It's been half a year since my last blog entry. And I regret to say my return to blogging is due to a major tragedy. Last Friday 1/30/15, my very close friend, John, committed suicide. He jumped in front of a big rig and by the time he was rushed to the hospital, he had been pronounced dead. At least that's what the newspapers say. I was there to witness it and I surely wasn't aware that he was that depressed. It happened around 8am on Friday. I was at work. He was pronounced dead by 9 or 10am (different sources gave different times). I was still at work. I'm trying to recall what I was doing at work around that time, but that's moot point I guess.
I drove home after work that day. Still blissfully unaware that this tragic event had taken place. It wasn't until early Saturday morning, I was awaken at 6am from a phone call. It was my co-worker. I was still dazed, half asleep as I answered. I heard her voice. It was shaky.
Co-worker: Hi, sorry to wake you, but I was just wondering if you had heard about John.
me: No...what happened?
co-worker: He committed suicide yesterday.
Those words echoed in my mind. I actually still replay my co-worker's exact voice, saying "committed suicide yesterday" over and over in my mind. It's surreal.
There's so many questions, "what?", "when?", "where?", "how?", and my biggest question: "WHY?!?!?!?!??!?!". What has happened? Where have I been?? How could I have let this happen?? Am I to blame for this?? Could I have prevented this?? When was the last time I saw him?? Why didn't he say goodbye to me?? Why didn't he say goodbye?? WHY DIDN'T HE SAY GOODBYE??
I couldn't believe it! I had to google the news myself! Link after link, I pulled up three different sources that confirmed the same thing. This awful truth. This nightmare. John really committed suicide. This is real. It's not a dream.
You know, you always hear about people that commit suicide or you see it on TV, or you see those suicide hotline signs when you drive on a bridge, but never would I have imagined that it would hit so close to home. My close friend, someone that I've gotten to know so well for the past year and a half.
My whole weekend was a daze, to be honest. After I heard about John, I called his sister and of course, she was hysterical. I had to many questions for her, but it felt so inappropriate to interrogate her when she was so grief stricken. I really had no idea what to say. In between her sobs I would just try to throw in a "I'm so sorry" but I was really trying to hold it together myself. After I hung up the phone with her, I surprisingly was able to compose myself and got straight to work.
You see, the reason I came home this weekend was to help my grandma figure out an insurance fiasco so she can go see a doctor about some back pain she's been experiencing. She somehow got switched out of her medicare and into some HMO which changed all her doctors, urgent care centers and ER's she's able to go to.
So I spent most of my Saturday morning calling medicare, then I called her current HMO and figured out a few urgent care centers that are covered. I ate a quick breakfast and whisked my grandma off to an urgent care center. After >3hours of waiting/examining, she was diagnosed with a pinched sciatic nerve. I filled her prescriptions, got her home, cooked her some food, fed her some meds, and she felt better and slept like a baby the rest of the day.
I kept myself busy for the whole first half of Saturday, so I wouldn't have down time to think about John. But when my grandma went to bed, my parents were both at work, I had the house all to myself and that's when it started to hit me. John's gone, he committed suicide. He was THAT depressed. And I missed it? Or did I? Did I see signs but just didn't help him? Could I have helped him? Again, so many questions. I broke down for a little bit, but it didn't last long. My emotions came in waves.
It really helped talking to some friends about it and just getting it off my chest. I want to tell more people that knew him about what has happened, but I'm not sure if that's in my place. Do I want to be the bearer of bad news?
Saturday ended with me sleeping early. Sunday came around and again, it was a daze. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to be reacting. Should I grieve? If so, should I be crying the whole day? Am I really grieving if I'm not crying? If I cry do people think I'm weak? If I don't cry, do people think I'm cold?
I had to drive back to this place of tragedy, John's final resting place. I had 2.5 hours of alone time in the car during my long drive back. Normally, it's very difficult for me to stay awake, but that wasn't the case this time. My roller coaster of emotions kept me wide awake. There would be periods of the drive where I would break down and cry, then there would be periods where I would be ok, then periods of crying and then I'd be ok. John was on my mind the whole drive. I finally decided halfway there that I would drive straight to John's house, where his sister is still staying, and just check in on her. And that's exactly what I did.
Of course, it was a tear fest when I saw her. She helped answer a lot of questions I had. John had been depressed for >2 weeks now. He had been having health issues and he couldn't work anymore. He had to quit his job, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to be a doctor anymore. That was his passion, being a doctor and helping people. He was so depressed that he wouldn't be able to help people anymore that he stopped sleeping, he stopped eating, he barely talked, he was so sad. I heard from his sister that he just sat around for almost 2 weeks straight. The last few days before his suicide, he didn't sleep at all, he was up 24 hours straight. His sister tried to talk to him and would force feed him food, but he wouldn't talk and he barely ate, and he wouldn't sleep. That's her theory of why he killed himself, he just couldn't live with himself not being able to help others anymore.
His sister told me that I was very special to him. He would often talk about me, saying how pure of heart I was and what a nice person I am. She told me that he really does think of me as a half-daughter. He always enjoyed spending time with me. He didn't used to like watching movies/TV but he would rent movies just to watch them with me, he thought it was really special watching movies together with me. He enjoyed eating with me, if he had a choice, he would eat dinner with me every night. I was one of the reasons that he stayed here and one of the reasons he was happy here. She told me that he really valued my friendship.
Those words really brought tears of joy and tears of sorrow. I cried and cried with his sister, as expected. Although I don't really feel like I deserve such praise, I'm really honored to have made such a big difference in his life. I really truly am.
"You may be only one person in the world, but you may be the world to one person"
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