Dolor Comedenti

Dear Friend,

I didn’t know I had so much to tell you and so much to learn about you. I didn’t realize how many songs I wanted to share with you. I didn’t realize I’d need our messages to reread again and again. I deleted them all.

You gave me the opportunity to meet a genuine person that made me and everyone else feel loved and important. You gave me the opportunity to meet a person that would share his most embarrassing stories. I remember sharing excitement with you about that pitcher looking right at me–the most recent, at the game you should have been at. The excitement of seeing a country artist I had waited years to see, feeling comfortable enough to tell you I was crying.

I am glad you knew that I loved you, because I told you. I knew you loved me, because you told me. I was important enough to make amends to. I wish I had stayed at breakfast longer, drank up every moment I had.

I miss your singing rap songs like the white man from east Texas you were. I miss snapchats of your roommate and his dog. I miss hearing you talk about how hot your girlfriend was, and you sharing big things like when she dumped you.

This is a lot to miss for someone I met 6 months ago. Can you imagine if I’d had longer? A lifetime full of things to miss. I miss that you understood my thoughts on god, “if you’re into that sort of thing.”

I miss the person I immediately trusted with no good reason except intuition. The man that could have helped hundreds save their lives. The man people heard when they didn’t hear others.

I watched a movie the other day that made it hit home how much pain you must have been in. The story was different but the pain was the same. I cried and I cried and I cried and I imagined you in those last days, so miserable that you saw no way out. Of course it makes me wish I could have helped you, that you’d reached out. I know that I could not have fixed you. I could have listened and made you feel less alone. I wonder if that would have even made a difference.

Life without you in this world is weird, and hard to accept. It’s been 20 days and I still think occasionally that this is a sick joke. I’m angry that you’re gone. I don’t feel angry at you, but I probably am. For all the love you had for the people you met and touched, you had none for yourself. I hate thinking of you dead in your car in the Texas heat, but I do.

I miss you, my friend.