Winter is a season of death.
Actually, fuck that. January is a month of death.
Period.
Yes, I realize this is a pretty bold (and morbid) statement, but over the past few years I just keep getting proved right. So many wonderful young people suddenly just... gone. In the past five years I have now had three of my friends die within a week of my birthday. Keaton Flood, one of my best good friends. Marc Parrone, someone I had practically grown up with and who had helped me through a lot of bullshit. Devon Elbe, a kid I used to go to shows with and party with all the time when I lived in Belleville. They were all in different stages of their life and they were all significant to me in different ways. However one thing remains the same...
They're all gone.
Just like that.
In moments like these, when your heart hurts and you're trying to understand why and struggling to accept it, we become afflicted with survivor's guilt. Yes, there is such a thing. We feel guilty that we're the ones that are still here and they're the ones that are gone. We can come up with a million reasons why it should have been us. This sometimes gets incorporated into the bargaining stage of grief. Remember when you were a kid and you'd say something along the lines of,
"Mommy I won't ask for ANYTHING else ALLLLL year if you just buy me this pony right now."
Loss is such an impossibly overwhelming emotion to deal with. In my opinion, it's one of the hardest things I've ever gone through because there is no finite start or finish. It's an infinite process, an infinite feeling. You may find ways to cope with it and accept it, but that feeling, that hole, is still there. Once you've lost something or someone there is never anything that will be able to fill that particular hole in you. Instead, we have to find a way to put a band aid over it, let it heal, and move on.
KUBLER-ROSS MODEL; FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF
(yep, I'm gettin' all psych major on you for a second)
1. Denial.
2. Anger.
3. Bargaining.
4. Depression.
5. Acceptance.
Nobody goes through these stages in the exact same way or the same order. And you will be going through the cycle over and over and over throughout your lifetime, it's not something that ever stops. Even as I'm accepting it, I'm still angry about it. Make sense?
Anyway.
To bring some positivity into this otherwise fucking morbid little bit, I try and remind myself that times like these should remind me of how lucky I am to still be here. How lucky we all are. And that to waste the time we have is complete disrespect to those we have lost. They were young and will never have the opportunities that we have and if we pass them up or neglect to fully live we're just proving that their deaths were completely pointless and gave us no meaning. Yes, we want them back. No, we didn't want them to die.
But they did.
And now we should honor their memories by making sure we live like we fucking mean it. Every morning that you wake up is a gift; it's not written anywhere that you have to wake up. There is no rule book for life. The Bible is more of a set of guidelines, really.**
Basically what I'm trying to say here is I'm pretty bummed that all these wonderful people are gone and that I'll never get to hug them or laugh with them again. Hell. I never even got to buy Keaton his first drink at the bar. The fact that he never made it to 21 really bothers me.
But I let that remind me to enjoy my life for them and for me. The sun is out and it's a new day and I am here. When thoughts of them pop into my head I make a wish and know that wherever they are, they're happy. And laughing at us poor suckers stuck down here in the 12* weather.
Never leave without saying goodbye or I love you. Hug the ones you love, often. Keep in contact with the friends you haven't seen in awhile. Smile. Laugh. Live a grateful life.
R.I.P.
Chad Wood
Kevin Hutson
OB
Keaton Flood
Marc Paronne Jr.
Devon Elbe
Jana Gaines
UPDATE:
Leo Mangrum (6/813)
iloveyou.
No comments:
Post a Comment