major events bring me back
I haven't written here in quite a long time. I'm writing this more for myself than anyone else, but I feel like I have no real reason to make this a private entry.
My friend and brother (in a sense), Sean Taylor, died on the seventh of this month, at 2:30AM, in Harborview Medical Center, of a combination of pneumonia and alcoholic hepatitis.
He was diagnosed with alcoholic hepatitis just after Christmas. I had taken him to the ER just that morning before work, and later in the day he called me and told me the diagnosis and that the prognosis was a 50% mortality rate within the first thirty days of hospitalization. I thought he was being overly paranoid, as he often was. So I looked it up online, but found he was not exaggerating anything--it was actually extremely serious. I left work early to come visit him in the hospital. I found him laying in a gurney outside his room, waiting for them to roll him back in from having some tests done. His skin was yellow from jaundice, his stomach bloated from fluid accumulating in his abdomen, and he was weak and sickly looking--even moreso than when I dropped him off that morning. I grabbed his hand and just cried. I told him I didn't want him to die, and that I was scared, and worried about him. I really couldn't get much more out than that. He told me not to worry.
He stayed in the hospital for about a week. I came by often, bringing him things, bringing him other people, and just going to see him. So many people came to visit him. People from our community group, old friends, people from the Moped Army, people from church who didn't know him but had heard about his situation. His mother and sister's family drove up from Utah. We talked to him, and joked with him, and prayed over him. He was very sleepy most of the time, and was a bit loopy...making sense most of the time, but not able to carry on conversations normally.
I sat down with him and his mother to help him make out a Power of Attorney form, and put together his will. I asked him how he would like his memorial service to be held, if, God forbid, he die. I asked how he'd like his body disposed of.
The doctors decided that Sean was stable (meaning: getting no better, but no worse), and that there wasn't anything they could do to treat him at the hospital any better than at home, so they discharged him (it helped that he wanted to go home). They gave him four sets of pills to take along with a goopy sugar-based syrup to drink. His mother borrowed a bed, and slept in his living room in the apartment on Ashworth. She cared for him--made sure he was taking his medication, eating good food, getting a little exercise. People continued to visit him, watch movies with him, and pray for him. So did I. One time I visited him, and he took me into his room and told me that he was scared, and didn't want to die, and why was he so sick? So I told him that I didn't want him to die either, and that he had gotten sick from drinking way too much alcohol, and that we were going to do everything we could to keep him here. I prayed for him again.
Sean had just "gotten over a cold" before being hospitalized, but he was still coughing quite a bit. Not long after I visited him again, his mother called and told me that Sean had had two seizures, and had been re-admitted to the hospital. With even more fear than before, I visited him again. My friend, my friend...my friend did not look good. Sean was breathing shallowly and irregularly, was unable to speak, unable to move with precision, and his eyes could not seem to focus on anything in the room. I wasn't able to tell if he could hear me. They had his wrists restrained in case of further seizures. No one had much to say about his situation, other than it was likely caused by high ammonia levels from his liver functioning poorly, and that they could "take awhile to come out of". I could do nothing for my friend but hold his hand, put my hand on his forehead, and try to let him know I was there.
Two days after he'd had his seizures, his mother called me to tell me that he had taken a turn for the worse. His kidneys had completely shut down. The prognosis was that he had one to three days left. I went to see him one more time, with Nicole. Shawn Manley, his good friend, was there along with his mother. She was wetting his lips and mouth with a sponge on a stick, and making sure he was as comfortable as possible. He was on a morphine drip. There was really nothing left for me to say but goodbye. Early next morning, he died.
We had his memorial service on Wednesday. Somehow it came together with very little time to prepare. The church covered the cremation costs, provided us the facility and equipment, and various members gave time, energy, and money to provide flowers, food, decorations, music, a slideshow, and everything else. I and three other good friends of Sean spoke about him, along with his mother, and I was reminded of parts of my friend that I'd forgotten.
This has been the first time I've had someone very close to me die. My grandpa on my mother's side died, and my grandpa on my father's side died, but it wasn't overly traumatic for me because they were so far away and I didn't see them often. It's a very new, and awful experience for me. I have been very sad at times, especially when I realize how much I miss him (even, as his mother put, "those five calls a day"). Other times I am happy for him, as there is very likely no one besides Christ who knows how much Sean went through in his life, and I know that he is finished with hurting now, and has God Himself as his comforter--far better for him, as I was always awful at that. Other times I don't think about it.
