To My One Fallen Angel
1984-2001
I'm not even sure how to go about beginning this. Not at all sure how I'm going to end it once I begin. But hopefully somewhere in the middle, I'll find a way to pay you the tribute that you so rightfully deserve. I'll make it up as I go along, and I won't change it. Consider this our last 'official' conversation. At least for a while.
I'll never know what it was that finally pushed you to take your own life. You never gave me the chance. And because of that, my heart was, and still is, left to dangle without any answers. Without any hope of getting any answers in the future. That loss won't ever leave me, no matter how hard I try to cover it with my pattented 'everything is ok' smile. A smile that I had perfected over the years as I tried to hide so much of my screwed up life from the people around me. Maybe a part of your mission as an important piece of my life...was to make me lose that stupid smile once and for all. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't working. Ever since, I'm not as good as hiding my emotions as I used to be. I still see your smile on that last Monday evening when I came in to pick up my paycheck. I still feel the last hug you ever gave me, without showing me a single sign of distress. And that Tuesday...you were gone. I can still remember your mom's voice on my answering machine, asking me where you were that day. I still remember the look on everyone's face when we found out what happened to you. My lost angel. Those images are as fresh in my mind now as they were on that day. And the pain has grown worse, even if a little less frequent. I don't think I'll ever be able to achieve the level of happiness that I could before your death. A piece of me will always being missing, a giant hole in my life that needs you there beside me. I don't blame you, I don't hate you...I just miss you.
Sigh....so many thoughts, so many things I want to express to you. And suddenly my vocabulary seems so limited in trying to do so.
Even through tears, I laugh a little when I think of better times. I still remembering wanting to get to know you the first day you said hello. Hehehe, the cutie that you were. I never knew from a distance just how deep your beauty went, how it surrounded your heart and mind, and I'm thankful for the opportunity you gave me to find out. By the first month, you were like a brother to me, and I miss that. I remember how you would shoot rubberbands at me, and be SO convincing when you acted like it wasn't you. I remember you and me wrestling around on the floor, and then poppoing up to ask a customer if they needed help as though they hadn't seen what just happened. I remember you literally humping my leg when Jonathan came to visit me downstairs, and me trying to hold a normal conversation while you did your best to distract me. I remember the time you tried to set me up with your 16 year old lesbian friend! Hahaha! I remember the picture you drew for me to wear on my shirt, of me jacking off a stick figure with a giant penis! (Hehehehe, the managers certainly censored me quick on THAT particular afternoon! I still have that picture by the way. I made it a keepsake, even before you left us). I remember giving you piggy back rides back to the time clock at the end of the day. I remember meeting your friends, and riding around town with them in that ratty old car (Hehehe, sorry, but I was expecting that thing to fall apart any minute). I remember you guys waiting until the last possible minute, and then chasing me down after work before I could get on the train so that I could buy you and your 'underage posse' alcahol. You were such a deviot, you know that? But, fortunately for you, I was wrapped around your finger and you knew I'd do anything you asked of me. You were the bratty kid brother I always wanted, and you were lovable even when you were doing your best to get on my nerves. I remember you trying so hard to dress 'punk' and look 'punk' and act 'punk' and you lived the life sure enough...but those big brown eyes and pouty lips of yours gave you away everytime. You were still a big sweetie to me, and you couldn't hide it no matter WHAT you did to yourself! Hehehe, sorry. I know you hate that. Still...even at your funeral, I can't really imagine you wearing a suit.
................ :(
I'm so so very sorry that I didn't come to the wake. If I had seen you like that, I would never have been able to sleep again. I couldn't stand to see my 'kid brother' laid out...not you. Not like that. Everyone was in tears that day. The shoplifters would have been able to run all over us if they had known the state we were in. It was really hard to deal with, and if you were watching...I hope that you understand, and know that my heart was with you. No one knew what to say to me for weeks afterwards. They still don't. They know not to mention your name in my presence, and they haven't once since the wake. I still have the cd that you gave me so much shit about burning for you. I brought it to work that day when you didn't show up. You'll be happy to know that it never left my bag, and never will. I guess a piece of me is still waiting for you to come in and get it from me. (You owe me five bucks, by the way. That was the deal) Sigh...God, I miss you soooo much dude. I still can't believe you did this. :(
Well...I guess you 'know' about me by now. Me, the website, my dad, my life...everything. I know you wouldn't turn down the opportunity to look in on me and discover all the dirty little secrets that you couldn't crack open with your boyish smile. Hehehe! Sometimes I can swear that I can hear you laughing, teasing me, and kicking me in the nuts for not telling you. Then hugging me right afterwards. Probably would have pinched my ass too for good measure. :) I have to admit, I loved the 'pervert' in you sometimes. It set off your sweet charm so perfectly. I hope you like the website. I only wish you could have seen it in time. Could have used it to find some of the answers you were looking for in your life. These are the people who have changed my life. They've ALL become my little brothers and sisters, big brothers and sisters, twins, fathers, mothers, sweethearts, and best friends. They're the other half of my life. I know times get hard for them, like they did for me, like they did for you, and I watch good times and bad come and go as they often do. I only hope that they see some of the truly beautiful things that life has to offer before it's all over. I once told you that it's not what you have, but what you actually 'appreciate' that makes all the difference. I can only hope that what I do, all of my efforts in the past few years, becomes a small part of helping them learn that. And then teach it to others. To people like you...who eventually saw no other way out.
