Yesterday I found out that one of my best friends has killed himself. I first met Rob back at University of Arizona, where we were both studying creative writing. As students do, we spent long hours in drunken ramblings about what constitutes talent, and he always seemed to trump my own ideas about which writers were good by lending me books written by better ones. He was a Hemingway freak: when sober, Rob could be as sparse as that author's dialogue, but while drunk he could as rambunctious as the man himself. Some writers I've grown to love--Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, Tim O'Brien--I met through Rob.
After graduation, my growing idealism led me to decide to leave the US for Japan, with the intention of not returning for quite a few years. But Rob's wedding brought me back Stateside, and he in turn took part in mine. (This pair of ceremonies served as catalyst for a long, somewhat meandering international phone debate about his new found Catholicism [via Tolstoy!] and my own Gary Snyder inspired Zen.)
Like many passionate friends, we lost touch for awhile. Six years later, I found him in Dallas. He'd been suffering from a condition which required heavy medication, turning him into a mere shadow of the intellectual giant I'd know him to be. During that visit, he decided to go off the meds. The clouds parted and suddenly the old Rob was there. I was encouraged, was sure that Rob would pull through. My visit gave him strength and during subsequent phone calls, I sensed a guy still struggling, but able to keep his head above water by clinging to the rocks of his Catholic faith. Yet fighting the current for too long can lead to an unbearable fatigue.
A couple weeks ago, Rob sent me a email, wanting to start up a community newspaper together in Chicago. I'd have refused, but no doubt we would have had a great conversation about the paths our lives were walking. Usually I reply to his mails quickly, but this time, overwhelmed with my own detritus, I put it off. The guilt I have is heavy. As in the past, would he again have found support in my friendship, leading him in a direction other than toward self-destruction? I'll never know.
But I do know that I love the man. I'll miss you buddy...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Very touching reminiscence, Ted. I experienced something similar nearly 20 years ago, when I was in grad school.
One of my best friends was suffering from depression, but I discovered this only in retrospect. Unwittingly or not, he was giving all sorts of hints about his situation, but I was too self-absorbed or too blind, or both, to realize it.
I had borrowed a CD player from him at some point and wanted to return it. "Why don't you keep it awhile," he said.
He was gone a week later.
Post a Comment