I moved twice. There was a lot of upheaval at home. And there was a beginning that created bonds that no matter how thinly stretched can snap back again and again.
One of those ties unraveled today.
1989... I was an amazingly awkward high school sophmore. Privately processing childhood trauma while living an almost separate life at school. I was being to form the friendships that somehow stick. What is it about being 14? Anyway, the force of nature which naturally attracks misfits had lead to to a small core group of friends.
Some older some younger. But we meshed. We became a core. Oh we floated in and around each other over the decades. But when anyone of us were in need: we'd rally the gaming group together.
I spent decades doing a dance of frienship and frienemy with one particular guy. No one and I mean no one could make me angrier. And yet I'd try to go back and mend bridges. And did over and over. In the end I just couldn't help him. He had shut down so far from reality. I had to step away. A lot of us did. He was hugely self destructive and highly destructive to those who cared for him. But we never really, completely stopped trying. Not really. He was one of us. I've said so many times: He's an asshole but he's our asshole.
There were many awful times. But there were these moments of pure humanity. That made me, at least, what to reach back out.
He said to me once: "No one will remember me. No one will care when I am gone." And he did his best to kind of self fulfill that. But he was wrong. He hasn't been forgotten. Not ever. Not when he was his most self destructive. Not when he was his most hurtful and harmful to those who cared for him.
This morning connected together the band of misfits. We all were checking in on each other making sure we shared the news of his death in private ways. Offering comfort and acknowledging the hurt and loss.
I had to cut him off a few years ago. As I had many times before when he would get abusive and cruel. But I regularly, all be it secrectly, checked in on him.
I admit that I knew I couldn't help him and couldn't be ringside to be an emotional punching bag anymore. I loved and hated him for lots of reasons. He wasn't a likeable guy 90% of the time. But for those of us who he sometimes let his guard down to, we saw the soul of he man. And it was a scared kid who was desperately afraid to be abanadoned.
Jim you're not forgotten.
(I found this post as a draft two years later. He's been on my mind: a whiff of cigar smoke, a bag of candy, a bald man climbing into his sedan coming out of Phantom of the Attic.
I am sorry this lingered for so long. All these words were shared in March 2018. I give you Ouzo for your birthday and in remembrance of your passing.
What is remembered lives.)
