Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of the death of a someone who was very dear to me. Of all the things that happen 'naturally', death is the one thing that will never seem natural to me.
Dealing with death is never easy. It is even more difficult when the person takes their own life, as my friend Leo did. I have always heard the stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Then I saw
THIS article a while ago, and for me, the article says it a little better. I have been through the range of it, over and over it seems. I just need to talk a little about what I experienced now.
The denial is what started it off and lasted the longest for me. I guess when someone dies, especially when death is so sudden, it makes sense that you want to say it didn't happen. You don't want to believe that you never get to see the person you love again. Even if you are a person who believes in an afterlife, I think that thought still crosses your mind. Leo was such a huge part of my life that I couldn't imagine life without him. And so instead of dealing with it, I embraced denial. I was willing to believe anything, including him faking his death and being in witness protection. Anything was easier than to believe he was dead. Something that was hard for me too, was that I had never seen the dead body of someone I had known while they were living before. I had worked at a hospital and seen corpses in the morgue, but seeing Leo in the coffin, it didn't look like him at all. It looked like someone who had never known him tried to make a wax dummy of him. I think this made it very easy for me to reject reality and deny it all. It was honestly months before I could even start to accept what had happened.
This is when the bargaining started for me. I don't think there was one thing I didn't offer as a trade just to have him back for a minute. Just to get to say the things I didn't say and to take back the things I wish I hadn't said.
Leo struggled with addiction his whole life. I met him through my boyfriend; they were childhood friends. When I met him, he was getting help and winning the fight. With him, it was pills. Always pills. I had known him for about six months before he was totally clean. I don't know how long it took for me to realize I was in love with him, but the first time he kissed me, I just know that I had secretly wanted it to happen for a long time. My boyfriend was a good guy who deserved better, and I never thought I was the kind of girl who would cheat, but emotionally, I cheated. I was raised very religiously, and even though I had pretty much given up on religion at this point, my conscience got to me. I did what I thought was right at the time, and told Leo I couldn't do this, I couldn't be that kind of person. Even now I can see how he looked when I said it. But he said he understood. He said if I ever changed my mind, he would be there waiting for me. And we were still friends. A while after this happened, he took a job doing traveling construction work. He was away for months at a time, but when he was home, he basically lived with us. It was good times, having him around. Eventually, he quit the traveling job and came home for good. Then my boyfriend and I got engaged. And things slowly began to unravel. He came into contact with a girl he had known when he was younger, and they started dating. I thought it would be a good thing. It wasn't. Over the course of several months, he changed. When he would come to our house, he never brought her. The time he spent with us got shorter and longer between visits. Near the end, he only came to our house when they had a fight. His personality changed and I have been around it enough to know when someone is getting high. I went to his house, and confronted him about it, and he didn't deny it. He just said that when he was with me, he didn't need the drugs. If he couldn't be with me, then he didn't owe me anything. And we fought. About a week later, I came home from work and he was at our house. The last words I said to Leo were "I don't care what you do." Two days later, his mother called my boyfriend and told him that Leo had hung himself.
Of all the words that have ever come out of my mouth, the ones I will always regret the most are "I don't care what you do". I have never said anything that is more untrue than that statement was, and it was the last thing I said to him before he died.
I think that when someone commits suicide, it is always the case that the people who loved that person blame themselves. You wonder if you should have seen something. If you should have known that something was not right. If you could have done something differently. And the truth is, people don't get to know the answer to those questions. It seems cheesy to say "be careful with your words", and yet every day for the last year of my life it's something I wish I had done.
At some point in there, I got angry. I was angry with myself for choices I had made and things I had said. Eventually, I was angry with Leo for doing what he did. I made a lot of choices, but he took away the opportunity for me to change my mind or to apologize. And then I was angry at myself for being angry with him. There was a vicious anger cycle going on at an incredible rate of speed for a long time.
All along, I knew what a big loss I had suffered. Leo was my best friend for many years. He was a great listener and never judged me for doing things a certain way or thinking crazy things. He was the first person I had ever known who was truly interested in me as a person, not because I was someone's sister/daughter/friend or because he could use me or anything at all besides that I was Sully and that was enough. Leo had his flaws and his demons, but he was the most kind-hearted person I have ever had the privilege to know. He was the person I talked to when I was happy and the person I talked to when I needed comfort. I actually picked up the phone to call him at one point, because I needed someone to talk to. It didn't hit me till after I dialed the number what I had done.
A few months ago, my boyfriend (fiancee) and I broke up. We still see each other almost weekly, but we know that we make much better friends than anything else. Eventually, a break up or divorce is what would have happened, but I know that Leo's death was what made it happen so soon. My boyfriend ended it, but I know now that I loved Leo. He was the one I should have been with.
My sister tells me that I don't know what would have happened if I had chosen Leo and left my boyfriend for him. Maybe we would have been happy, maybe it would have ended the same way that it has. And my sister is right. But the not knowing...the possibility that it could have been different cuts me like a knife.
I don't know that I have completely accepted that Leo is gone. It seems like the process is not over. There are still days that I feel like I can't deal with him being gone, and I have to revert to denial to get through the day. I think the hope that he isn't really dead will always be with me. It's not that I don't believe he's gone, its just that the world seems like a much better place if I can imagine that he is still in it.
I find that I look for him, or at least that I look for his qualities, in everyone I meet. I know that no one will ever be all the things that he was. I even know that I see him with rose-colored glasses...I can't help myself. It's easy to forget the little things that annoyed you when the good things out weighed them by so much. But those good qualities are what I try to find out there somewhere. If I can't have my Leo back, I sometimes wish for a reasonably similar replacement. I know deep down inside that this wouldn't fix anything. At this point, no one is going to be able to fill the hole that I have in me. Maybe in the future, in another year or in five years...but not yet.
I don't know what happens when people die. If they live on somewhere, if they come back as something else, or if they just cease to be. I don't know. What I do know is that I wish my Leo was here with me everyday. I miss hearing his voice. I miss the way his face crinkled up when he smiled. I miss how he could always catch my eye, no matter how full a room was, and make some goober face at me till I laughed like a crazy person. I miss so many things about him.
I just needed to get this out. Its been stuck inside for a long time, and there's no one I can talk to about it like I need to. Maybe, if he's out there somewhere, he knows what I am feeling and he misses me as much as I miss him.
I love you, Leo. I will always love you.
~Sully
