A day of remembrance

November 11. Veteran's Day in the US. Remembrance Day in Canada (my calendar tells me so). A day to remember and give thanks to the brave men and women who have served and/or died for our freedom. How fitting, and coincidental(or maybe not) that 9 years ago this day took on another cause for remembrance for myself and my group of friends.

9 years ago today, 11/11/99, about this time of the day, I got the call from my friend S that our friend Paul had shot himself sometime in the early morning. I remember that call as if it were yesterday. It struck me as wrong as soon as I picked up the phone and heard her voice at the other end, because she had NEVER called me at work. That and the shakiness in her voice told me immediately that something was terribly wrong.

She said "Paul shot himself last night" and I remember asking "He shot himself??...Is he...is he dead?"

Of course, the answer was yes. At which point, I lost it. I remember going and standing in the doorway of my co-workers office, crying, and sinking down to the floor. I was 20 years old, and this just couldn't be real.

My boss was very understanding and told me to go home and take what time I needed. The ride home is a blur of tears and questions and disbelief. The afternoon was spent with our core group of friends, no one *totally* surprised by Paul's suicide, and yet at the same time, shocked that he had actually done it. And drugs. Drugs to numb the pain. The pain that they had helped to cause in the first place.

I remember thinking back to watching my mother cry after receiving the news that her good friend's 18 year old son had shot himself.

Paul had been one of W's best friends. He had a troubled childhood, in which his mother had abandoned him, his sister and her 2 children from a different marriage, leaving them with his father. He grew up VERY bitter toward his mother, and women in general. He, like a lot of our group, was into drugs, all kinds, but had definitely gotten into a serious relationship with meth and coke, and the old stand by, alcohol. He had a rocky on and off relationship with the mother of his 3 year old daughter. She deserved so much better, and I think she had finally realized and fully accepted that and told him so not long before he shot himself. (I am not, IN ANY WAY, saying that his suicide was her fault, although I know that she struggled with a LOT of guilt for a long time, as did many of our other friends.) I considered him my friend, although he treated me like shit as he did all females...he had more to hate me for than just his usual bitterness toward females though; he hated me because W and I had been seeing each other for about 2 years, and I had 'stolen' W from him...So, in compromise, the three of us spent alot of time together, doing our thing.

It was the start of one of the most difficult times in my life to date. Suicide leaves those surviving friends and family in such a bad spot. As much as anyone knows that they should not blame themselves, it is impossible not to second guess everything you said or did to that person. He had told W multiple times that he should just do it. Everyone knew the emotional struggles he went through. 2 weeks before he shot himself, he came to our apartment, wasted, in the wee hours of the morning and had passed out on our floor. When he woke up a couple hours later and we would not let him take our bike or our car, he stormed off, swearing we were no longer his friends and that we didn't care about him. 10 days before he did it, I picked him up in jail at 2am after he was driving drunk and crashed his car. He told me on the way home that there was NO WAY he was EVER going back to jail. I have no doubt in my mind now that he was already sure in his mind that he was going to do it, it was just a matter of when. He had called many of our other friends earlier that night, looking for someone to come and get him and hang out, but by that point everyone was feeling that they were at their last straw with him, nobody could handle being around him and the abuse that he doled out to everyone at all times. Any attempts at helping him were shot down and countered with abuse. This is why there was so much guilt among our friends. There was too much a feeling that we had let him down. Instead of stepping up, we had turned our backs. But what do you do when all of the help that you try to offer is countered with hatred and anger and pulling away? Not to mention we were in our early 20's, and many of us had our own issues with drugs and denial and emotional ineptidudes. Everything was just so foggy and crazy and messed up and we were so ill equipped to deal with the situation.

I still think about Paul on occasion. I still have his obit hanging on my tack board in my office. But, honestly, I can't say that I 'miss' him. I honestly cannot imagine my life right now had Paul not committed suicide. The mother of his child found comfort in the arms of another of his best friends, and he in hers. At first it was awkward, but now, it only makes sense. Today, they are married, with 3 children (hers, his and theirs) and they happen to be some of mine and W's closest friends. I *KNOW* to the bottom of my heart that were Paul still alive we would not still be friends, and I would not have J, one of my best friends, in my life as she is now (her and I really only became close because she was dating our good friend M). Nor would I have their wonderful children in my life. I doubt I would have had the opportunity to be close to Paul's daughter as I am now.

Not only that, but I think it has saved Paul's daughter and her mother, and all of us, really, of years of anguish watching Paul buckle under the weight of his depression and his substance abuse. Many of us went on to move beyond the crazy drug use that defined that time in our life, but a few did not, and I fear Paul would be one of those who didn't make it beyond were he still alive. It breaks my heart to see those people caught up in the vicious life that is addiction.

Paul lives on through his daughter. A is an amazing young lady who radiates her father's essence in so many ways...Looking into her eyes is EXACTLY like looking into Pauls, without the ever present trace of anguish. She has Paul's competetive spirit; that attitude that if it is worth doing, it is worth being the best (or sometimes, if I can't be the best then I don't want to do it at all). She is so smart, and spirited and I am so thankful to be able to watch her grow and to see her father shining through. Not to mention how wonderful is it that I get to be a guiding influence and a friend to her in this life.

So, today I remember Paul with a heavy heart. I am not thankful that he did what he did and I cannot be certain that his life would have continued to descend to the depths, and yet, the landscape of my life is hard to imagine without that experience, and it is hard to think about my life without his daughter and her mother and their family in my life exactly as they are.