If you've ever lost someone, you understand

Nearly a decade ago, when my best friend, Nik, committed suicide, I turned off my mind. I can still remember that night clearly. Afterwards, I was a statue... my face just a mask of stoicism and impassiveness. I denied the emotions that swirled with tumultuous furor behind the facade, and for a time, I was able to forget that they were there. For several weeks, I was able to live my life as if it hadn't happened. I was able to pretend that things were normal.

Almost a month after I went to his funeral, I was driving down a lonesome Kansas highway. I don't know where I was driving to, and I don't think I really cared at the time. As I was driving, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" came on the radio.

I broke down. I don't remember the next half hour, but I found that I had pulled off the road, and I was still sobbing uncontrollably into the steering wheel. I'd heard that song a hundred times before and it had simply been a song. That time it was different.

Tonight, I repeated part of that performance. I got the phone call I knew was coming this afternoon. When my phone rang, and I saw the number on the ID, I waited for almost a dozen rings before I picked it up. I knew what it was, but I was so terrified of the certainty. Without hearing the news, maybe I could live with the world as if it had never happened.

After I heard the news, I went about my business. I read an assignment for class tomorrow. I cleaned my microwave. I was in the middle of dusting some furniture while my computer played me some music, when the world knocked down my facade of normalcy.

The song was Jonathan Coulton's "When you go."

"Only a moment ago we had nothing but time.
Everything lasted forever, and you were all mine.
Only a dream, I know.
Thinking you'd never go.
Tearing off pieces of myself, just for the time it buys me.

"There in the frame of your face, the cast of your eyes...
I saw this coming, but still I am caught by surprise.
All of this time I knew
That I'd be losing you.
That doesn't mean that it's okay.
That doesn't mean I'm ready."
...

The twilight of my mind

My uncle died today. It has taken me several hours staring at my computer screen to finally put those words into the finality of black and white. A great light has gone out of my life. The man who was more my father than my father is gone.

I remember the times when he hooked a wagon up to the back of the riding lawn mower and pulled my brother and I around the yard. I remember him taking the two of us to a special little bakery in Kansas City where we could get cinnamon cakes. I remember sleeping in the guest room while he read me bedtime stories.

I remember with fondness all of the times I learned lessons from him – lessons he did not even know he was teaching. I learned from his generosity and his love for teaching. I learned how to take seriously my moral obligations and how to live for a unique vision of the good life. I still can hear the two of us debating modern educational policy and the role of technology in the living room.

I loved him. I miss him.

And I always will.

"Music, when soft voices die"
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Another distraction

I am, at the moment, doing anything but talking or thinking about my uncle.

The doctors have said that they don’t expect him to last more than 24-48 hours, since his liver is now in complete failure. The necessary arrangements are already being made.

I have come across a phenomenal song writer (via a recommendation from an old friend). His name is Jonathan Coulton and his songs run from the hilariously off-the-wall (“Skullcrusher Mountain” and “Re: Your Brains”) to the oddly insightful (“Flickr”) to the hopeful (“Millionaire Girlfriend”) to the serious and moving (“When you go”). Even better, you can listen to all of his songs for free from his website, and can even download certain select ones from him for free.

Personally, I’m quite fond of the off-the-wall ones. I’m still torn as to which of the two I listed above (“Skullcrusher Mountain” and “Re: Your Brains”) I like best. It’s a tough call.