Loss, a gentle reminder that life is unkind

The content of this post relates to suicide, but it’s not explicit. Just to forewarn everyone.

Life is unkind, death is destructive. It rips lives apart, tears down your defences and cuts you to the core. Today marks the anniversary of my friend’s death. Well the day this will be posted marks that day. I write this in advance because I anticipate not wanting to write this on the day… and yet I feel that this is an anniversary I must mark, and mark properly. But on the day? I will be living my day-to-day because even this long later, the day is hard. I won’t be talking about it, or particularly thinking about it, because regardless of how much I wish to forget it, the day he died is a day I remember in bright technicolour. It’s a significant anniversary, he died when we were 14 and it has been quite some time but every now and again I get that little punch in the gut to remind me he is no longer with us.

We grew up down the road from each other, and in later years we kind of went our own way, we weren’t so close as teenagers and in some ways it made his death more painful, because it’s filled with what ifs. Because I still cared deeply for him, but as most teenagers are, I was too self absorbed to build our friendship back to what it once was. Suicide leaves everyone with what ifs. What if we had been closer? What if I had known? What if I had seen through the message and realised it was a suicide note? What if someone, anyone, had found him before it was too late?

The what ifs are endless, and they are futile, but they are the thoughts that bubble under the surface for years. They are the guilty feelings that plague you for years and they are the compounding pain that helps to crush any feelings of moving forward for some time… Because suicide is one of the most destructive causes of death.

When I was 14, I was angry. I was incredibly angry that I had been left behind to deal with it all, that we all had to. But the anger was misplaced, it shouldn’t have been directed at him. But I directed my anger at him for a while to deflect from the guilt I was feeling because I didn’t know, and I didn’t stop him from doing it. Of course, I now realise that this guilt was unwarranted. I had no role, I couldn’t have stopped it and it wasn’t my decision to make, it was his choice. I remember being told not to feel guilty, told all of these things and just thinking, ‘how the hell do you know I have nothing to feel guilty about?’ There’s little comfort in that I think, regardless of how true it is.

Anyway, I digress, in short I had a lot of feelings. Soon enough the anger and the guilt turned into sadness, and that’s where it has remained to some extent. There is a sadness I feel when I think of him. It’s no longer a constant presence in my life, but I carry him with me in the back of my mind. He’s there. Every milestone I reach is another milestone he never had the opportunity to reach. Every achievement I make is another achievement he didn’t get to make. It’s not my first thought anymore, but every now and again, I remember and give myself a minute to honour that moment.

But sadness isn’t the only feeling I have, because wrapped in that sadness is one of the happiest memories of my teenage years (among many others!). A normal summer day in a field being stupid with our friends. Nothing more, nothing less, but it was one of the best days of my adolescence and that day is the film reel I play when I think of him.

I suppose that’s the thing about grief. There comes a point when there aren’t many tears left to cry, the grieving process has reached a stopping point, not an end in my opinion, but it settles and you can think of them and smile again. There’s a peace you find with what has occurred and you can sit comfortably with carrying that person with you in the back of your mind.

Fourteen is too young to die, and to this day I don’t believe he knew the devastating consequences of what he was doing… nor does anyone else who was close to him. But I respect that it is what he chose. I grew up very quickly after that. I was no longer naive about the world and I had to deal with some quite adult issues and emotions, but I look back on it now and know I would not be the person I am today without that experience. Of course I would give up everything I have now if I could reverse what happened, but that’s not the way the world works, so I take the silver linings in it all and understand that while I lost him, I gained an awful lot of perspective, resilience and coping strategies from it. I learnt a great deal about myself and what I can and cannot handle and for that, I have him to thank. There are still scars there, for sure, I will never be able to erase the image of the police cars outside his house. Nor will I ever be able to forget the moment I heard he had died, or the look on my dad’s face when I had to tell him that my friend, a kid he had watched grow up, had died. But I think the scars run a little less deep now. It’s not something you ‘get over’ but you grow armour. I have definitely grown armour from this… Because growing up with him, having the wonderful experiences of childhood and adolescence with him then losing him, those experiences moulded me into the man I am today.

So, dear friend, today I mark the anniversary of your death. If I could bring you back I would, but from the bottom of my heart I thank you for moulding me into the man I am today. I sit here listening to your song, and all I have to say is I hope you are at peace now.

‘And I long for you to appear after losing your way across star riddled skies, to carry you home.
I cherish my loss, a gentle reminder that life is unkind, at the best of times.’