The Incomprehensibility of Your Best Friend Dying

This is expression of "writing things out of my soul" came to me in the last year or so as I began to write more. I wrote an  article recently about a close call with a terrorist attack in Russia. That had been sitting there for a few years. 

This experience I’m writing about here happened some time ago, so there’s no need to write me or ask me how I’m doing.

I'm doing quite well, actually!

But, what triggered this experience were recent events in my life that it gave me pause to reflect on how valuable friends are, period.

Some of you know me here. Many of you have met me in person.

When you think about it, someday neither you or I will be here.

So, when you have someone close to you that was very much here, and is now not here, the irreplaceable spirit of friendship cannot go without comment.

If you hear of another's loss that when told truly brought you to tears, it was no surprise that this memory came floating up to my mind, ready to be told. 

It's interesting. I couldn't have told it the way that I needed to until now.

I'm beginning to understand why my Mom let her spaghetti sauce marinate.

It's ready when it's ready, right?

This article is not so much about witnessing the death of a friend.

It’s really my way of saying farewell to a friend in a way I could not really articulate until now. 

...When the doctors told me that my best friend was not going to make it, I believe I went into shock.

As soon as you hear these words, “I’m sorry, but your friend is not going to make it,” you immediately think this cannot be.

You think this is impossible. 

This is my best friend.

I remember looking at the doctor who told me this, and I know I was not in my body.

I was outside by body to the side watching our conversation.

I would look over at my body, and then look over to the doctor.

And then while outside my body, I looked back at me.

It was surreal.

My body looked frozen in time.

Like it had just seen a real live ghost.

And then suddenly I felt this enormous grief and I slammed back into my body.

I was back in my body staring blankly at the doctor thinking, "I cannot believe this."

I remember the doctor reaching out and lightly grabbing hold of my left arm.

I was spinning. He knew this.

He was just trying to ground me.

And then all my hearing cut out.

I was like, WTF is going on here?

You know like in the movies, when there’s a really bad car accident and the person stumbles out of the car and is wandering around? And there’s no sound and it’s all in slow motion?

That’s what happened to me for real.

I couldn’t hear anything.

I saw the doctor’s lips moving as he was talking to me.

And then suddenly my hearing came back.

And I heard the doctor say, “He asked to see you,” and pointed towards the room Mike was in.

Mike asked to see me.

You think you will be all brave and shit when something like this happens. 

You know, put on your best game face and everything.

You don’t want to go in and see your best friend like some slobbering idiot.

So, I put my game face on, but I knew I probably was going to lose it.

I remember walking into Mike’s room and there he was with tubes and shit and the EKG machine in the corner.

There was a nurse tending to him.

His eyes were closed.

I remember looking over to the nurse.

She looked at me then over to the doctor and shook her head slowly.

Damn, I thought to myself.

He’s dying.

I remember the doctor coming over to me and saying something like he didn’t think Mike could speak, but if I wanted to, I could take a hold of his hand to let him know I was there.

I walked over to the side of the hospital bed and picked up Mike’s hand.

I remember I was trembling inside.

That whole brave thing went out the window.

As soon as I picked up Mikes hand, he gave my hand the slightest squeeze. 

I could sense that he was telling me he wasn’t going to make it.

Like “Hey, this is it, bro.”

I started fucking crying.

Tears were streaming down my face as I was trying to hold it together.

My whole upper body was beginning to convulse from the avalanche of grief.  

It felt like Mike was crying too. He couldn’t talk but it didn’t matter.

He was telling  me he was going to miss me something fierce, but that he was okay.

His communication was as clear as a bell.

My tears kept streaming.

I could not believe what was happening in that hospital room.

In those moments you think maybe you can will your friend back to life. You know, “I can keep him alive.”

I remember thinking, “Hold on, Mike. Hold on,” like I had the power of life over death.

I cannot remember wanting someone to hold on so bad.

I remember wanting some magical ability at that exact moment to give him the breath of life to live.

