Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Kyle

I suppose I'm really quite awful at this whole blogging thing. But sometimes I really need to write and its nice to know I have a place where I can do that.

I have a friend. His name is Kyle. We've been friends for as long as I can remember. It's one of those friendships that must have started somewhere but the beginnings are so blurry you can't really remember where it started or how. Our families have known each other forever and once upon a time his best friend dated my best friend so I suppose somewhere along the line that's how we began to know each other. Hes always been a happy guy, a little quirky, really into music. He's always given the best hugs...like he hadn't seen you in years or like you were the only person in the world worth hugging in that moment...like he didn't ever want to let go. The kind of person that when other people talked about him, they smiled. A good person, a happy person. He went to church, he loved God, he loved his family, was loyal to his friends.

On Monday, May the 17th he drove his truck out to a park that he ran in often. He sat there for quite a while, then he took a gun to his head and shot himself. In an instant, this funny lovable guy was brutally taken from this world.

He was 23 years old.

He had a girlfriend, he had a new job as a radiology technician's assistant, he had friends who loved him. I loved him. But he wasn't happy. Someway, somehow, he wasn't happy. His family who lived with him had no clue. His friends who hung out with him had NO clue. No one knows why. None of us understand. And we're all left with this aching. gnawing sadness that won't go away. Some of us can't eat, some aren't sleeping, I tried to go to work today but ended up having to come home because I was crying on the playground with children all around me. I had a headache the size of a mountain and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep so I couldn't think anymore.

Can you imagine having to pick out a casket for your 23 year old son who you thought was happy, whole, who had this bright future ahead of him? A son who seemed fine but had such inner demons that he felt it right to take himself from this world and all who loved him? Who somehow felt so alone, that he didn't want to live anymore.

He's gone, he's dead and I cannot bring him back. I can't tell him that I love him. I didn't tell him that I loved him the last time that I saw him and I will always regret that until the day I die. He was a wonderful vibrant person who had every reason to live but chose to die.

I will never understand. It will haunt me the rest of my life. No matter how old I get or his family gets, we'll always wonder why we didn't know. What we could have done....if it was something we did. But its not our fault. I have to keep telling myself that. It's no ones fault.

but his.

I will always love you. I will never understand.

Choose life. The people around you love you more than you can ever know. Don't let them show their love at a funeral. Let them love you now. Reach out. Live. Breathe. Find a way to make it better. Don't leave. Stay. You can never know the grief that you'll put them through. Whatever you're going through, the grief you'll leave behind will be ten times worse. Trust me, I know.

I will always love you. I will never understand.