Sean, Sean. He could be so frustrating. He could be so loud, so needy, so demanding of attention. So stubborn. I blocked him from MSN, AIM, LiveJournal, and constantly denied his friend requests on MySpace. I didn't pick up 90% of his phone calls. We weren't perfect friends to each other. He could be so draining, and I could be so insensitive and uncaring. It's easy for me to feel very shitty about that now. I know I should have done some things differently, but there are some that I did right that hurt him anyway. I know it's not my fault that he's gone. He made some poor choices, and wouldn't listen to people who advised him against it. But he was my friend, and I really do miss him.
He was the most loyal and self-sacrificial friend you would ever have. It was brought up by Shawn Manley, at the memorial, that Sean epitomized the command to "love each other with brotherly love". It's so true. If you were his friend, he'd do anything for you, and was constantly concerned about and praying for your well being. He would get so excited and happy about the good things happening in your life. He was very much a child in some ways, for better or worse, but had an amazing strength and maturity within him that many weren't privvy to.
Whenever I drive past his place, I remember how we lived there together, and how the place feels so soulless and empty now. Whenever I hear certain ska songs play on my list, or certain restaurants we'd visited, or see SpongeBob anywhere, I can't help but think of Sean. I cannot imagine the thought of him being anywhere besides Christ-bound, and I can't bear to think of how I would feel if he were not.
I now have a lot of concern for other people in my life that are making poor choices, or really seem to be crying out for help. I am very concerned with people who are not taking care of their physical bodies as they should, and may not realize how easy it is to destroy yourself. I am concerned with those I know who do not know Jesus, and have no hope when they reach the point that Sean did, as they certainly will. Threats are not a reason to believe something is true, but they can be incentive to take the question seriously. Helmet laws seem stupid until you get into a crash on your moped. I'd ask that you consider that the end of your life here, whenever it may come, is as certain as gravity holding you to the earth, and that you should prepare for it accordingly. It will help put things in perspective.
I miss you, buddy.
My friend and brother (in a sense), Sean Taylor, died on the seventh of this month, at 2:30AM, in Harborview Medical Center, of a combination of pneumonia and alcoholic hepatitis.
He was diagnosed with alcoholic hepatitis just after Christmas. I had taken him to the ER just that morning before work, and later in the day he called me and told me the diagnosis and that the prognosis was a 50% mortality rate within the first thirty days of hospitalization. I thought he was being overly paranoid, as he often was. So I looked it up online, but found he was not exaggerating anything--it was actually extremely serious. I left work early to come visit him in the hospital. I found him laying in a gurney outside his room, waiting for them to roll him back in from having some tests done. His skin was yellow from jaundice, his stomach bloated from fluid accumulating in his abdomen, and he was weak and sickly looking--even moreso than when I dropped him off that morning. I grabbed his hand and just cried. I told him I didn't want him to die, and that I was scared, and worried about him. I really couldn't get much more out than that. He told me not to worry.
He stayed in the hospital for about a week. I came by often, bringing him things, bringing him other people, and just going to see him. So many people came to visit him. People from our community group, old friends, people from the Moped Army, people from church who didn't know him but had heard about his situation. His mother and sister's family drove up from Utah. We talked to him, and joked with him, and prayed over him. He was very sleepy most of the time, and was a bit loopy...making sense most of the time, but not able to carry on conversations normally.
I sat down with him and his mother to help him make out a Power of Attorney form, and put together his will. I asked him how he would like his memorial service to be held, if, God forbid, he die. I asked how he'd like his body disposed of.
The doctors decided that Sean was stable (meaning: getting no better, but no worse), and that there wasn't anything they could do to treat him at the hospital any better than at home, so they discharged him (it helped that he wanted to go home). They gave him four sets of pills to take along with a goopy sugar-based syrup to drink. His mother borrowed a bed, and slept in his living room in the apartment on Ashworth. She cared for him--made sure he was taking his medication, eating good food, getting a little exercise. People continued to visit him, watch movies with him, and pray for him. So did I. One time I visited him, and he took me into his room and told me that he was scared, and didn't want to die, and why was he so sick? So I told him that I didn't want him to die either, and that he had gotten sick from drinking way too much alcohol, and that we were going to do everything we could to keep him here. I prayed for him again.
