One day during the summer before college, I left your house. Driving down your white gravel driveway, I felt a punch to the gut.
I didn’t want to be away from you.
You liked me. I liked you. You liked me, liked me. I just wanted to be friends. At least until then.
I didn’t know how to begin. I was paralyzed by how exposed I felt.
We were riding in the back seat together returning home from the Great Escape. There was a weighted hush in the air, like before a summer storm. I knew then that I needed to write you a letter.
You read it and asked with a grin, “And now what?”
“I’ll come over tomorrow before work.”
My hair was…disheveled and my mascara was all over my face when your mom came home unexpectedly.
I’m turning red and covering my eyes writing this…not from shame, but from bashful delight.
Your parents were the chill ones.
You were the chill one.
Mine and me were a little…crazed.
We loved one another so damn much. We got one another through some real intense stuff. It was codependent as hell but whatever, it was still love.
I can hear us now reassuring one another, sorting it all out together. You held my grief. I held your rage. Your nuance. My clarity. When we got it right, we’d meet in the tender middle.
I was there when you… You were there when I… A lot of our relationship was a big hot mess. And it was also. Revelatory.
After more good than bad times, we broke up, and went different ways. We’d touch base once every couple years and chuckle about how I became more like you and you more like me. More than once one of us would say, “God, I was awful, I’m so sorry.” And the other would reply, “What? No! It was me. I was nuts!” Then we’d wish one another well and go on our separate ways again.
You always had a melancholy. I know now that I didn’t know the scale and magnitude. I guess none of us ever truly heard or understood.
Four and a half years ago you died by suicide.
It’s been so hard.
I spent a little time on the mountain
Spent a little time on the hill
Things went down, we don't understand
But I think in time we will
Though it’s grown me up quite a lot, this grief’s got a shape so big and amorphous, I can’t get my arms all the way around it. Maybe it’s something like the despair you were trying to live with.
Now, I don't know, but I been told
If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load
I don't know whose back's that strong
Maybe find out before too long
Thinking about how I was among what added to the impossible pain in your life has brought me to my knees many times.
I wish I had held you more gently more often. I still feel the weight of all that passed between us, soul to soul, the things you trusted me to hold.
And I hold close the moments I did get it right. When you felt able to tell me everything.
I write this under the same summer solstice sun, on the same line of earth that welcomed you. And still does.
With quiet awe, I met your wife and your son—your love moving forward through them.
You really wanted me to like the Grateful Dead but I really only ever liked Jerry’s New Speedway Boogie which is one of my favorite songs. I get it all more now.
Thank you, Sam.
Now, I don't know but I was told
In the heat of the sun a man died of cold
Keep on coming or stand and wait
With the sun so dark and the hour so late
I spent a little time on the mountain
I spent a little time on the hill
I saw things getting out of hand
I guess they always will
One way or another
One way or another
One way or another
This darkness got to give