Death of a Friend
While reading through the recent posts of friends on the internet a little earlier today, I tripped over a cryptic reference to somebody I knew, and began a frantic scramble to hopefully disprove my fears.
The blog still sat there, but a guest post had appeared with another cryptic messagethis time with a link. I followed, and began reading. A chill took hold of the room, and I found myself reading the message again and againtrying to make sense of it.
She was dead.
A little after Christmas I realised I had not seen her online for some time, and decided to send an email (we had exchanged email addresses in the distant past, after discovering we were strangely alike). Within 24 hours I received a disjointed reply.
She told me she had tried to take her own life.
Given that the world and it's dog was probably heaping sympathy on her, and showing sudden concernin the same way as children staring at the mangled remains of the cat's latest victimI chose to ignore and distract. Over the course of a few days we spoke via email about anything and everythingexceptpast events.
As has been documented in recent posts, a couple of weeks ago work tipped my life upside down. Rather than reading blogs, writing posts, and sharing any great quantity of my life with the online community, I effectively went offline for days at a time. Early mornings and late evenings became a swirling black hole of tiredness and fatigue.
Finally this weekend my world righted itself, and afforded me the chance to catch upto read backwards through the recent past, and relive the memories of strangers that have become unlikley friends.
And she was gone.
I've had a curious hollow feeling all afternoon. An emptiness. I'm not sure if it has been the remnants of the bug that has plagued me for the last couple of weeks, or the creeping dread that all things end. I don't have a frame of reference to compare anything against. I haven't had to deal with many deaths in my lifemy grandparents, my other half's last grandparent, a co-workers husband, and a friend's small child. That's it.
In the immediate aftermath of the discovery I read posts by others about herobituaries by friendsand found myself privately railing against their overtly public descriptions of grief. Clever people being clever, and riding the nightmare in order to further their literary status.
They never really knew her. None of us did. We knew a version of her. We only ever know a version of each other. Perhaps I was lucky in getting to know a different version than most.
I expect the quiet moments will be filled with her memories throughout the evening, and the days aheadbefore they are replaced with getting up while it's still dark, getting on trains, pretending to be clever, and putting one foot in front of the other. It's what I do. It's how I cope.
I keep putting one foot in front of another.