They've moved your grave too far away for me to visit you, and that sucks. But at some point my travels WILL lead me your way, and I'll come by to see you again. Your mom asked if I wanted some of your old stuff...I didn't take any. But I still have the cds you made me, still don't listen to them. Hehehe! I probably should have kept some kind of memento of our friendship, but I said no thanks. At the time your mom asked, my heart was too torn up to accept another reminder as to what happened to you. I'm still so lost as to why you did this to yourself....to us. Why you couldn't just CALL me! Because you know I would have been there. I would have given you anything you needed to prevent this, anything. You have NO idea how beautiful you were. How sweet, and smart, and funny...how you made the worst days just a little bit better by being there. Now...no one else will know either. No one else will benefit from your natural ability to bring a smile to their face. They've seriously missed out. As I tell so many people when I talked about you...you were one of the 'good guys'. And the world seems to have so few left these days. Now, one less. I know that there are a million people out there, who would tell me that it's not my fault, and that I can't keep saying 'what if'...and I know that you would never do this to deliberately hurt me or anyone else. That was never a game you felt you had to play. And it all makes perfect sense, I know that. But understand...there will always....ALWAYS...be a part of me that wishes I could have been there for you. That if I had stayed with you instead of running home to this DAMN computer! Or gave you a loving hug instead fooling around and play fighting with you in the ailes. Or had a few more long serious talks instead hiding whatever meaningless bullshit that was troubling me at the time....maybe you'd still be here. Maybe I would have had just a little more time to wise up and show you that I cared so very much for you. I keep thinking that I could have called you or held you or made you laugh or SOMETHING that might have delayed this...even if only for ONE more day! One more time to tell you how much you meant to me. I guess this pathetic rambling is the only way for me to do that now. And let me tell you that it isn't easy while I'm crying. (You know my typing sucks as it is! It's much harder when I can't look at the keys!)
"C"....I miss you. Everyday, I miss you. I won't dare let a single person say an ill word about you, not now, not ever. I will honor you with the rest of my life, dude. You can count on that. Seventeen...you never even got to be legal so I could flirt BACK! :) I miss your smile, I miss your affectionate hugs, I miss your voice, I miss your laugh...some nights I can't sleep without digging in the wound that your death left inside of me. One day, when I finally get to see you again, expect a hug. Right after I punch you in the stomach and take my five bucks from you! Hehehe...think I'm kidding? I won't forget.
I won't ever forget.
((BIG HUGS)) God...it's soooo hard to actually say the words 'goodbye' to you. I've refused to do it for so long now. But I know that this will linger forever if I don't. And I'm going to put this on the site, so that every single person who is reading this can stop and think. So that they can know what it's like for the loving ones they leave behind. I was there myself once...lost and without options. But surviving through it to see the sunshine ahead was one of the best things that I could have ever done. Some of us haven't found that sunshine yet, they haven't seen that light. And unfortunately...they're not patient enough to wait for it. I'll do what I can. But I feel so helpless, so weak, so meaningless when it comes to this. It seems that not a week goes by where they don't call on me to have a quick answer to take the pain away. The responsibility of 'life or death' is suffocating me, my heart has become brittle and shakey from trying to help people with such serious needs, such immediate answers. I don't know how to help them. I don't know what to say anymore. I never knew how to save someone's life, or how to make life better. I can't even cook a decent dinner for myself, much less talk someone down from a ledge. Especially when it's so many on the ledge at once. After failing you the way I did, I doubt I have the heart to jump back into that arena again. It terrifies me. There is sooo much pain in this world sometimes, and it stabs at me from all sides. I just hope that it never infects me the way it infected you, my friend. That I never lose the perspective that keeps me from falling into old habits, walking along that ledge myself. I know what it's like, and I understand. But I made it. I made it. And I know that these others can make it too if they'll only open themselves to the things that they've been missing. That I was once missing. If only I could find a way to SAY IT! But I CAN'T! I don't KNOW how I survived my fucked up life...I just 'did'. And that's not a good enough answer for them anymore. Not when they have so much more ammunition with negative thoughts than I have with positive ones. But I will try. For you, I will try. I will spread the message as far as it can go, to the best of my ability. And if I save just ONE person, where I failed in saving you...your death will have some meaning. Just as your life had meaning. Wish me luck.
Goodbye "C"...there, I said it. I love you. Rest in peace...my bratty 'adopted' little bother.
My One Fallen Angel
1984 - 2001
This page was last updated on February 11, 2016.