Death

            I experienced a shocking tragedy recently, made worse by its familiarity. A man my age, a dear friend, someone involved in enough of my seminal moments that he’ll forever be a touchstone, is dead.

            The third peer I’ve had to mourn in my life. The third close friend. He was thirty-one, the other two hadn’t yet reached twenty-five. It’s a sad commonality for the old to learn, daily, of the deaths of their peers. But there’s never a time where the loss of the young gets to be routine. It always cries out against logic.

            When people this close to you die, several things occur. A piece of you goes forever—we’re selfish beings so we’ll always bring this back to ourselves. You examine your own mortality. You swear you’ve learned to take greater joy in life—at what cost? And you over-think everything.

            Consider that last point; every coincidence pops like a whack-a-mole game, and you convince yourself that you’ve dodged a bullet in a cosmic plan that's out to get you. Nonsense, but that’s where the guilt of relief comes from. Guilt at being the one still alive.

            In 2002, I was living in Taiwan. Two of my Norwegian friends, Magnus and Thor, came to see me. Magnus and I spent the summers of 2000-2002 together, on three different continents. Thor had become a friend of mine through Magnus. They left in August, and in December, still in Taiwan, I learned that one of my best friends, Mike, had been killed in a car accident back in Canada. In March of 2003, Magnus was the one to email me that Thor had been killed in a freak accident. Earlier this week I learned of Magnus’ death.

            Three friends, three deaths, all connected to me, all connected to Taiwan in my head. You over-think this stuff.

            It horrifies me that of the three of us—Magnus, Thor and myself—who went clubbing in Taipei and slept on the beaches of Kenting, I am the only one still alive, not yet thirty-three years old.

            I learned of each death through email, formatted exactly the same way. A loved one (Mike’s brother, Magnus, Magnus’ father) began the note with the abrupt “______ is dead.” Seems harsh, right? But then how do you start an email which serves the singular purpose of delivering a tragedy? You just want to be relieved of it, washed clean.

            You’ll go crazy dwelling on this stuff. You have to find a way to deal with it, to mourn.

            But nobody ever told me how to mourn three friends in one lifetime.

            I haven’t gone a day in seven and a half years without thinking about Mike. I can still hear his voice. Magnus’ death is so fresh that I don’t think I’ve even processed it yet. Some nights lately I wake up crying, and some days I can go for hours without thinking about it—guilty every time I laugh or enjoy any sensation.

            The hardest thing about it is this: I will continue to age. Mike will be twenty-four forever. He’ll never marry, as I have, become a father, or buy a house. Thor will never look back on those crazy summers from the comfort of the “rest of our lives.” And Magnus will never ever again hold his beer to me for a toast with a wry smile, cigarette dangling saying, in that thick Norse sing-song, “Cheers, Paul.”

            There is no sense to death. It’s always just there and sometimes it comes early, sometimes too often. Feeling persecuted by fate will just make you feel crazy. Sadness is natural, guilt is natural, joy of life is natural.

            Today I just want to say this: I am sad and I miss my friends.