Dream A Little Dream
This post addresses the suicide of a close friend. Please scroll away if you are triggered by such a thing. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please consider reaching out to a friend, a loved one, or even a trained counselor at the National Suicide Hotline by dialing 988 OR the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK(8255) from any phone.
I dreamt about him again last night. It happens once or twice a year… I’m always surprised to see him in my dreams, and since I know I’m dreaming, I try to draw it out as long as I can. We never really get the chance to talk in these dreams, I just see him smile. I feel his presence. I am reminded that I loved him once. I still love him in my way.
I dated this man off and on for a couple years, and while he wasn’t my great love, he was important to me. We understood each other in a way that I hadn’t experienced with a partner before. He helped me discover some of the most important parts of myself after my divorce and as I came into my own sense of independence. Lessons that became foundational to who I am even today.
It was never going to last. I was fresh out of a bad marriage and going through a very commitment-phobic experimental phase. We never had a falling out or an ugly breakup… we just weren’t a fit for the long game and so we let things go while trying to remain friends. He moved on. I moved on. I ended up opening up to my great love, and fell headfirst, heartfirst, body and soul. He said he was happy for me.
Our social circles overlapped and so I’d hear about him from time to time. If the rum was strong enough I’d hear FROM him time to time as well. Over the years the things I would hear would worry me more and more, but because of our intimate past and out of respect for the long-game relationship I was in, I never answered the drunk calls. I never reached out when he might be sober either. I moved across the country and let that chapter of my life end.
Over time I heard through our mutual friends and former coworkers that he had changed. I knew the man that threw dinner parties and taught me to make a perfect margarita. I knew the man that made going to work at my cubicle job a blast. It seemed that man was disappearing. The music-loving, restaurateur-aspiring, charming and oh-so-confident man I had parted ways with had started isolating himself from his friends. He stayed with the same girlfriend for years, but rumors of their epic fights would make the rounds. Instead of concerts and car shows he was now going to gun ranges and visiting questionable websites. He talked about moving to the middle of nowhere and living off grid, but not in the get-back-to-nature way. In the I’ll-defend-my-territory way. I didn’t know that man.
Then one day years into this slow reformation/deterioration I got the call. He was at his girlfriend’s apartment to celebrate his birthday, they got in another argument, he pulled out a pistol, and he ended things right there in front of her.
It’s been a little over 8 years since that phone call. Almost 18 years since the last time I saw him. At first I had so much guilt over never picking up that phone. Then so much pain for the girl that had to witness that… who probably never got to know the man I did. I’m not fool enough to think I could have made a difference in the end. I think by then he was too far gone to whatever monsters had taken up residence in his mind.
Mourning the death of a former lover is a very lonely experience. I don’t talk to any of our old mutual friends anymore, so there’s nobody in my world to help keep his memory alive. I think I dream about him as a way to honor the man I knew while trying to understand how he became the man that took his own life in such a violent way. I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
Drinking: Ice cold water from my nightstand
Watching: Casablanca
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Powerful, Shauna. Thanks for sharing and I am so sorry for your loss.
Thank you for sharing, being vulnerable and also being real about the experience, knowing you couldnt have helped..... A friend and coworker of mine took her life 2 years ago. I often reflect back on the unanswered messages..... The little things that meant so much more than I could have realized at the time.