And then Mike’s grip went slack.

And the next part I won’t ever forget.

I felt Mike leave his body.

I think the only word I can think of to describe that exact moment was devastation.

Everything I had built up to armor my soul had shattered.

There is nothing like witnessing your best friend leave forever.

Nothing.  

I know this might sound odd. Maybe even arrogant. But I am an able being. I have helped thousands of people best conditions they thought they could not.

But when you are faced with not being able to reverse the course of an event that you witness first hand, an event that is your best friend dying, you feel somewhere deep inside your soul that you should have been able to save his life.

It was soul crushing beyond description.

One moment I was having flashbacks of throwing a football around together. Sharing a beer at a baseball game. Talking shit about how hot our girlfriend’s were. Giving each other high-fives making a sales quota.

Laughing and joking around because this is what friendship is all about.

And then you hear the finality of the EKG.

And as a writer, I don’t know if there is any way to convey what it’s like to feel or experience your best friend leave, you know, Mike as a spirit leaving his body.

Well, I knew without a doubt when he left.

Just like you know your spouse has left for work in the morning.

You know their spirit is not in the house.

Leaving for work is one thing.

But leaving forever is quite another.

All I can tell you is this:

You have people come and go in your life. Your teenagers leave for college. Your daughter leaves to marry her boyfriend. A marital partner wants a divorce and leaves you. A colleague you love at work leaves.

Leaving is occasioned with loss. And the loss is commensurate with the investment of love you have for that being.

But Mike was not coming back. He was not going to another baseball game with me. He wasn’t a college buddy I had not seen in thirty years leaving me a message on my cellphone to meet up. 

So, really, this kind of leaving is rare.

Yes, my parents died years ago. Although they were older and getting ill, the loss was very similar.

But there’s just something about a best friend who leaves too early in your life that is difficult to articulate.

I mean there’s a reason why they’re your best friend.

And that “reason” is really a connection they made with you and you with them that was unlike any other.

So when that connection is gone, there is a unmistakable void where there was something special.

When this memory of Mike came up recently and was ready to be written out of my soul, it made me reflect about friendships in general.

The whole subject of friends has taken quite a beating since I grew up as a kid.

I mean, I never thought I’d encounter fake friends or false friends. It took me awhile to even get my wits around this.

And really, the upside is I have many incredible friends.

But I have had a few friends who have chosen for some reason not to be my friend anymore, who are very much alive.

Losing good friends even when they are alive is just wrong.

It’s just wrong.

You know this if you have a good friend who is not good friends with you now.

Losing a best friend forever is almost incomprehensible.

I subscribe to the belief that man is his own immortal soul.

So, in simple language Mike’s body died and he left.

However, it didn’t stop my avalanche of grief.

But it did give me comfort knowing that his spirit moved on and who knows, maybe he liked having a hot dog at the ballgame with me so much he decided to come back here.

I know, that’s really out there, right?

But I’m young enough at heart to believe in exactly these things.

Because why not?

So Mike, if you are reading this and something stirred deep inside you like some not-entirely-forgotten-good-time-memory, read on.

I know you have a different body, and most likely a different name.

And there’s as good a chance as a throw of the dice at the craps table, that you might remember my name.

Because of our connection.

In the event that those dice tumble with the mind boggling odds that you and I would joke about, I’m going to be the same crazy-ass Dave you once knew and tell you what to do next.

When the Rays play next at Tropicana Field, go buy a John Deere baseball cap like the one you had .

I know. I know. It sounds crazy.

But humor me.

Buy that cap and go to a Rays game.

Wear it every time you go, just like you did with me way back in the day.

And when the TV camera pans to the bleachers and they show this guy whooping and hollering wearing a John Deere cap, I will smile inside.

Because if there’s any reason to be young at heart and believe in these things, this is one of those times.

And because goddamnit Mike, like I told you years ago:

“Nobody wears a John Deere cap to a baseball game.”

See you around, Mike.