When a Dear Friend Dies....

 

This was a post I was hoping I didn't have to write.

Way back in 1994, when I was a senior in high school, I had a job shelving books for the Toledo Lucas-County Public Library.  Back then libraries had considerably more physical books, and it's kind of funny thinking how Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book were the closest thing we had to the Internet before the Internet really took off.   After a few months of working there I met a new co-worker: Tom Ellis.  We hit it off with each other right away.  After working together for a few months, Tom would leave after getting a job with the U.S. Air Force.  Unfortunately we didn't stay in touch, until by a massive stroke of luck a few years later when I met Tom's brother, Bob.  Bob and I became good friends, while Tom lived in Florida, close to their parents.  Then --I'm tempted to say it was in 2008 -- Tom moved back to Ohio, and he and Bob shared a mobile home in Bowling Green.

For the next 15 years I would visit Tom and Bob at their home.  We would eat meals together, watch T.V. together, spend time in deep conversation with one another.   It didn't happen quite as often as I would have liked -- due to our competing work schedules and responsibilities, but I deeply cherished the times that it did.  Then, in 2022, after my mom and Carter and Milton passed, Tom and Bob really stepped up to the plate for me during my time of immense grief and sadness.  There were times where they would even let me crash at their place for the night, when I didn't want to be alone.  It was very comforting knowing that they continued to be a fixture in my life, even as so many other parts of my life were crumbling away.  To me they were like angels in human form.

Then, in June of this year, Tom received a devastating diagnosis: Glioblastoma, a very aggressive form of brain cancer with a 5-year survival rate of 5-10 percent.  The median survival time after diagnosis is a mere 12-18 months.  Tom had surgery not long after diagnosis, and for a very brief period he showed some improvement.  I remember the last time seeing him this past summer -- I believe it was July -- when he proudly showed me the back of his head where his scar was.  I was hopeful it would buy him a significant amount of time.

Unfortunately my hopes were misplaced.  Tom's difficulties increased over the last couple months, and he was moved to hospice on Christmas Eve, where he died peacefully on December 26 -- yesterday -- at the age of 51.  His sister called me with the news.  I was devastated.  No longer will I be going back to hang out with him and Bob, like I had been.

Why am I writing all this?  Lately I've been reflecting on how it's so difficult for so many people to find their way in this world.  Tom, I think, was one of those people.  Heck, I think I'm one of those people!  In many ways we were kindred spirits.  Like me, Tom worked various odd jobs during his adult life, trying to find his true calling.  He never married nor had children.  He conveyed a nonchalant and almost snarky attitude towards a world consumed by wealth, power, fame, and social media likes.

And yet -- underneath his almost mischievous smile and laugh of his -- I can't help but think that Tom felt a certain sense of disappointment and disillusionment towards the world he was living in.  Oftentimes it was hard for him to be out in public.  At times he struck me as being depressed and having an "it is what it is" mindset.  A couple years ago he told me that part of him wanted to move back to Florida after his parents were gone -- they had moved up to Ohio in 2023 to be closer to their family.  Part of me wanted to convince him to stay in Ohio, at least for a while.  Now, knowing that neither of those things will happen, I feel for his parents, along with the rest of his family, who have to say an awful and heartbreaking goodbye to him instead.

I don't have any other words to say at the present moment. I realize that time stops for no one.  And yet I can't help but feel sorrow for living in a world where so many kind, decent, goodhearted people are cut down long before old age, while so many others who are cunning, ruthless, and selfish live long lives and repeatedly hurt others without remorse.  But that is the world we must live in.  I don't mean to sound so dark, and I hope I can gain a better perspective in the weeks and months ahead.

Until we meet again, Tom, may God rest your soul.  I'm gonna miss the hell out of you.

Videos That Have Helped: Grieving the Life You Didn't Get

Kirby, a trauma and attachment specialist, is the man behind the YouTube channel Two Mind Method.  He has a really good video: "Grieving the Life You Didn't Get".  Grief isn't always about losing loved ones -- sometimes it's realizing that we're not going to live the life that we had originally envisioned for ourselves.

Some of the major points made in the video: 

- life is not fair - Lady Luck is oftentimes not on our side.

- so many of us have trouble finding the right romantic partner/job/financial security.

- thinking our life would be so much better if we could only have that one thing/group of things. 

- sometimes the reward we get is nowhere proportionate to the effort we put in.

-  a lot of times for good things to happen, we need to be in the right place at the right time in the right circumstances.

As I say every time I link to a video: the whole thing is worth watching.  And even though the YouTube comments section can sometimes be horribly toxic, reading some of the comments for this video has been humbling for me -- whenever I feel bad about my life, I realize there are many other people who are dealing with some pretty huge challenges. 

Words to Ponder Over: Robert McCammon

I found this extended passage from Robert McCammon's 1991 book Boy's Life.  I don't think I need to add any commentary here -- I think it speaks for itself:

“You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

That’s what I believe.

The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.

These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you.”

Words to Ponder Over: Dr. Mary Lamia

A few weeks ago, I was at a public library when I stumbled upon this book by Dr. Mary Lamia: "Grief Isn't Something to Get Over".  Dr. Lamia, a psychologist, published the book in 2022.

 

There were a few quotes in the book that stood out for me:

"We may find comfort in focusing our attention on what we had, rather than on our yearning to restore what is impossible to replicate in the present."

"The passage of time after a loss is helpful to us as the discrepancy between past and present memories become less stark."

"A person's death is a distinct but incongruent memory, and it is hard to assimilate it into what we know and remember." 

"Goodbyes are only a single remembered event in a lifetime."