Letter to a Friend Who Died Too Soon
Saying something, anything, in the aftershock of sudden loss.
My dear friend L___,
This is the first time I’ve written since your death. For six months I found myself at a loss for words, nothing worthy enough to disrupt a blank page. Then today I questioned my negligence and reasons, deeming them weak. Cowardly, even. Because failing publicly, in this case by writing absolute shit, is a gift to the creative; it’s how we grow and make (hopefully) better art. It’s also helpful for others to see that not every work is a masterpiece, especially when writing about something as unwieldy as death.
How dare I succumb to fear and self-doubt, settling for such a lazy axiom as I didn’t know what to say. What bullshit. I’m the truth to power person. That’s what I do.
Thus my first garbage paragraph began:
I could say that much has changed since you died, yet also much has stayed the same. But only the cruel or incurious would suggest such, because all of use who loved you are profoundly changed by your loss. It’s as though we were swimming along, oblivious to our current and buoyancy, then abruptly and unceremoniously tossed from the sea. Forced to breath differently, to forever endure the crushing gravity of your absence.
That is to say: the wind was knocked out of me, and I don’t think it will ever fully return.
At least once a week my internal monolog stops me cold in order to screech, “I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE THIS.” Yes, obviously denial is a stage, but the idea that it is something linear — a thing to move through or past — is insultingly naive to me. Grief is a Venn diagram of emotions. It comes in a riot of color, pulsing with saturation as competing feelings fade in and out. Bright, then dim again.
For instance, a few months ago I was leveled by the thought that you’d never get to share a dog with N____. I was cooking dinner and then I was doubled over, clutching my knees, wracked with sobs as I railed at the injustice. Seven years together, with so many more ahead, and then boom. Gone. Not even a dog.
“Can you imagine?” I’ve said to friends not directly impacted by your loss. Image loving someone so easily and perfectly, and then they die unexpectedly; taken in the prime of both your lives. To be left with that crushing absence, because you knew true love — you had it!
I’d rather hate an ex forever, so long as they lived, I might muse aloud. I’d rather never have loved at all. As though one could haggle or barter the unpredictable omnipotence of life, death and love. It’s a stupid game my brain likes to play when it’s too painful to fully empathize. Or, be honest, when I need to disassociate from my own grief and observe it like a voiceover in a subpar movie.
Back to N____. Your friends and I do our best to take care of her. It’s a delicate balance, to be “there” for someone who is grieving (while also grieving). Am I helping, or smothering? Are my texts and invitations too frequent, or too scarce? And then I remember how you always were: exact. “I’m here if you need me,” wasn’t your style. It was more: “I can hop on the phone with you, right now for an hour, or after 5:45 and we can talk longer.” Available, accountable, and adorably specific. So that’s how I offer my help, too. Though I must say that I am disappointed in the people who keep their distance from your wife — fuck, your widow.
As though grief is contagious. Like death won’t pick off everyone, eventually.
But maybe I should forgive them; the juxtaposition of your bright, bouncy extroversion (truly a golden retriever among men) and its stark absence is perhaps too much for some. It’s hard to make sense of her without you. Still, I think they should fucking try.
In the the quiet desolation of ourselves — the motley crew of friends you collected and cultivated — some don’t know where to go or why. It’s clear to me now that we came together not so much to drink or network or maybe get laid, but because of you. Of course I’d go to almost anything you made happen. We all did.
Which reminds me: I cried about my birthday party because you wouldn’t be there. Then I cried about how you wouldn’t have just been there, you would have rallied twice as many people to attend, and maybe even brought a new person. Then I cried in anticipation of telling this moment to A_____, who was helping me organize the party. I knew he’d instantly understand and agree — no one can do it like you did.
On days like that my sadness is a hunger, devouring anything that could rouse my mood or move my emotional needle, buried at zero. But it’s covert and functional. Those three crying jags? All on the escalator to my office building. My depression is ever a New Yorker: quick, efficient, multi-task oriented.
It’s also an old, familiar friend, shitty friend though it be. Depression will remind me how good it feels to cancel all my plans because no one likes me anyway. It’ll stay up late, caressing me with whiskey and whispering about nothing. No, I mean actually nothing. L’appel du vide, “the call of the void.” But it doesn’t call from high places so much as water. I could drown... So do it. No, don’t. I couldn’t though.
My memorial would be embarrassingly modest next to yours.
Please excuse my gallows humor, it’s all I have most days. There’s a precipitous drop in laughter without your dad jokes — the cringers we both enjoyed inflicting on others. And shit’s just not funny right now. That “life’s too short” thing people say before naming an intolerable task or experience? YEAH, I KNOW. So pardon me while I navel gaze and try to check off some bucket list items before my bucket kicks at a time and place I can’t predict.
Anger, is another one, isn’t it? A stage. Still, I am justifiable mad that there are terrible people walking around on this earth, and you are not. It’s so unfair you’ll go crazy thinking about it too long. We have a hit list, A____ and I. We each keep a short list of people who should be dead instead of you, and add to it regularly. (Let’s face it, in this political climate that list isn’t very short.)
Sometimes I have these solar flares of rage, wherein I might, say, wish death on a stranger who has accidentally elbowed me on the train. YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS LIFE my brain screams. Sure, I was always short tempered, but I never used to swear vengeance on a stranger during my morning commute. Maybe I need a vacation.
Ididn’t get to say goodbye to you. But I did. I just didn’t know it’d be the last time. I remember exactly where we were standing, and that we made plans to see each other again. We’d check our calendars to make sure there was some time. “I’ll text you this week,” you said.
And this is where it ends for now. Like one of our untied, to be continued conversation that I know we’ll pick up next time. I’m sure I’ll have more to say to you, and about you. I carry your memory around like a luck coin. I was so, so lucky to know you, and to say with confidence and pride that you’re my friend. It’s an impossible reality to say: my good friend died. What are these terrible words? They’re surreal in their cruelty.
No. There is no acceptance for this. But I’m resigned to go about my daily life without you, and I’m not ok about it. Fuck this.
