Lost

December 2006

I lost someone recently. Sadly, I actually lost him a week before I even knew he had been lost. It’s quite pathetic when you don’t know you’ve lost someone. I didn’t know I’d lost him. I didn’t know he was lost. I didn’t know he was LOST!

I don’t have all the details. I heard he shot himself. I heard he’d just broken up with someone. I write this with a sense of disbelief. How in the world did this happen? Where was his support network? Where was anyone? They were probably where I was; absorbed in their own ‘stuff’, their own hurts, not looking out for someone who was really hurting. But, I guess, it just doesn’t cross our minds that this person we knew, or thought we knew, would kill himself. What did we miss, overlook, ignore… beside the person.

When I first heard what happened and I heard his name, I sat dumbstruck for a moment, just staring at the person who told me. My mind wouldn’t make the association. It was as if I didn’t recognize the name. My mind wouldn’t process it. The name just wouldn’t connect. Even as I sit writing this, I still have to work to connect the name to his face because I don’t want to believe it.

We had been talking about him, not that long ago. He created videos and we were talking about having him create some videos for church. I thought he was going to another church, but someone mentioned that they had seen him here about a month ago. Maybe he had come back, I thought. I made a mental note to look for him on Sundays again. I don’t want to think that I won’t see him anymore.

The last time I saw him, he was leaving Starbucks just as I was walking in. We talked briefly. He said he was doing well; he looked the same. I was glad I had makeup on and didn’t look too sloppy. I wanted to ask where he was going to church. I wanted to ask why he left. So many things I wanted to say, but we kept the conversation brief and then he walked on and I went inside. I wanted to say more, but I didn’t want to pry, to seem nosy. When I heard that he had been at church, I thought I would have another opportunity to talk, to see how he was doing, to get the nerve up to ask him if he wanted to go for a coffee. He was a nice guy. Maybe that was the problem. He was just a nice guy… unassuming… quiet. Too quiet, it seems. No one knew he would do something like this. No one noticed his pain. He was being quiet.

I know that kind of quiet… quiet despair… quiet anguish… looking to the world as if nothing is wrong, nothing is the matter, but on the inside… pure pain. It gnaws at you… until there’s nothing left to gnaw on… and the shell that remains… collapses. My heart hurts to realize that he was in that much pain. And no one knew… How sad is that? How horribly, grievously sad?

The family waited until after Thanksgiving to hold a memorial service at church. I attended and was glad to see there were quite a few people there, people who cared, who were in as much disbelief as I. Some of us spoke and shared how he was such a caring man. He cared for others, so why couldn’t he care for himself? How could he fall so low as to not see that we cared for him as well? How could he fall so low and those of us who said we cared didn’t see?

January 2007

It’s now the new year and the pain has eased, subsided to a gentle emptiness. I was sorting through some papers and came across the funeral program with his photo inside. I was able to look at it and not be completely overcome with sadness. There’s still an ache, but I’m able to get back on task, move on to my filing and sorting. I’ll sort the program into a file and save the picture in my photo box where photos of friends and family, past and present reside.

At the time, I wanted to shout to the world that my friend was dead. I wanted the world to hear the hurt and pain in my voice. There were tentative attempts, mostly met with indifference. Interesting how contagious indifference is. It passes from one individual to another with no effort. And that’s the essence of indifference. Caring requires effort. Not caring or indifference doesn’t. That’s why it infects so easily. We are, after all, rather lazy creatures. So his memory passes on, into oblivion, a void that absorbs all thought, affection, concern.

I’m feeling rather oblivious right now, no affection or concern. There are thoughts, though, running amok. They bounce off one another and I try to make sense of them, but that requires effort and I’m indifferent right now. Will try to focus later, when I feel like caring again.