On Friday night, I spent the evening with Chris’s family, and found that my post on Chris’s death had made quite an impact on them. I guess it got forwarded around quite a bit, and people who I just met were thanking me for writing it. It was great to have people like something I wrote, but I couldn’t see a worse way to do it. The only way that I could think to respond to their thanks was to say that I wished that I never had to write it.

It was easily the most draining post and most draining week that I’ve had in a long time. I wish I was drained from being selfless and donating my support to his family, but I’m not. I’m self absorbed at the worst possible time. The more I found out about Chris that night, the more parallels I drew between our lives, which culminated in something his mother said in passing, but that stuck with me…

“You know, Chris used to think that no one liked him or that people were always angry at him all the time. But, they weren’t. They really liked him.”

It was the final plank to create some strange bridge that brought me face to face with my own choices, perceptions, and ultimately my own mortality.

And as I get older, my mortality and I get more and more estranged.

After spending a week of being dragged down by simple song lyrics like “How’d you like to be alone and drowning,” after Friday night, I shut down. I didn’t go to Chris’s wake. I didn’t go to his funeral at the National Cemetery in Bourne. I knew that I should have, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle talking about that post with strangers that might have read it. I knew that I couldn’t face his #1GF without being a more of a burden and less of a pillar. And that hasn’t happened to me before. It’s not very manly nor strong, but that’s the way it was.

And this morning as a I drove to work, I felt terrible about not going, because I don’t think that there is anything that important in my life that trumps losing a son or brother. But, I finally found that every tear is a tiny complaint for a world that does not hear human complaints. I can protest death as much as I can protest the wind. And its time to put my complaints aside and ask myself, “Where do I go from here?”

Related post: I’m Wiped Out

Posted in Sadness