When Someone You Love Dies

It’s true. You will see every missed opportunity lit up like a hotline you cannot answer. Your brain will upturn a drawer of memories inside your head. Faster than snow but slower than rain, they’ll deliver their voice, their inflection, how they laughed if you’re lucky. You’ll apologize to the ceiling and the shower and the inside of your eyelids, hoping each acts as a transmitter. It isn’t anything you can prepare for, really. It happens when you least expect it.

And you will blame yourself. Even if you’re states away when it happens. You will discredit your own logic for trying to persuade you there was nothing you could do. The news catches in your throat when you tell someone so you stay quiet until you feel like screaming. You will see a halo around every picture you have of them. That is the memory alive within, radiating photons back at you, light encoded with time. You will want to have done things differently.

What if you did something differently? 

The night my close friend Jonathan died, I—wow. It is so harsh to see in writing. My close friend Jonathan is dead. Not long ago, I saw him dancing.

That night, I cried myself to sleep for the first time since I was a kid in a broken home. Thoughts of my last time seeing him swam through my mind. Did something seem off to you then? What seemed off was how strange my friend had become to me. He’d been partying pretty hard and it frightened me, what he got into. Pulling back is exactly when I should’ve reached out.

Instead I shuffled it off to the future, when I got back from New Mexico several weeks later. We’ll hang out then, I promised him. Okay, he said. In my arrogance, I attributed the half-present look in his eyes to something he was on. Now I believe his expression was that of someone with their foot out the door. A better version of me would’ve clocked out and took care of him. The real me kept on working.

Jonathan had the extraordinary gift of bringing strangers together. He innately knew who would be just great for you to hang out with, and he was right. I owe many good friendships to his skill. From New York to SF, we’re all grieving his loss. 

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” an unrelated friend said. 

Watch me. “I don’t know,” I told her. “What difference would having him over for dinner one more time have made? Maybe none. Maybe a lot.” 

Please let this go on forever

Suppose I could throw him that dinner. If I got our friend back for one night, per Cinderella rules, my partner and I would cook for him. Something foreign and palatable if Finn is on it; spaghetti Bolognese if I’m in charge. Before Jonathan manifested on our plane of existence, we’d tidy up the apartment. Our friend would arrive looking no different than when he lived: plain outerwear over a skimpy neon tank, jockstrap band peeking over his shorts. 

We’d take his coat and hug him for as long as he could stand it. Jonathan’s hugs were genuine, unrestrained and lasting. He’s so tall, I would rest my head on his shoulders like I would love to do again. After dinner, I’d ask him what Heaven is like. I hope we’re allowed to know. I might ask if he meant it, I might not. If you fear someone’s in danger of dying, do you try to stop it even if it takes everything? When it wounds, or worse, inconveniences? 

I wouldn’t bother questioning whether I could’ve done better. The answer’s loud and clear. But I got scared as my friend got into a community that’s hard to come back from. And I let fear guide my actions instead of love and loyalty. No one could save his life single-handedly, but everyone, myself included, should’ve tried harder. Feeding Jonathan this one last time wouldn’t be enough to save him, but what would’ve happened had everyone fed him? 

“That’s what hurts most, living in the hell of needing his forgiveness.”

As the clock neared midnight, Jonathan’s departure would drive me to tears. Turns out knowing ahead of time doesn’t soften the blow at all. Every stage of grief would collapse underneath me into the sucking wound left by his absence. I wouldn’t know what else to say except sorry. Sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I let something stupid as anxiety prevent me from loving you more. You deserved so much better.

I don’t know what he’d say. That’s what hurts most, living in the hell of needing his forgiveness. But I know my friend. I think he would hug me and kiss me before he had to go. 

I hope there’s no such thing as Goodbye. If Heaven exists, Jonathan is there now, because he was good. If I carry on his love of dancing and bringing people together, it’s like he’s still here. I will give him muscle and water on the dance floor again one day, and he’ll be with us again.