I am really alone. We are all so very alone.
As we mature, stay healthy, exercise and do things to stay sane, those around us, coping less well, are going to be falling behind. Dying. Getting sick. Infirm. Injured. Out of the game.
Losing a best friend is different than a parent or sibling. All of our connections were intentional. He was my reader. He shared what he was excited about. Taught me a lot about birds, solar panel viability, and standard poodles. And Alexa. He showed me how and why I don’t use the personal assistant you yell at. He can yell at his dog or drivers in other cars. I don’t want anyone yelling around me all the time.
“Alexa dim the living room lights to fifty percent!”
The weight of his loss is still crashing into me nightly. A song I want to share. An epiphany I just captured in a short story. A woman of potential on Bumble, for him! He is still around me. His voice is growing a bit dim in my mind. With intention and some LLLM mining, I can keep my friend’s ghost alive within my neurochemical architectural complex, my brain.
Losing my other best friend… That’s where I am. My rock. My friend. My weekly tennis companion and life coach. Eighteen years further on down the road of manhood. No kids. Tech past. Tennis has connected us for over 25 years. His Breakfast at Wimbledon parties are how many of us mark time, the years going by, as some players/watchers are removed by divorce or death. Some players return after many years to find us still happy, laughing, and supportive of each other’s journey in both life and on the tennis court.
In modern recipes for longevity community is one of the prime success factors. Your circle of friends. I know from experience, that isolation kills. Isolation is my addiction when I’m depressed. I’m not depressed. My dying friend might be.
He’s got all the factors. The medical system is still working to prolong his quality of life. There is no “put him down option” in the US yet. But, I watched my childhood best friend lose both his mom and dad in the last six months. And when the cognition goes, so goes the soul. The Rocket, his dad, was lucid and enthusiastic until his 96th year. That’s a great run, I’d say. Then an infection of some sort took the light out of his eyes. He was alive. He was not enjoying much of the confusing mush rushing around in his brain, with anxiety, concerns about his wife, who was not fairing as well as he was physically. I was not there in the last week, as he took to the darkened bedroom and headed up the river. Every human molecule of his body was ready to evolve into “what’s next.”
His wife, my best friend’s mom, died a few days ago. She had been foggy for years, since a partial stroke left her slower and less responsive. She was still in there. You could ask her a question and she would answer. You had to wait for it. Give her time.
I never saw his mom after his dad died. She got private. We don’t talk all that much. He’s a best friend, but not a close friend. He is rarely available for any activity that he didn’t plan or that doesn’t go to build his next escape adventure. I’m not part of the next climbing expedition, and I’m fine with that.
fear : god > next | index
