One man’s creative solution to dealing with a buddy’s passing
“Your routines get disrupted and you are painfully aware of the space that person’s presence once occupied.”
It is both easy and hard to share this tribute. Easy, because there are a lot of good things to say. Hard, because it also brings out sad memories I want to keep hidden. In the course of completing this entry, I forgot why I wanted to write this. And yet, here it is.
Losing someone close to you is always hard to accept. Your routines get disrupted, and you are, all at once, painfully aware of the space that person’s presence once occupied.
How do you fill it up? Can there ever be a replacement? How do you cope?
A Meeting of Minds
A best friend is usually a person you grew up with from when you both started school. I didn’t have a best friend until I was already in college. I didn’t look for friendship, nor did I push myself to find someone I can share things with, be it emotions, experiences, or thoughts.
In the beginning, he was just a friend, one of the few I already had. I am sure he had a lot more friends than I had because he wasn’t fussy. Even when others had flaws, he just let them be and was simply careful with how he communicated with them.
When I met him, he was silent, geeky, and reserved. It was a time when I was also in that phase. I didn’t want to do much and just stayed home. This was the phase when I didn’t care much about what was happening in the world. I simply wanted to be alone.
Before that, I was—and still am—an outgoing, jump and “try it out” kind of person.
We had the same interests. I was a reader of DC Comics and he was a Marvel reader. I was a songwriter (rocker) and he was into hip-hop. He was computer-savvy and into graphics and design. He eventually came to like rock music.
We often had jamming and drinking sessions at his place, at their open-air garage. We played songs and gazed at the stars. We talked about everything and speculated about space and “other” living things. We discussed various topics, from politics, taxes, science, and TV shows to myriads of questions lurking in our heads. We were radical in our thinking, but also open-minded in all things.
He did my first tattoo. He was my best man at my wedding, the godfather of my son, my confidant, my bassist, my partner in crime. :)
The Unforeseen Departure
When he “left,” I couldn’t believe it. I had mixed emotions of sadness and being angry with him (for not taking care). I yearned that he would show up before me in spirit and communicate. I had questions about why it suddenly happened, and why he was not able to overcome it. I yelled at the door of the funeral home where he was resting.
In the following weeks after his departure, I often found myself visiting the house where he lived, but couldn’t bring myself to knock at the door and ask for him.
At times, when I want to elicit an intrepid opinion or engage in a spirited discussion, there isn’t anyone who will listen or give a brazen viewpoint anymore. When I have a question, there’s no longer anyone who will respond unflinchingly, whether it’s a crazy theory or a factual answer.
I remember when we used to bounce questions off each other and then attempt to solve them in our unique way. We didn’t really care if the answer was right or wrong. It was enough that we had sparky answers to our questions. We were like Beavis and Butt-Head from the MTV cartoons in the 1990s.
Conflict of Emotion and Thought
(His passing) was hard on me because all my emotions of missing him and my thoughts were in conflict with the notion that “he is still here.” This standpoint persisted as if I didn’t want to believe in the truth.
At first, it really bothered me. It distracted me. My focus wavered constantly. Eventually, I had to stop and think. How am I going to move past this? At that moment of asking that question, it was as if I was asking him. In some weird way, I felt I got an answer.
The Awakening
I shifted my mindset. Instead of thinking, “he is gone,” I regard him as “always here.” This time, I didn’t need to go where I perceived he was supposed to be. I just spend some time talking to him, pretending he visited me from his house.
It has been four years now. The difference is still there. Seeing and hearing him is still coveted. But as time passed, anytime I want to share my thoughts, I talk like he is just beside me. It may be just in my thoughts or me voicing it out. I don’t get an answer, but I do get the feeling that I was heard. Loopy thoughts of what the answer could be run through my head and I feel at peace with it.
Sometimes, I look like a nut talking to myself—only to realize that many grievers behave similarly. It is their coping mechanism when they lose someone.
I miss my buddy, and sometimes, I wish I could still see him. But convincing my mind that he “is always here” and that I can still “talk my thoughts out” with him helps me cope with missing him.
Even as I finish composing this, it seems like I am writing this with him and my thoughts are organized based on what we would have discussed on one of those nights at his garage.
In a way, this also allows me to thank him for the years and times we spent together.
Thank you, my friend. May your force be with us always!
Photo Credits:
Main image—Matheus Serôa
Thumbnail—PDPics
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