Losing JR

It always seems to happen on the train.  I find myself forced to be still, basically alone with my thoughts, and they seem to drift to you on just about every subway ride now.  It's one of the few times that I'm both awake and not doing anything.  There aren't the usual distractions of life that essentially only serve as the giant rug under which everything is swept.  Sooner or later, though, I have to address what all is under the rug.

This last trip home I found myself in the grips of a despair that hit its peak as I drove back to the Metroplex from Houston.  As I drove closer and closer to where you no longer were, mile by mile my chest tightened, my breathing was sometimes labored, and tears came to my eyes.  Driving had to become the distraction so I would not crash.  These things hit suddenly and I realized that I was heading straight into the reality of your absence for the first time since right afterward.  Trips home always meant seeing you, and the harsh, immutable truth was that those reunions were never going to happen again. 

I captured many photos from your Facebook page the day you died (two of which are below).  I was in a panic, worried that maybe your page would come down and I would not get a chance to select photos that I felt illustrated your now-ended vitality.  These are often my riding companions on the subway, the same subway we once navigated together as you soaked in every moment of your only trip to NYC.  You bravely wore the mask of happiness when maybe somewhere inside was the cancer that was eating away at your soul.  Given what happened, this must have been a more regular occurrence than you were even willing to admit to yourself, let alone to allow others to become aware of the dark ocean you always fought to be near the top of so you could see some kind of light and pop your head out for a breath on occasion.

But I know that as you slowly sink, the water is too heavy.  It has a mass that can crush a man at the right depths.  You can keep trying to fight your way back to the top, but your legs can only kick so much until they tire.  Your heart can only pump so hard before it must quit.  Your lungs can only burn for so long with the strain of requiring air.  Your mind can no longer feel hope when in all directions: black.  The sheer terror of residing in this place for a moment would terrify most, but you must have lived there often.

I'm only guessing at this, of course, given your fateful decision that very early morning.  I'm only surmising that you spent more time in the dark than you let on because to feel at ease with that fateful choice, you must have believed it was the only one left.  The light that is your family and friends could not even reach your heart's eye because of the leagues and leagues of black ocean that you found yourself in were so far down that all light, all hope, was shut out.  Many would shudder to think of the weight and blackness that is found so far down, but you knew of it, and sooner or later it's no place to be.  You did not believe there was a lifeline to grab onto because when it's that dark, you can't see where it is to even try for it.  You don't believe one is there because most people don't believe in things they cannot see, but there were in fact lifelines all around you.  Still, the weight and the darkness robbed you of being able to know that, and you stopped trying to find the light and the lifelines that awaited you.

I wish anger was never a part of this equation but it is.  I feel its slithery fingers wrap around me sometimes like a giant hand with snakes for fingers.  The boiling inside me starts but I don't allow it to spill over because that's not how I want to think of you.  Just know that it's difficult for me, for your parents, for your friends, for anyone who loved you, and that number is enormous, cousin.  Those left behind often repeatedly grapple with this situation knowing no answers will materialize.  It's the worst kind of paradox: the more one ponders it the less resolution is achieved.  Of course most of my recollections bring joy to my heart for what they were, what they represented, but the flip side of that is the ones that never will be.  The anger arrives again for robbing so many of so much.  It's never about me the way it is about your parents.  They lost a wonderful man who hugged someone's soul just by being in the room with a roaring laugh then followed it up with the real thing. They will never forget a son who made them incredibly proud, as proven at your funeral when people had to be stand outside because the chapel was too full.  It's hard not to be angry at you, but I know you would never do do something you thought would hurt others.  I remind myself you believed this to be the only option left.

As I finalize this piece that I originally started back in April and worked on over the course of several subway rides and then did some editing to today, I will at least know that I kept my promise to myself not to change my Facebook profile picture for an entire year.  After today, I feel I am allowed to do that.  But it doesn't mean I will not fulfill the other promise of never, ever forgetting you or never to stop thinking about you.  It's impossible to not think of you.  And as much as today hurts, as if this is happening all over again, I know it can't feel for me what it feels like for my aunt and uncle.  I know that anyone who took the time to read this loves you, though.  I stayed pretty quiet about your death but I needed (and still need) a TON of processing time.  Some days I feel like I can manage, but there are others where I'm forced to be completely numb in order to cope.

I miss you every day, Cuzbro.  It's never easy, but I know somehow we will find each other again.  Please watch over your parents who I know agonize over this every day and at whom I marvel for being able to keep moving forward.  And while it has been incredibly rough today, two things happened that let me know you were with me:

1. "Under The Bridge" randomly came on my Amazon All 90's station today on my way to work;

2.  A FedEx truck just like yours was parked in front of the school making a delivery when I arrived to work.

Rest easy, my dear friend and cousin.

PS - This was written with minimal editing.  Sometimes I'm trying to keep it unpolished and raw.