Sean had just "gotten over a cold" before being hospitalized, but he was still coughing quite a bit. Not long after I visited him again, his mother called and told me that Sean had had two seizures, and had been re-admitted to the hospital. With even more fear than before, I visited him again. My friend, my friend...my friend did not look good. Sean was breathing shallowly and irregularly, was unable to speak, unable to move with precision, and his eyes could not seem to focus on anything in the room. I wasn't able to tell if he could hear me. They had his wrists restrained in case of further seizures. No one had much to say about his situation, other than it was likely caused by high ammonia levels from his liver functioning poorly, and that they could "take awhile to come out of". I could do nothing for my friend but hold his hand, put my hand on his forehead, and try to let him know I was there.
Two days after he'd had his seizures, his mother called me to tell me that he had taken a turn for the worse. His kidneys had completely shut down. The prognosis was that he had one to three days left. I went to see him one more time, with Nicole. Shawn Manley, his good friend, was there along with his mother. She was wetting his lips and mouth with a sponge on a stick, and making sure he was as comfortable as possible. He was on a morphine drip. There was really nothing left for me to say but goodbye. Early next morning, he died.
We had his memorial service on Wednesday. Somehow it came together with very little time to prepare. The church covered the cremation costs, provided us the facility and equipment, and various members gave time, energy, and money to provide flowers, food, decorations, music, a slideshow, and everything else. I and three other good friends of Sean spoke about him, along with his mother, and I was reminded of parts of my friend that I'd forgotten.
This has been the first time I've had someone very close to me die. My grandpa on my mother's side died, and my grandpa on my father's side died, but it wasn't overly traumatic for me because they were so far away and I didn't see them often. It's a very new, and awful experience for me. I have been very sad at times, especially when I realize how much I miss him (even, as his mother put, "those five calls a day"). Other times I am happy for him, as there is very likely no one besides Christ who knows how much Sean went through in his life, and I know that he is finished with hurting now, and has God Himself as his comforter--far better for him, as I was always awful at that. Other times I don't think about it.
Sean, Sean. He could be so frustrating. He could be so loud, so needy, so demanding of attention. So stubborn. I blocked him from MSN, AIM, LiveJournal, and constantly denied his friend requests on MySpace. I didn't pick up 90% of his phone calls. We weren't perfect friends to each other. He could be so draining, and I could be so insensitive and uncaring. It's easy for me to feel very shitty about that now. I know I should have done some things differently, but there are some that I did right that hurt him anyway. I know it's not my fault that he's gone. He made some poor choices, and wouldn't listen to people who advised him against it. But he was my friend, and I really do miss him.
He was the most loyal and self-sacrificial friend you would ever have. It was brought up by Shawn Manley, at the memorial, that Sean epitomized the command to "love each other with brotherly love". It's so true. If you were his friend, he'd do anything for you, and was constantly concerned about and praying for your well being. He would get so excited and happy about the good things happening in your life. He was very much a child in some ways, for better or worse, but had an amazing strength and maturity within him that many weren't privvy to.
Whenever I drive past his place, I remember how we lived there together, and how the place feels so soulless and empty now. Whenever I hear certain ska songs play on my list, or certain restaurants we'd visited, or see SpongeBob anywhere, I can't help but think of Sean. I cannot imagine the thought of him being anywhere besides Christ-bound, and I can't bear to think of how I would feel if he were not.
I now have a lot of concern for other people in my life that are making poor choices, or really seem to be crying out for help. I am very concerned with people who are not taking care of their physical bodies as they should, and may not realize how easy it is to destroy yourself. I am concerned with those I know who do not know Jesus, and have no hope when they reach the point that Sean did, as they certainly will. Threats are not a reason to believe something is true, but they can be incentive to take the question seriously. Helmet laws seem stupid until you get into a crash on your moped. I'd ask that you consider that the end of your life here, whenever it may come, is as certain as gravity holding you to the earth, and that you should prepare for it accordingly. It will help put things in perspective.
I miss you, buddy.