My Experience in Grief Part I

I remember clearly when I heard.  It was a Monday.  I remember well that fact because, at that time, Monday’s were my Friday’s with the job I had.  It was one of the worst days of my life. 

To truly understand the depth of this, let me tell you a little about the man I called my brother.  He was not my brother from birth or blood, but he was my family through a strong bond of love.  I knew Mike since we were in High School.  He was a little older than me.  Though we were friends before, we really became friends even more deeply after I graduated.  We were both in Drama in High School, and if you knew that teacher, you would certainly understand why her students came back to visit her regularly.  We had something called “The Breakfast Club” where we would come by once a week or so during her first hour prep and just visit and gossip.

It was during these Breakfast Clubs that I really connected with Mike, and we became family.  We both would be instructors assisting a Fencing Teacher that would train stage fencing for two weeks every year.  God, just thinking of those times, they were the absolute best.  The most precious memories I have...

In 2005 I think it was, he was working at a popular electronics store...won’t name the place.  Two large television sets fell on him and damaged his back.  He would never be the same in his back after that.  He wasn’t paralyzed or anything, but he lived in constant, unrelenting pain ever since.  I think that was part of it for sure. 

But he still kept at the fencing, still kept at the relationships.  He came by my apartment regularly with our other friend to play and visit with my husband and me.  I remember one time we were playing Metal Gear Solid 4 with that hour long cut scene at the end getting sick off of bad Long John Silvers and wanting to die, but wouldn’t pass up the end cut scene!  I also remember the day after Halloween once where I had them over to my place for a gargantuan breakfast of pretty much every single thing you can imagine (breakfast burritos, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, pancakes...the works).  We all gorged ourselves so fully that we all passed out on my floor from food.

He had so much life.  Just so much joy he gave.  He was one of those people that make life rich.

I was planning for a trip to Las Vegas that summer with my husband and a few other friends.  It was the Monday after Mother’s Day.  I made a Facebook post about a shooting range where we were going to go on this vacation and tagged him and our other brother Thomas.  They loved big, fancy guns, so I thought they would get a kick out of it.

Then Thomas called.  I was incredibly excited thinking he was calling about the gun place and how awesome it was that I was going to try it or how jealous he was.  I was so peppy and upbeat about it.  God, how stupid.  He didn’t sound right.  He asked me to sit down.  

Jesus, even typing it now, I’m starting to shake.  Even these many years later.

I can’t remember the exact words Thomas used.  I do remember he had to tell me twice because I numb blanked the first time.  Mike was dead.  Mike shot himself.  He did it on purpose.  I thought he was being cute the night before when he posted on Facebook, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”  I thought he was being cute.  I still can’t watch the beginning to Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to this day.  I didn’t think he meant that.  Anything but that.

I went into shock.  The next thing I did was get off the phone and lose my mind.  I had just gotten ready to head to work, so I called my manager to say I would be late.  I was hysterical; I was crying uncontrollably.  My manager was a friend, and he knew how close Mike and I were; Mike came around often at work.  He told me I would do no such thing trying to come in.  He told me to stay home.

The next thing I did was call my best friend...my sister...Laina.  She was down to my house in a flash.  She was a friend of his too.  We cried together.  I called my mom who loved Mike too.  She came.  I called my grandma.  She came.  I called our Drama Teacher.  She came.

I couldn’t call my husband to tell him.  Mike had been best man at our wedding.  My grandma, Laina, and I drove up to GameStop.  He should hear in person.  When he came out and saw me, he was terrified.  I told him what had happened, and I saw the world break inside of his eyes.  I could hear the sinews of his heart snap and bleed.  He called a replacement and came home.

More friends came.  Graig was there, and they stayed with us until it got late.  When they all left, my husband lost it.  His nose gushed blood at how upset he was.  We went to my mom’s house and took his large quarterstaff our fencing instructor made for us and broke it across a tree.  

We were mad.  We were furious then.  We wanted to burn the world down, right down to ash and dust.  I wanted to scorch the whole earth, but the best we could do was break a quarterstaff.  It’s so hard to describe now just how much rage we had.  I’m sure we didn’t go through the steps of grief right.  To think of it as a natural, linear progression is bullshit.  I’ve gone through it like a crazy two step where you’re all over the place going from grief to denial to bargaining to anger what seems like a million times.  

Through it all, I don’t think I’ve “completed” any step completely.  I’ve cried enough to fill a swimming pool (to say a river is hyperbole; while poetic, it’s not factual – the pool is), but I don’t feel I’ve completed the “depression” stage.  I’ve screamed to the night sky, inside my car driving, or into a pillow so much I should have nodes in my vocal cords, but I don’t think I’m over “anger.”

How do you get over your world ending?  That’s what this felt like for me?  How does one every fully accept it?  It has been seven years...seven years.  The hurt sometimes doesn’t even feel like it’s dulled.  Every day I wake up in a world without him in it feels like a travesty.  Some days I can’t even believe it’s true, even seven years later.

This is my grief.  This is my understanding of it.  This is why it influences me and even my writing so heavily.  He was family, and he is gone.