Friends who have died...

[archeryguy1701]

Fortunately, I haven't lost anyone. Thought, over the past six months, it has felt like I've been dodging bullets. My best friend's roommate, and the roommate's baby and boyfriend died in a train accident. Another good friend lost 4 or 5 coworkers due to drunk driving. One of the girls on my volleyball team had an old friend commit suicide. Another two friends who have each had 4 or 5 people die in pretty rapid succession over the past month. And then, two weeks ago, a girl in the dorms I RA in commited suicide. I didn't know the girl, but it tore up a lot of my friends pretty good.

It's nothing compared to losing someone, but trying being there for so many friends so frequently after deaths is pretty tough in itself.

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

I have lost two close friends, one to cancer and other to suicide, but neither of them were Trekkies. To the OP's point, last week I mentally said goodbye to a close Trekkie friend who is deeply into crack addiction. I am now prepared to speak well of him at his funeral. He will either kill himself through the drugs or suicide. He has threatened the latter. In fact I checked him in over the weekend to a local psych ward because he was threatening to kill himself. The doctors let him out a few days later with a change in his anti-depressant medication. Within 12 hours he was back to using crack.

Sorry to hear that. I know that you've done a lot for him and have tried to save him from himself. Words don't seem like enough.

 

[JAG]

When I was little my family hosted a kid a couple of years older than me from the Bronx, as part of the Fresh Air Fund program. He visited us each summer for several years. Then one night my mother woke me up and told me that he'd been killed by a stray bullet from a gunfight he was in the wrong place at the wrong time for.

My general dislike of New York City was pretty much cemented after that.

I've never had much love for New York in general, but this news has me worried. A good friend recently moved TO the Bronx.

NY is not the Wild West you know!

 

[ria 75]

Susan - died of a hole in the heart when we were both 11. She had been excited about the upcoming first walk on the moon but died before it happen. I remember that, as Armstrong stepped onto the moon, I wished Susan had been there. Since that day I often think of her when I see the moon.

I am very moved by this story. And I am stopping my reading of this thread there for now. I cannot take all those stories at once.

I have been fortunate enough - or perhaps I have had few friends.

There is a guy, Joe, whom I met 2 years ago in September. I was struck by his grace and dreamy eyes. He was a writer and a poet and a dilettante, who read on every subject. I only spent a couple of hours talking with him (it was in San Antonio), then we became pen-friends. We exchanged a lot of e-mails. He had no secrets for me and shared some of his writing.

He was born with a heart malformation and his bad health came with medication-resistant chronic depression. He took medication so strong he did not have (or remember) dreams. He was followed by 2 kinds of psychotherapists but that didn't help him find a reason to get up in the morning. He was in love with his neighbour but was the joke of fate: respect and ill-timing. He missed a chance to get her between 2 boyfriends!
In the summer of 2007 he went to a psychiatric clinic as an out patient rather daily. It was just about sitting at group therapy or something, but he had a great fear of being committed.

Then he stopped writing. I haven't heard of him in 15 or 16 months and if he hasn't committed suicide, he must be dead to the world. That makes me very sad.


My new avatar is a tribute to someone beautiful and inspiring who died:
singer Jeff Buckley (1966-1997). I only discovered his music in 1998 but I became a great fan and the more I heard, the sadder I felt about his demise. In a way, he was like a friend. He was with me every day. I could not listen to anything else, although I tried. Today I am listening to him frequently again - hence the avatar.
I can't think of a greater loss to the world.

I am adding this picture because I frequently change avatars.

 

[kissthestar]

At 48, I know more dead people than live ones. Know'em, not see'em. Just want to emphasize that distinction.