In Memory...

I have a very narrow window to blog, heh, thank work and school for that (obviously I just got home from work. It was pretty entertaining). So, I'm gonna at least ramble a little bit about things on my mind.

It's been one year exactly since my friend Adam died last year. I knew it was coming and checked what the date was.

To start, one thing that's always quietly bit away at me was how I was a pretty horrible friend. I mean, even after he got cancer around a year before his death I just kinda shrugged it off and ignored it because of other "important" matters that were really just consequences of my naive attitude and utter incompetence that hindered me until maybe the end of my Junior year and cost me at least one good friend, and another potentially good one if I would have hung out with him afterschool (things I regret to this day when they come to memory).

And I guess that guilt (which disappeared for a while with minor reappearances when his absense would come to mind) perhaps subconsciously (I'm theorizing here) what drove me to try and help somehow with a very depressed friend of mine who constantly mentioned how she wanted to die or how better off the world would be without her. And in the effort to be a better friend and to try and keep anything bad from happening to her, I failed because she wouldn't allow help, she didn't care about help, she didn't care about our friendship either. Oh well. Maybe in my hope of helping I couldn't see that she was making idle threats that were just melodramatic in nature.

But I remember that I found out he died in my 6th hour when two classmates were talking about it, and as soon as I got downstairs to the "Crotch Ball team" afterwards, no less than two people used the terminology involving death which just didn't help at all... another thing I miss sorta, the whole Crotch Ball thing (it's not how it sounds, it was merely hackey sack with crumbled paper duct taped into a ball -- the name came about thanks to the scarf we first used one day and what Orlando did with it.)

And, for a time after the funeral especially, I remember how much I contemplated the concept of death -- not as an option mind you, but as an inevitable reality, and what might or might not happen afterwards. Do you or your "soul" exist afterwards, or is it all for nothing in the end, just a faint echo that quickly disperses into the emptiness of the vast universe? Things along those lines.

I know it got Mike onto the topic of death in the aftermath since he was there when I mentioned a friend had died and then he was reacting to the two people that used the death terminology in their "hellos":

...People die from mistakes, people die fighting battles (pointless or not, that opinion doesn't matter in my point), people die doing stupid things (the definition of "stupid" is subjective), people die from other people doing wrongs (subjective), people die from disease, and people die from old age. People die innocent and guilty, moral and immoral, it doesn't matter. Death is democratic, pure and simple. Everyone is counted--everyone falls into it, regardless of wealth or status or lifestyle.

Me, I'm saddened when people die not of their doing at a young age. Too many "innocent" people die every day. (Note the quotes. Innocence is subjective.) Why, it's the people that go out and do drugs, drink, and have sex every other day that live as long as they do, while their good quiet, shy, "good" friend dies in a car accident at age 16, of course. (This is an exaggerated allusion to an actual incident.)

People in general die and fail, but good people and smart people seem to fail because the society forces us to appeal to the lower of the bunch...
- Mike Tigas, ~December 10th, 2003

Life goes on of course, and it did that day too when the Crotch Ball game kicked into motion, in which a quote of mine became common terminology and memory for some of us:

Me: "You suck with your legs!"
Orlando: "I didn't know my legs had mouths!"

That is maybe what kept me in check from getting too down about my short fallings and the loss of a terrific individual from the face of the Earth before he could even get out of High School and perhaps make history with how intelligent he was. Those after school hang outs for that game also helped when I missed the second half of the day he was buried on for the funeral. I remember walking back to school that day and getting there when they were getting ready to play afterschool in the front lawn of the school (which still is really messed up still from our activities a year ago).

Those games are now a memory, as is the existence of Adam and his tragic end at a young age. I can only hope that he is in a better place, and that my short fallings as a friend can be forgiven by him and others I neglected and messed things up with during the times when he was alive, some of which were before he even was diagnosed with cancer.

So much for rambling, It's 6:30 so it's time to get going. So much for the other topics, too. Heh. I just know I'm probably not the only one who knew him remembering his early passing.

Hope you're resting in peace, pal.