On a Serious Note...
under cut for serious case of seriousness
Dear Journal,
I'm still not ready to deal with K's death but I figure I should at least write something. I've been going around for the past couple of days in a permanent state of blissful denial so the full-on grief wave hasn't hit me yet. I'd rather it didn't hit me for a while but I'm somehow thinking that won't be the case...
As you know, my best friend and closest confidant died a few days ago. He was killed by a drunk driver. Luckily, and I use that term very sarcastically, the driver was able to get away unscathed enough to drink and drive another day. Kyle was a gentlegiant of a man; he was a son, a husband, a future adoptive father, and a best friend. I'll spare you all of the "Days of Our Lives" melodrama but if anybody deserved to die less, it was him.
I've dealt with loss before, Fortunately, I guess some could say, I was too young for the full-impact to hit me. Now that I'm old enough to understand, I won't be spared that youthful sentiment. For those of you that have lost someone dear, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's that "Feeling" that haunts the pit of your stomach no matter how much you choose to ignore; the one that turns food to ash in your mouth, tdreams into nightmaric montages, and tints happy moments with shades of gray. It keeps pulling the whole Gay Pride slogan on me and telling me that "it's here, it's queer, and it will be around for at least another year."
The worst thing about grief, I believe, are the stages. You all know what I'm talking about? You've got shock/denial, pain/guilt, anger/bargaining, depression, reflecting, and loneliness. I'd say I'm somewhere in the combination of denial and anger. The worst part of that stage is how you treat the sympathetic, uninvolved parties in your life. It's like you can't help but snap at the people who come to you and offer you condolances. I've been on the opposite end of the spectrum; I know how hard it is to offer sympathy to a grieving person because you (Well, ME at least) can never figure out what to say or do to make them feel better. But it's almost unintentional. Some part of me knows I'm trying to ignore the fact that Kyle's gone, gone, GONE so every time someone comes up to me to offer me some sort of sympathy, it just brings reality crashing back. Instead of the words offering condolance, they just rip me apart all over again and remind me of how useless I am in the face of Death. Utterly fucking USELESS.
It's not about me, either. It's about JBJ, the man Kyle was married to. It's about their unadopted daughter waiting for parents that will never show. It's about the entire James' family and especially Mr. James, a man who will never get to hold or bicker with his son again. I was confronted with this reality at Kyle's wake the other day as literally HUNDREDS of people wept over his urn. I was reminded when Mr. James, a domineering man known for his ruthlessness in the business world, bawled and pleaded for his son to be given a second chance on Earth. I was bitchslapped with this knowledge when JBJ drove recklessly all the night prior in hopes of getting into a car crash and dying. As selfish as I am, it really isn't just about my grief.
A friend of mine told me on the phone the other day that K would have wanted me to move on with my life. As I listened to her spout the usual sympathies, I thought, 'No... No! If it were me who had died, I wouldn't want to be forgotten so easily. I can't think of anybody who would want to be reduced to wistful memories like that.'
So I'm not going to move on, at least not for a while yet... And I sure as hell am not going to move past the stage of denial anytime soon. I just thought that K deserved at least a little sign that I'm thinking of him; even if I am pretending like everything's still fine...
-Destiny