Remembrance
November 11, 2003
November 11 for me is not only Remembrance Day. I duly respect all the war veterans who fought for freedom in all wars. However, honestly, the wars we read about were a long time ago and don’t mean very much to me.
November 11 for me brings me back to 1999 because that was the day my best friend had a car accident that changed I think everyone’s lives. You see, this friend and I were extremely close. I couldn’t have thought of another person to, among other things, be my best man, be my son’s godfather, bring me home when I’m drunk, laugh at my when I get shot down by girls. His girlfriend was also another very close friend. The three of us were together hanging out and making fun of lesser people all the time.
That accident completely twisted the situation not so much because of the accident itself but more because of the aftermath that followed. He was in a coma for a week or two and during this time, there was utter hell as friends and family were found fighting over the pettiest of things. That really pissed me off. All I cared about was the welfare of my friend (at that point, his family didn’t tell any one of us his condition so we assumed the worst). While I was scared that I would be losing a friend, the assholes around me were fighting over, among other things, who was allowed to see him and who wasn’t, what she said and what he said, what to do with his money and things, finding new boyfriends, who disrespected whom. It was ridiculous. Had I had the emotional maturity and independence that I do now, I would’ve told them to shove things into places they shouldn’t speak of. After all, my priority was seeing my friend recover. Everything and everyone else was irrelevant at that point. (Read my Nov 15, 1999 update for some ideas of how I felt).
Now, being barely an adult, I was not exactly the most dependable person yet. I was completely distraught about my friend and I was tired of the bickering and fighting of those around me. Whenever I feel trapped in these situations, I close myself off – I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to even see you. I just want to stay home and think my way out of things. During this time, the other friend and I had a falling out because while I wanted isolation, she wanted me to give emotional support. While I understand what she wanted, I could not do it because being there would be being subject to all the fighting and bitching that tired me out in the first place. She was in the center of many of the arguments.
One night, I remember talking to her on the phone and she was pretty much threatening me that if I don’t provide the care, the attention, and the energy (by “being a friend”), our friendship would be over. Now, at that point, I hated everyone who wasn’t the friend in the accident – but I didn’t feel it was warrant to end a very good friendship. So I said I would try my best to be there.
However, the next day, I find out she broke up with my friend. You see, he had awakened from the coma but had not regained full rational control – he was persistently calling her and I guess just being a big pain in the ass. She couldn’t take it so she had to break up. In my fragile little mind, I took this as her giving up on him. I thought this to be entirely hypocritical because just the night before, she was telling me something about me giving up on her. That was the last straw, I decided never to speak to her again. I would focus my attention on my friend whom was the one I cared about the most anyway.
I stuck by the friend for I think several more months. He had recovered miraculously and was adapting to a very different life (everything had changed). Unfortunately, somehow, he took a turn for the worse – he had always been a very smart, level headed individual but for reasons I don’t know – he turned to chemical substances. I remember getting some calls late at night asking me to drive him home because he was on some sort of substance and could not get himself home. I also remember getting a call saying I should go to his house because there were some guys who might want to start a fight with him over some ridiculous fight about cell phones or something. By this time, our friendship was strained, at best. We didn’t hang out much anymore.
I blame myself partly for this – he was, physically, still my friend. However, I noticed a lot of subtle changes in him mentally – I used to look up to him and thought of him as my big brother. At this time, I found the situation had reversed – he was a lot more immature and didn’t seem to know of behavior/consequence, action/reaction.
One of the last times we talked was when he called me and asked me to be at his house that day around evening. I had a midterm that night and would not miss it unless it was an emergency. I asked him what it was about and he said something along the lines, “You’ll know when you get here”. I told him I would not go unless he told me what it was about and I told him I had an exam that night. The reaction I got? As far as I can remember, he said, “You want to know what it’s about? I’m on heroin.” (or was it crack? It was something along those lines). The phone went dead after that.
Apparently (a friend relayed this to me), he had announced to family and friends that he had a serious drug problem that also brought along a financial problem. Yada yada yada. It really didn’t surprise me at this point.
I’m not the world’s cleanest boy scout, I smoke myself silly, I drink myself silly sometimes, I’ve tried a small selection of things I shouldn’t have, but I have never, nor will ever, touch anything as heavy as coke, heroin, or crack. I don’t blame him… he must’ve had his reasons. It easily could’ve been me had I been in that situation.
The last time I talked to this friend was at a new year’s party in my house. I got a call suddenly that night and he said he needed a place to “crash”. I said sure and in comes half a dozen people. It was not a fun night as many people were too piss drunk to realize their own actions. I will never host another big drinking party at my place because I never get drunk enough to enjoy it. I always worry about what people will do.
Anyway, that was a big brain dump. It is possibly the first time many of you read about this because I don’t remember talking to many of you about it. The reason I suddenly thought of this was because I’m comparing myself to this story and have I changed. The parallels are certainly here but my actions are completely different. I’ve given my girlfriend and her family everything that I could. In a way, I think I wanted to make up for the lack of giving those many years ago.
