**note: i received a few worried messages following this post, asking if everything was ok. to clarify, i did not recently lose a friend - this post was a reflection on some things that had been settling for awhile, and anniversaries of the losses of a few friends. reflection is my form of healing... sorry to have worried anyone!
sometimes, when a friend loses their life, it's hard to know how to cope. how to go on. how to proceed with the monotony of real life. in that moment, your life changes, and you struggle with understanding how - you just know it will. and it has. in the moments following that realization, you often struggle with how it could even be. it doesn't feel real. you can't imagine what life without them means.
you feel an immense sense of guilt for laughter, happiness, or any seemingly menial feeling that you may feel. in the first moments - whether it be days, or weeks, or years - there are moments when you forget the world's loss, and you laugh. and the amount of guilt you feel when you laugh overwhelms you. you promise you will feel only feelings that are distraught for the rest of your life. you think of nothing but them. the thought of the world without them, and how each piece of your life together can't possibly ever be the same. you think of how you can't possibly laugh, smile, think or cry without them there to do so with you. you are angry with the world - when you see people walking around as though nothing has changed. do they not know what the world has lost? the moment they were lost was the moment the world changed, and those people around you - coworkers, disconnected friends, and even strangers - don't seem to care.
and then, days, weeks, or months later, you laugh again. and it becomes easier to laugh. it becomes easier to smile, and easier to think of thoughts beyond that loss. you recall that person fondly, and the moments you had with them. the moments at the beginning, the moments closer to the end, and any moment in the middle. you remember their laugh, and their smile. you remember the things that made them laugh, and the moments they made you laugh. you remember the conversations and the milestones in life that were important to them - important to them that you reached.
we all know in some capacity what it means to have lost. some more than others - and in many different capacities. when i was in high school, i lost a few friends for various reasons - voluntary departure (in taking their own lives), their own extravagant habits (drugs, motorcycles, overall lifestyle, and eating habits), or just fate intervening. nothing can prepare a person for the loss of a friend - especially a friend in their youth. but the experience certainly helps the next time. then the next time. and for me, it helped. even if it was a numbing. then, in my year after university, i lost a friend - a student who i had donned in my previous year, passed away in her sleep - and my other students struggled to come to terms with it. it was my experience previously that helped me with a calm mind, and a calm heart, to help support them.
i digress. losing a friend is never an easy thing to do - we could not easily call people friends, if we did not notice their permanent departure from our lives. and all this is to say that
this
song, perfectly encompasses that feeling. the gutting sorrow and hollow emptiness one feels. and, the space that is left, and the autopilot we must turn on when all is lost. thank you deer tick for that.
Some roads that you take | Some bonds we'll choose to break | I swore I'd no long be the pallbearer | But I carried you to bed | So you could rest your head | You were taking off a load, heavy drinking | The world it carries on | Your memories and song | And your pictures on my wall, are not forgotten | There was hymns that came from mouths | That turned crosses upside down | But it came through their teeth with great ease | And all are bobbing heads in sync | And all have got a lot on their minds to think about | But you carry on in pictures and in song | And the unmade be you slept in | Where I laid you down to rest one last time | Goodbye, dear friend, Goodbye, dear friend | Some stories break your heart | And some with such applaud | Buried deep inside, where it's ok to cry | Some boy's won't shed a tear | Oh, but I tell it like this here | It can break down and get me where it hurts the most | And all are bobbing heads in sync | And all have got a lot on their minds to think about | But you carry on in pictures and in song | And the unmade be you slept in | Where I laid you down to rest one last time | Goodbye, dear friend, Goodbye, dear friend | But you carry on in pictures and in song | And the unmade be you slept in | Where I laid you down to rest one last time | Goodbye, dear friend, Goodbye, dear friend