A Message To My Best Friend.
CW: Suicide, Drug Mentions.
Section I: 2022
[eulogy for a funeral i never attended]
I grew up primarily with my childhood friend, who I knew since the age of 5. My childhood consisted of us playing video games, talking about frivolous topics for hours on end, and as we grew older, we’d talk about life, the future, what would become of us in the years to come.
That future typically involved us possibly growing older, whatever life had in store for us in our 20s, 30s or 60s. Would we find love? Would we get that career we wanted for ourselves? Would we still be arguing about everything and nothing at once? In every laugh, cry and word expelled from our mouths was a gap wide enough for a hand fisted pill to slip through.
A conversation occurred and the topic was about what we wanted most in our lives. I had hoped that one day I would find myself out of here and seeing the world I knew I was meant to explore, and though I wasn’t happy, a slight smile of hope appeared in my face, understanding that things were still possible in 2017.
In no moment more than this, however, did the pain he suffered became more apparent, as a diatribe of what I wanted in life was met with a response that could barely make it out of his mouth. “Comfort.”
He began to cry, I had not seen him break down like that in my life, I had never seen so much pain in a person who would smile the brightest. I couldn’t understand why he felt that it was so impossible to find that comfort. I couldn’t understand it because comfort to me at the time was drugs and frying my brains out, I had found it through unfortunate means that I wouldn’t have wished upon him. I tried my best to keep him grounded and steady through his tears. In 2017, a 14 year old boy came face to face with what he thought was reality closing in on him.
We went through the next two years, helping each other out and reminding ourselves that it would get better for the both of us granted we stick around. I grew to understand why he couldn’t feel that comfort in those two years as my life grew steadily worse but we stayed strong past our worst moments.
Unfortunately, what I thought was a future definitely possible, to him, was wishful thinking.
“Yeah, listen, I’m gonna go eat dinner, I’ll see if I’ll be back soon, and we can continue talking, okay?”
“Sure, enjoy your food.”, I replied.
I am in my early 20s, those are the words that ring in my head that remind me of my failure, and that is the realization that at the age of 15, before his 16th birthday, my childhood friend took his life without a single word.
I will never know what happened in between the point of time he went to eat dinner and the point of time he took his own life. I just knew that in that moment I had failed in my head. I just wish it had never happened.
I spent the first 3 – 7 days immobile and speechless, and the next 3 years mourning. I had missed the funeral I was invited to because the pain I had felt, while incomparable to the pain he felt, left me glued to my bed.
And in every instant messaging app I used, there was a message that found itself growing older than the person who sent it.
In every call I made, an automated message spoke for the voice he lost.
And every year that passes, there is a cake with some flowers that should have belonged to him.
I missed, and still do miss him dearly, I missed him enough that it hurt to think of him. I didn’t want to miss him, I never wanted to miss him.
I never wanted to ever feel loss, longing for someone who will never come back. I never wanted to learn the lesson I had learnt in his passing that things will never stay the same, that the things around you will leave and trust me, it’s different when a person you love died. It’s all so fucking different.
I didn’t want to see him in the things I did, I didn’t want to hear his voice in the music I listened to. It’s all a reminder that I have failed, and much like the reminders, I wanted him to leave, so much. I wanted him to go away and stop haunting me, to stop giving me nightmares for weeks, months on end and telling me that all my friends were dying.
I wanted him to come back, though. I wanted to know he was alive in the games I played, the movies I watched, and the books I read. The misery and anguish that came with the fact that I now knew what a ghost looked like was all worth it if it meant that I knew he was still alive.
The pain I felt was unlike any other I had felt in the years I lived up until that point. It would never go away, and it still hasn’t gone away, even if it is a pain I feel less and less now.
And in my pain, came an understanding that didn’t exist when it came to what he did.
And in my pain, came blame, and a burden I held for letting him die.
In my pain, however, came a person who was better, more caring and more accepting of the world around her, even if she felt like she needed to leave it so often.
In my pain, however, came love and compassion.
In his pain, a voice cried, “it wasn’t your fault.”
