Tragedy

I lose a lot of people. I manage to maintain a lot of people too, but a lot of them just slip through my fingers. Some vanish due to death, some just disappear from the face of my world and I can't locate them, some merely stop talking to me and I never know why. I suppose that's just how some people function, they just drift through other people's lives.

This most recent one probably hurts the most.

My best friend took his own life on Thursday.

He told me in an email he sent on Monday that he'd talk to me later, that he had to get up early in the morning. He'd asked me a question about the weather where I am, I hadn't answered him yet. I was waiting to get enough time to write him a proper letter, and maybe give him a phone call.

He's gone now. He won't talk to me later.

Prior to that email, I sent him a text regretfully informing him that I couldn't meet up with him before we left his geographical vicinity due to the craziness in packing.

His response:

January 6

Katrina, I'm sorry we can't get together. I love you all but you are my best friend. I will stay in touch. The new place is fine not a home. Bye.

I have some anger in me that he didn't stay in touch. One little email is not staying in touch. I don't know that I could have done anything if he did, but he could have tried. Nothing he had done previously was worth him taking his own life. Nothing is ever worth that.

But I'm also so, so sad.

We tried to help him every way we could. He'd helped us over the years, and we genuinely wanted to do him a good turn as well.

He made some really, truly, bad decisions, but they weren't insurmountable. They culminated with the worst one of all, which is completely insurmountable and absolutely final.

I've had moments when I've wondered why I'm alive - but as a teenager I read this fantastic excerpt from a self-help book called "Lost in the Cosmos" by Walker Percy. I later even bought the book.

Taken as a choice between living and dying - knowing it is a choice, not assuming that one is more or less valid than the other - God, to live! To breathe and smile and run and laugh and cook and eat! To hear my son's laughter, to have sex, even to feel this awful pain, what an amazing option!

I choose life.

I'm so, so sad you didn't, dear one.