In Memory, My Friend
Constantly replaying in my mind is the night that my best friend moved.
It was late, later than I was normally allowed to stay up, and covering the moon and stars were dark, looming clouds that spoke of the rain that would fall later in the night. A knock on our front door was barely heard over the quiet volume of the television in the family room. My parents had just put my baby brother to bed, and soon I too would be carted off to my room to sleep. Outside the door stood my mom’s friend, Karen, her husband Kevin, and my best friend Cody.
We had always been close.
He was my first friend outside of my three siblings. I can vividly remember that he was excited to be at my house so late in the evening, but behind that he was scared. I’m sure his parents had talked about moving many times before, but it was suddenly so real to him, to me.
We played with our favorite Power Rangers action figures while our parents talked.
Time is meaningless to five year olds and I can’t recall how long they stayed, but too quickly for my liking it was time for them to go. Our parents did their best to explain that we wouldn’t get to see each other for a long, long time. It was hard to understand. I saw Cody almost every day! Still, I felt the weight of their words, and as the three of them walked out of our front door, I reached out and pulled Cody into a tight hug. Our parents oohed and aahed at how cute the action was, completely unscripted.
We watched as the three of them got into their car and drove off into the night. It wasn’t the last time that I saw Cody, but it is the memory that dredges up from the depths of my brain and haunts me when I think about him.
Cody is dead now.
He died March 10, 2017, at the age of twenty-seven. Too young, much too young. It was the first official day of my spring break, a week off of both school and work, and the first night that I was back home visiting my parents in New Mexico. I was watching a movie with my mother when I got up to refill my empty glass with fresh brewed tea.
I was halfway into the kitchen when my mother spoke. “Do you remember Cody?”
“Of course I remember Cody! I tried to look him up a couple of years ago. Haven’t seen him in ages! Why?” I asked, popping my head back into the living room.
I could see that she was on her phone browsing Facebook, something she always does when we pause a movie we are watching. “He died. I’ve got to call Karen.”
She scrambled to get out of her chair, pushing her dogs and the cat to the floor as she searched through her phone for Karen’s number.
I can’t explain how I felt. Numb? Lost? Hurt? All of them at once is probably the better description.
I grabbed my phone off of the arm of the chair I had been roosting in and thumbed my way to Facebook. I started with Karen’s profile. I’d never thought to add her as a friend before. I prayed that her page wasn’t private. It wasn’t.
At the top of the page she asked for prayers as her son had died that evening. It was like a wave crashed into me and pulled me down under its icy cold waters. I was drowning, caught in the tides of guilt and remorse.
Just two summers ago, I had tried to find Cody.
He had been heavy on my heart, and I wanted so dearly to contact him. I knew that my mother and Karen were still very close, but neither would give me information on Cody. To be honest, I thought he’d already died and they didn’t want to tell me, wanted to save me from the pain that I am now reeling from. I had searched Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and every other social media website I could think of. I even Googled his name.
There was nothing current.
I talked with my mom about it, but she was curt and told me to drop it, to forget about finding Cody, and to move on with my life. I was doing too well in life, she said, to wallow in the past. But memories of shared swim lessons and hours spent racing up and down the stairs at Cody’s house filled my mind.
I hadn’t thought this much about him in almost ten years!
One of my fondest memories surfaces, and I can almost feel the cool cement patio under my bare five year old feet. The cement is still dark with the moisture from the summer rain that pattered down early that morning. Snails slime their way across the walkway that angles from the patio to the front porch. Cody comes racing up the driveway, his mother in tow. He’s excited to show me his new Transformers action figure. It’s Optimus Prime, the same one we both envied in the store, and he got it from his grandparents. We spent hours out on the patio that day playing with our toys, sending them on the most exotic journeys that two five year old boys can imagine, breaking only to drink too sugary Kool-Aid, always the red kind.
Even today this memory makes me smile, I’m glad that I have it. But I’d rather have Cody. We all would.
Attending his funeral was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced in my fairly short existence, but on an early pre-Spring Saturday I did it. Barely. It was March 18, 2017, the clouds descended from the sky and kissed the earth before they carried Cody home. The fog was so thick that it was hard to see ten feet ahead. I dressed slowly, donning my black dress pants, a white button up shirt, leather dress shoes, and memories.
I began the drive at 8:00 in the morning and took my time as I trekked across the South Plains and into the Permian Basin.
Seeing Karen after so many years was sobering. She was doing her best to remain calm though the task was impossible. How can any mother remain calm on the day she buries her child? I hugged her tightly and let her cry on my shoulder. I knew that she was being flooded with the same memories as I was, of two little boys playing for hours on end. Those two little boys are just ghosts of the past now, their laughter and joy are echoes of happier times.
My tears didn’t fall until after I was seated.
The funeral home attendant wore a faked smile as he placed me in a seat on the second row, too close to the closed silver casket. Flowers were displayed around the front and a bouquet of white roses 3 lay on top of the casket. It was hard to believe that my friend was inside that box.
A slideshow displayed photos of his life. Tears welled up hot behind my eyes, and I tried to force them away but they still slid down my cheeks. I was present for so many of these photos, memory stills forever captured for display. The pain welled up in me and was ready to burst like an overfilled balloon stretched thin by sadness.
It was the music that pushed me over the edge. They were songs I had never heard before but were picked because of their hushed melody and soft vocals that sang of angels and heaven.
The preacher spoke about Cody as though he had known him. He spoke of the grief we were all feeling. He spoke of the notion that Cody is at peace. Tears burned my cheeks throughout. The ceremony ended quickly, and the funeral home staff opened the casket. The first sob escaped from my lips as I got the first glimpse of him lying against that bed of white, his skin pale, his eyes closed, and against his chest he clutched a single white rose.
They dismissed us row by row starting from the back. It was taking too long. I couldn’t breathe. Finally I was able to stand, and as I neared the casket, I felt something in me break. I was only able to muster a quick glance before I was pushing my way out the door, a hand covering my mouth as I tried to keep the sobs inside.
I made my way outside and into the warmth. I couldn’t see. I pulled my glasses off and just let the tears flow.
I was pacing the parking lot trying to breathe and, for the first time in almost four years, wishing I had a cigarette.
They are still unsure of what happened to Cody. The story that I’ve gathered is that Cody was at his father’s house. He had been drinking. He left his father’s with the intention of walking to his mother’s house just a few blocks away. That was the last time anyone saw him alive.
The police found his body in the alley behind his father’s house. He’d been dead for a few hours. The autopsy yielded no real results on the cause of death, but from the look of him lying in the casket I knew something bad happened to him.
It’s a feeling that I cannot shake.
Something bad happened, and no one was there to save him.
I pray for his family to find peace.
You are loved and you are missed Cody. I hope that you have finally found the peace you could not find in life.
I will see you again, someday.