In his pain, was a soul that lived on through the people who loved him most.
In my memory, was someone’s life.
His.
[I Really Did Love You.]
It’s shocking. To realise that clichés turn out to be closer to reality than you’d expect. I never thought in a million years that the fairy tale-esque trope of living through someone else would be something I’d believe in.
I am not a spiritual person, religion, spirituality and what have you are non-existent to me. I’ve always grown up never finding comfort in God or never feeling like he existed. I’ve always respected what others viewed though, to find comfort, a home in anything, is what I feel all humans desire, and that comfort will always be different depending on the soul piloting the flesh.
I found my comfort in drugs originally, then it became the friends I’d make or the methods of escapism I’d rely on. Others found it in God, or some other way I may have tried or may have never figured out about.
In spite of my lack of spirituality, though, I realise that I know how it feels to come face to face with a ghost. A spirit who roams and walks amongst the living, yet never to be directly seen or heard by the living; and though he is out of reach, I feel him in my surroundings, I hear him in the music I listen to. He is everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time.
However, he lives on through me, to have someone else’s entire life inside of me is to carry a weight heavier than anything physical. It’s to carry everything about someone’s life from their first step to their last drop of blood. To carry the guilt that comes with it while maintaining the reality that it’s not my fault and it never was. To carry the anxiety that the people around you may be feeling the way he felt.
Though the burden is heavy, and at points I feel my body falling apart, I choose to carry all of it in spite of how much it hurts.
It’s all so numbing, though. I feel nothing when someone apologises for my loss, just a reminder that in spite of it not being my fault, that I still failed in my own eyes. In spite of all that, the pain lets out an “It’s okay, you would’ve loved him.” rather than a “The only person who owes an apology is the person who let him die in the first place.”, even if my mind yells the latter louder.
It’s a shame, I never gave myself the time and space to process everything, I tried hiding from it all and the moment I try to speak to him again, or about him, it’s in the form of my art, the form of these essays. It all feels so stupid, it hurts so much that that’s how I feel about myself attempting to bring someone back from the dead with nothing but a font, and 3 years of nightmares I’ve experienced as a result of my PTSD and guilt.
It’s all a part of the burden I chose to carry since he did what he did, and as long as I am still breathing I would never want it any other way now that he’s gone.
At this point, I am at a loss of words.
All I can say is: I miss you, but I wish you never did what you did, I wish I never had to feel the things I felt simply because of the shit I have to carry. I wish I was never this hurt by the actions of someone else, but I forgive you.
I will never forget you.
I really did love you.
I really did fucking love you.
[To Accept And Move On]
You spoiled the end of a movie, I live knowing how it ends and the pressure is unbearable. I am left in a position where I am forced to warn about its ending but not spoil how it ends myself; It’s the position I have been in for 3 years, almost 4.
3 years later, no person has hurt me as deeply as you have, I grieve constantly and wish you were here. I would’ve introduced you to so many of my friends and you would’ve found that you’d have been loved by many. I at least hope that you know that sitting on your own cloud in heaven.
I said I wasn’t religious, but you loved a God who I would’ve never been able to love myself. The very least I can do as a human being, as your childhood friend, is hope you got the post-credits scene you deserved. I may never see it myself, I may never get one. That doesn’t matter to me as long as you did.
Let me tell you what you missed down here, though.
I’m happier in spite of the pain, I have made some of the most amazing friends, you would’ve loved them as well, they would’ve loved to meet you. I found love as well, I found out how to love again, I found out how it feels to be in a relationship with someone who truly loves me. To be surrounded by people who do.
I finally got help as well. You hoped so desperately that I would get the help I deserved and you got what you hoped for. I just wish you would’ve been there to see it.
I’ve done well for myself, worked on projects with people I am proud to have worked with, I never stopped doing what we enjoyed most and I even got to talk to the people we thought we weren’t good enough to talk to. It’s a beautiful community, I wish you would’ve been there with me.
I got into photography, my camera lens paints the life you lived when tears clog up my eyes and I am unable to see. My eyes aren’t perfect, so my camera helps me see what you saw sometimes.
