I found out just a little while ago that I guy Mike and I met back when we were in the Army, stationed in Germany, died a few days ago. He was only 39-years-old. It's so weird to think that he is no longer alive. You'd think by now, having lost my own son, I'd have wrapped my mind around the idea of death, right? But no . . . it's still so strange to me.
This guy who died - I'll just call him J - was never someone I would consciously call a "friend." He drove me up the wall most of the time. He was more like an annoying little brother that I couldn't get rid of. He was loud and obnoxious. He "borrowed" money I left laying in the open in my barracks room. He and I once got into a heated argument in a bar about whether or not Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was on the same album as Another One Bites the Dust (it wasn't). I am a HUGE Queen fan. I even saw them in concert twice before Freddie Mercury died. Seriously, do NOT argue Queen with me. I told him I could prove it because I had both CD's in my room. He still swore he was right. He was just that kind of guy.
Argh!
J liked piercings. One night we were all going out and J showed up with a chain running from his ear to a piercing in his nipple (he was wearing a tank top). Mike - being the older, more straight-laced sort of leader of our group - wrapped his finger around the chain and twisted it. J was immediately alert and paying attention to what Bear had to say! Mike then told J that he could take the chain out or Mike would take it out for him. J took it out!
Bizarrely enough, J and his wife (who we also knew in Germany) ended up living across the street from us in Illinois after we all had got out of the Army. Once, just after Keeghan was born, I was sitting in the living room in my pajama's nursing the baby and J just walked in the door from the garage to the house. I flipped out! Mike ended up pushing J out the door and then proceeded to give him a lecture on how we didn't live in the barracks anymore and that he couldn't just waltz into our house unannounced.
I could tell so many other stories about this guy. In fact, I have told stories about him for the past 20 years, and they were all pretty much the same. J driving me nuts. So why am I so sad that he died? It's just so hard to believe that this bigger than life, annoying-but-oddly-endearing boy - because that's really all he was when I knew him - is gone.
Death has always been weird for me. I have a grandfather who died before I was born, but when I was a small child I always felt like I knew him. I had a dream once that I was having a conversation with him. Even though I was a little kid at the time, to this day I remember that dream so well.
When I was about 20-years-old, a girl from my high school died in a car accident. She and I were anything but friends. A guy I dated for a long time in high school had dated her briefly during a period of us breaking up and getting back together. From the time he broke up with her to get back with me, she hated me. Passionately. Even after he and I were no longer an item, she hated me. That's high school for you, right?
So it came as a real shock to me when she died and I was so upset about it. Just my basic humanity made it seem like such a crime for someone to die so young. But selfishly, I also felt horrible about the fact that this girl went to her grave hating me so intensely!
A few months after she died, I once again dreamed of talking to someone who was dead. She and I had a long conversation about how silly our feelings for each other were and how the guy we had dated was SO not worth that kind of hatred. Essentially, we settled our differences. From that point on I no longer felt so bad about her hating me when she died; I knew that we were square.
Since Keeghan died, I have had numerous dreams of conversations with him. I don't always remember the conversations vividly, but I remember the feel of being with him again. Dreaming of him is almost like charging my batteries. I feel stronger, like I can keep up this pretense of life again, after "seeing" him in my dreams.
I know all of this sounds insane. It sounds that way to me too. I know it is all probably just my brain trying to help me work through my inability to grasp death. I think it's that inability to know exactly what happens after that is so hard. The hardest part of Keeghan's death for me was the feeling that he was alone, that I wasn't there to take care of him anymore. So many people say they "know" what happens after death, but 99% of it is religious dogma and I have no time for that. In my mind, religion is man-made. I am a spiritual person, but not a religious one. I don't want people's religious beliefs thrown at me to explain the unknown. I want to KNOW!
Which basically means I'm screwed until my time comes. In my heart though, I hope that death brings peace. Freedom from pain and suffering. Freedom from sadness and stress. Freedom to do things that weren't possible in life. Rest.
Rest in peace J.
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