Candles in the Wind

“And it seems to me you lived your life, like a candle in the wind.  Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in.  And I would’ve liked to know you, but I was just a kid.  Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did.  Loneliness was tough, the toughest role you ever played.  Hollywood created a superstar, and pain was the price you paid.” So this week has been hard for me on a personal level. And for once it has nothing to do with my love life (or the “lack of a love life” to be more precise), or with work, or family, or finances, or anything else that might make a week seem bad to most people. No, it was the suicide of a close friend, someone that I’ve known since we were both in 6th grade. And maybe I shouldn’t use the word “close friend“, because even though we would text each other every so often, he did live 500 miles away. So we would only see each other maybe once a year when he would roll into town? However, I was very aware of his troubles with depression, because he had reached out to me more than once about the struggles that he was going thru from time to time. And like anyone else that was in his circle of trust, I’m sure now not only do we share that same grief of losing him, but maybe we share some guilt too because it’s natural to think “was there something I could have done?, maybe some way of showing him that life was still worth living?” Because quite honestly, I didn’t do anything other than reply back to his texts with the standard “damn I hate that, have you tried blah, blah, blah?” Perhaps if I would have jumped in my truck and driven to Weatherford, Texas, spent a few days with him, maybe he would still be alive today? I do know he loved his daughters, his grandchildren, and was still in love with a special someone from his past that I had the good fortune in meeting. Someone that he would bring up to me in conversation, you know the one that got away. Most times I would tell him to reach out to her, try and work things out, because maybe she still felt the same way too?, besides, what have you got to lose? But he would always just blow me off and say “naw, it’s better to leave that in the past where it belongs”.

Was his death shocking to me?, no unfortunately it wasn’t since I did know of his personal demons that he was battling. But what has actually impacted me is that he was the second good friend of mine from back in the days of my youth, (someone else that I had known since 1st grade) who decided to also depart this world in the same way – by their own hands. Only 5 months before, the death of our class president, a very successful businessman, a longtime client of mine, someone who’s popularity with all others seemed unmatched, came to the same conclusion that life wasn’t worth living. His death was a personal blow to me, because I always looked up to him, envied him in some ways. From the outside looking in, he had everything that we all wanted – success, looks, money, and a beautiful family. Who wouldn’t want to be him right? And on that Mother’s Day morning when I got the news of what had happened, it literally took the wind out of me (and quite honestly, there are still some days I still think about it and him). I have no answers on what would possess either one of these friends of mine to decide to make a permanent solution to maybe a temporary problem? I say “temporary“, but honestly I don’t know how dark it was for them? Though it had to be so fucking dark that they thought it wasn’t ever going to be possible for them to come out of it. And I would never compare my own low moments in life to what they were going thru, but obviously I’ve had them as well. I NEVER want to go back to Father’s Day weekend of 2020, just having been dumped and starting my life anew in a small apartment, with just my clothes and a bed. No furniture, no kitchenware, NO NOTHING. Did I have some dark moments as well that I may have thought perhaps it would be better if I also ended it? Because who would miss me other than my daughters? I knew no one would. But I also realized that it was just a temporary setback, and the promise of a better tomorrow was just a day away. But for that fleeting flash of a very small micro-second, I understood what they might have both been feeling?

There is one other thing that will always tie these two gentle souls together, in addition to their lifelong friendships of mine. As popular as they both were back in junior high and high school – one was our ‘leader’, the one that all the guys wanted to be and all the girls wanted to be with. The other was the football star, the jock, someone who we all idolized because of his athletic skills. As painful as many of those days from back then were for me because of my lack of size (obviously I was neither popular, good-looking or athletic as they were), and the constant bullying that I had to endure on an almost daily basis, these two guys NEVER took part in that. Oh they definitely could have, I mean that’s what all the cool kids did back then right?, pick on the ones that couldn’t push back. But they never did, in fact they were always very kind to me. And I never forgot that all these years later, because they didn’t have to be. Not sure what made them that way, other than perhaps good parenting, or a kind heart?, or most likely both? Wherever they are today, I hope they realize how much they both meant to me. And I wish I would have been there for them, to maybe cling to when the rain set in, but I didn’t know their private pain and how dark it was. You were both superstars in my life, and you always will be. Thank you for being that candle in the wind in my youth, and I will always love you guys for making my childhood just a little better.