That old lady I told you about years ago, she passed away recently, died in an unfortunate accident, I hope you ran into her up there, whatever ‘up there’ looks like.
There is so much you’ve missed, there is so much more you will miss, but I’ll live for as long as I can to tell you about it.
As I continue to come to terms with everything that happened, to accept you did what you did, I only have this to say at the end of it all.
You have changed my life for the better, everyone sees you in me.
Thank you for everything.
Section II: 2023–2024
[hold my hand]
They say a person lives on in the memory of those who outlived them. In their belonging, their hobbies, and the things they enjoyed in the years that they’ve lived. For almost five years, I saw my best friend everywhere I went, from the belongings I kept in my room, to floating all the way up in space. I haven’t stopped thinking of him and I feel him in every action I do, I hear him in almost every word I say in the almost five years since he’s passed away.
A blue circle pops up semi-frequently when I use my console, and next to it I see his username. It’s not him, he had a brother, but it always hurts to see someone who’s been dead for four years look alive. It’s like seeing a ghost getting your attention, poking you and saying “I’m still haunting you”.
I never got a call back from you since you said you had dinner, but I still waited, and I’ll wait still.
I get called still, getting blamed for the suicide of my best friend, by someone who’s still cearly hurt in the same way I’m still hurt, and I couldn’t fight back for years. I’m not sure if they even understand the turmoil I go through on a daily basis, and the moment I finally express that and it’s back to square one with the guilt-tripping that broke me down in the first place. I had enough and told him to not call my number again, and to stop hurting me because you’re hurt too.
I fear getting close to people. The reality is, in every person I show a level of love towards, there’s an insurmountable level of fear that I feel that every person I love is going to die and hurt me in the same way my best friend did when he took his own life. No amount of alcohol consumed or drugs taken can get rid of that fear, no matter how much I’ve. tried, am trying or will continue to try in the future.
And when it all goes sober I realise it wasn’t ever my fault but guilt sticks. I saw other people die the way my best friend did, and I saw him in them too. I saw myself in the way my friends felt too.
I wish things weren’t like this, I lie down on my bed and drift off endlessly to places I haven’t been for, with my hand held by someone who’s been dead for far too long.
I’ll claw my way out of this depression. for years to come, and once I’m out for good, I hope to see your hands still hold on to mine. You’ll live on and see what a beautiful world this all truly was.
I still love you.
[I Don’t Want To Grow Old]
I recently dusted off some consoles I haven’t used in a while, for the purpose of updating them and getting ready to pack them for my move to Australia. One of these consoles is my Xbox 360, I haven’t used my 360 in a while, I usually play the 360 games that I do own on my Xbox One, which I also haven’t used in a fair bit but used more recently than my 360. Updating a 360 in current day is a bit of a pain, it doesn’t play nice with modern network connections, it gives you false negatives and in some cases might not even work properly, thankfully, I’ve gotten mine fixed and proceeded to update my system. The 360 has a selection of avatars and a name attached to them, a lot of faces that have come and gone in the years I’ve made connections to people, I think little of a lot of these faces, some of them were just other names I had held for the purpose of not needing to make a new account for guests who’d stop by.
Past the few alternative accounts that I’ve had, came the friends and family that also used my 360, my sisters, and some of my friends, but one of the last caught my eye. An avatar so familiar, and a name that does too much in the way of haunting me.
I had stumbled upon the Xbox account of my dead friend, the avatar resembled him as much as a Xbox avatar could resemble a once living person, and his Gamerpic was the one he choose years ago, a smiley face, one of those default Xbox Gamerpics that you could just choose from. My heart stopped for a moment, and I had immediately told my partner who I was in a call with at the time that I had stumbled upon the account of my dead best friend. I worked past it and tried to forget I had seen it, but eventually I couldn’t.
See, I’m someone who’s unable to forget things, I have a memory that’s damn near photographic, I hold a catalogue of the interactions I’ve had throughout my years of living, I may try to suppress a lot of it, or not think of most of it, but I remember most of it.
