem real. It seems like I'm gonna get a jab in the ribs from B and told to stop talking in my sleep.

It seems impossible... that the day will simply shrink away and everything will be right again.

A friend has died.

It comes like a thunderstorm. A call from another friend... the ringtone alone sending chills down my spine. It was just a few short weeks ago that my friend sent a text "In the hospital. Have leukemia."

In a day when you read of people getting fired through texting, it seems almost unreal to use that medium to tell your friends that you've got cancer... but that was my friend. Always unique. Always doing things the way they shouldn't be done. My heart fell to my knees when I read it but there was still the gimmer of hope. The thought that maybe it wasn't as cold and chilling as it sounded. Leukemia.

It's the thing you always hear about with kids... never someone your own age. And then the feeling sets in. He's 29... he was months from turning 30. Just like me. And he's got cancer. Your entire perspective on reality shifts. "If it can happen to him then..." You start counting up the things you haven't done... the things you wish you hadn't done... the things that you've been pushing off "for later" and then it sinks in.

What happens when there's no more later?

It's selfish, I know... to drown in your own mortality while your friend is battling for his life in a hospital bed. But it's unavoidable. First, you feel frightened... then comes the guilt.

Why wasn't I a better friend? Why do I have to admit that we barely spoke outside of e-mails and text messages? Why do I have to freely admit that he was frequently the butt of jokes? It doesn't seem fair. It's some kind of cruel twist of fate.

A few days before we got the news, another friend of ours got engaged saying, "We needed a reason to all get together again." Upon parting that night, he commented that we only all get together at weddings anymore. I flippantly replied, "Soon it'll be funerals."

I've hated myself for that for three weeks now. It's that superstitious nature in us all that says somehow we contributed... somehow we said the wrong thing... we tempted fate and made someone else suffer for it. I know it's a ludicrous thought but I can't fight it off.

I was sick when I got the news. Emotionally sick, sure. But physically as well. I had a cold and couldn't risk making the situation worse by dragging my diseased self into his room. I called, of course... we all called. But somehow it just didn't feel like it was enough.

He sounded fine... great. I had a better conversation with him than we'd had in years. He was talking about future plans... about going to this event... going to do this and that. He was in high spirits even though he'd started chemotherapy. They told him they thought they caught it early... they told him that he had an eighty percent chance. It all sounded great. The glimmer grew stronger... a beacon of hope to keep us all from losing ourselves.

I finally got to see him a week or so later. Almost exactly a week ago. I'd heard from others who had gone. "He looks great... strong as can be." "He looks pretty bad but he seems in good spirits." You have to see it for yourself. I felt twisted inside. His parents were there... so full of high spirits. They were talking about him getting out this week... about buying him a new car... about having a poker night for him at their new house. It all seemed to be almost past us... like we had almost creeped over the darkness and all that was beyond us was light.

But it just wasn't right. He looked so pained... so uncomfortable. He wasn't him... but I kept thinking that he would be. That everything would be fine once he got back into the real world. He was a fighter... he's a tough son of a bitch. All the comforting words that people tell each other... I started to buy into it. I thought everything was bright and shiny. He talked a lot about things he wanted to do... about places he thought we should go. He wanted nothing more than to go to the Star Wars convention in LA with me next year. He was so excited about it... so enthused.

I left that day without a worry... without a drop of concern. Somehow I'd managed to convince myself that we were all going to be fine. It was just a blip on the radar... a hiccup in the game of life. He was going to be fine... we all were.

Another week went by. A few calls from friend to friend... asking if we'd heard anything... if we'd spoken to him. The calls grew a little more concerned by the end of the week when it seemed like no one had for a few days.

Then our world got rocked on Sunday. He had taken "a turn for the worse"... a phrase that I'll never be able to hear the same way again. All the joy was ripped out of me. I couldn't believe it. He was in intensive care and "it didn't look good." I couldn't understand... I couldn't wrap my brain around it. "But he was fine on Saturday! They were going to let him out this week!" No one could understand what had happened but we knew... we just knew.

I think I've been prepared since then. The optimist in me held out hope. A call on Monday morning from yet another friend made things darker as he believed they'd put him on life support. It was darkness. Total darkness.

Yet you try to live. You still have to work... you still have to live. The guilt hangs heavy throughout... like you shouldn't be laughing... hell, you shouldn't even be smiling. You batter yourself emotionally. "How the hell can I be laughing at some sitcom while my friend is fighting for his life?" I don't know. I can't answer that. It's just... somehow you have to. If you don't, you'll drown in the darkness. You just... you have to.

No word yesterday. Which almost seemed encouraging to me. I dreaded my phone ringing. I dreaded the news it might bring. Work-related calls brought me joy because they couldn't be what I feared.

And today? The gunshot to the heart.

"He passed away last night."

It rings... echoes through your brain. How? Why?

Especially why.

In a world so dominated by religion, belief, and fate... someone tell me why? Someone explain to me how this fits a divine plan... a holy vision.

How does it make sense for someone not even thirty with a family and friends who loved him... with nephews who adored him...

It's just not right.

I mocked him... relentlessly at times... but I always knew he was a good person. He had his moments where I wanted to strangle him... but never because he was a thoughtless, souless being.

He cared. He loved. He helped.

It's not... it can't be right.

This day can't be happening... it just can't.

Nothing in the world makes sense to me. Nothing stands up right. Everything is broken... twisted... shattered.

Mortality. Friendship. Belief. Emotion. Guilt. Love.

Nothing is the same as it was yesterday. Nothing is right.

The tears continue to roll. My eyes sting as I try to type. My mom was concerned about me... thought I was going to make myself sick as I could barely talk when I spoke to her. I was more concerned about her. Now she has to live with the thought that someone my age... someone she's known for most of his life has died. How can she spend the day not wondering what his parents must be feeling... what it must feel like to lose a child?

I had to call one of our friends to tell him. He sounded shocked... stunned. Like he couldn't believe it. And then he asks if I'm okay. My voice is cracking... I can barely think... my world is crashing and burning...

"Yeah, I'm okay"

I am, I suppose. Like I said, you have to... you just have to live.

Brain. Heart. Soul. It all hurts... and it probably will for a long, long while.

But you just have to live.

One of the last things he ever got to say to me is, "I hope if nothing else... what I'm going through inspires you guys to really live your lives."

You got it, my friend. For you... and all you meant to all of us... it's the least we can do.

We love you, man.

Rest in peace.