saying goodbye to an old friend

my sophomore year of high school, my sister aliza was in love with this dude jay, a local landscaper just a couple years older, who had a kind and playful personality that tickled her fancy. she used to follow this dude around all the time and so eventually she became enmeshed in his clique of landscaper, mechanic & contractor buddies, spending a lot of time with his friends joe, romeo, dave, brian, and brian's older brother andrew, to name a few. they'd all get together at brian and andrew's house every night and drink and smoke and play video games and talk trash and so on.

around this time i was developing a much better relationship with my sister and since we had so much in common at this point and so many overlapping friends and interests, she'd bring me along rather often to hang out with this crew over at brian and andrew's house. and while i was in school with andrew & brian's youngest brother eric and his friends, the guys noticed i was a step above their triviality and treated me with respect and decency, even if and when they were fucking with me.

andrew was a good guy. he had a great sense of humor, a deep laugh, and he was an adventurer. he loved rock climbing and skiing, winter camping, you name it—wherever there was adventure he would seek it out. if i recall, he was how aliza originally found out about new paltz... because that's where andrew would go to climb. (aliza and i both eventually wound up at school there and she stayed living there for 6 years.) andrew also had exceptionally great taste in music and we often swapped grateful dead tapes and discuss the finer points of say, one version of "sugaree" over another.

andrew was also in love with my friend kate who i was in love with too, but andrew didn't know she was gay. i remember having to break it to him. phew.

but you know, life moves on, people grow apart, and i haven't seen andrew in years. last i'd heard he was still landscaping, and hanging out in the basement, which is cool man, so long as he was okay with it.

well after work yesterday i got an unpleasant surprise: a call from my mom. andrew killed himself the night before last. something about a girl. don't know any details. but it's really sad and disappointing. andrew was a good guy regardless of whatever he made of his life in the eyes of our society. he was a good, honest person, who cared about people and was surrounded by friends that cared about him. he had a spirit of adventure that inspired many. and i hope that that spirit lives on.

judaism teaches that suicide is a baaaaad decision, and that the things that tortured you which led you to suicide will be amplified and plague you worse so in the afterlife. for andrew's sake i hope this is farthest from the truth more than anything else i can imagine. and in fact, for the falseness of this statement, i pray.

i'm sorry you had to go brother. damn.