I’ve seen my best friend again, how could I forget? On my Playstation, I don’t see his profile go online anymore due to his brother, but on here, I can’t avoid it, somewhere on this console, lived memories of a boy who cut his life short, his achievements, the games we shared and the avatar he used all live here.
I set up my new Xbox Live account for my 360 and look away from it all while everything downloads, but curiosity gets the best of me.
A couple of hours pass since I find out and I log into his account, I see the messages we’d send each other, for just that small moment, I saw everything the way he saw things. The banter between us, the messages that just read “YOU SUCK LOL” between us, from an innocent time, from a place of innocence, from hands placed innocently on a controller between two people who had not grown up yet.
One of us couldn’t grow up, and the other is me, forced to grow up and think about how little time I had with everyone with a full life left to live.
I never had my serious conversations with him on Xbox text chat, Party Chat every so often, but there was never anything there besides organising get-togethers and the playful banter between two childhood friends who grew up playing fighting games and the plethora of shooters on the console.
For every message of us talking shit on this console, there was a heartfelt conversation somewhere else that my brain instantly touched upon. Sometimes I read our messages and can’t believe we used to talk like that, other times, I miss how simple things were when you were young and stupid.
I’m in my 20s, with almost no connection to who I was as a teen, this is the one thing that remains and; as I’ve gotten rid of my connections, I can’t…get rid of this one.
It’s too hard and too painful to, so I’ve decided to preserve his memory and keep his profile as I delete the rest of the profiles I have here besides the ones I used.
I want this to be the last real connection I have to my best friend, I can’t let go despite how much healthier it’d be if I tried to.
If you’re out there, I miss you.
When I’m 40 and reopening this console, I hope I still see your name, and hopefully I’ll be happy it happened rather than upset it ended so quickly.
I love you so much.
Section III: 2024-????
[a new world]
I am in a totally different country now, you’re still gone. You passing away was real after all, it took me almost 6 years to get to this conclusion, but the joke’s over in my head. You won, you’ve proved your point, you said something along the lines of “I can’t see myself being in your future, I don’t have one to begin with.”
You’re not in my future, you proved your point, but you fucking should’ve been.
I miss you more than words will ever say, I miss you more than this bullshit I write will ever convey in any capacity. I miss you more than the last 6 years of letters I’ve written to a fucking dead person will ever say.
I am in a totally different country, as you’re not there to spend time with me. I sit in rooms, with beautiful queer people with personalities that could light a room up with every spoken word. I, however, am sad in this room. I’m sad in this country, despite how happy I am as well.
I’m sad that you are not living the life I undeservingly have right now, I’m sad that you took your own life and that despite everything, I am the one living the life that you should’ve been living. Under any other circumstances I would’ve mourned you and wouldn’t be so hurt by your passing had you not had the choice. You had the choice, you shouldn’t have taken your own life.
I have called myself so many fucking things, and told myself so many things about your passing.
A murderer, a shit friend, the reason you’re not here. I blamed myself for years and still do because you took your own life, if it were anything else, this would’ve been an easier pill to swallow but despite how much I didn’t have a say in the matter at the end of the day; I felt like everything was my fault.
I didn’t love you enough, I wasn’t there for you enough, I should’ve told you how I felt about you, I should’ve this, that, and whatever. I should’ve been there for you.
I was so fucking stupid to believe that you were just “going to get dinner” that day and didn’t think much of the fact you didn’t say good night that day.
I’ve survived and now live an objectively better life than the life I had back home and now that I’m safe everything is coming out. I’ve survived and now that I’m here I don’t feel like I deserve to be here, it should’ve been you.
I have survivor’s guilt, and it’s fucking showing.
I spent all of today anxious, and mourning you and the amount of times I was too paranoid and too traumatised to look at other people when I spoke to them.
I wanted to cry out about how much I missed you to them. Despite how upset I am with everything, I have never, for a single breathing fucking second, never stopped loving you.
There were so many new people that you could’ve met had you stayed with us, and so here I am, in a new world.
And there you are, still floating in space.
