My grief roars with the anger of a caged lion, leaving my chest aching and my head numb. So much anger and sorrow tied up together like a pretzel. It feels like one emotion and its taking everything.

He’s not gone, but he’s not really there.

Our friend’s mother wants to know if we want to talk to him on speaker phone, I’m waiting for my husband to get back from his mother’s so we can make the call together.

I’m trying to get my sorrow out now, so I don’t crack on the phone. Neither she or he need to feel my grief. She has her own, and he…

He doesn’t recognize anyone when he’s awake. I’d be a fool to think he would recognize my voice especially through brain tumor and morphine.

Grief and sorrow don’t work that way, you can’t rush them out to make space for the things you want to feel or need to do. They move at their own pace regardless of how much attention you give them. I learned that through grieving my father, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m trying to do it now so I can compose myself to send a voice message.

Joe sent a voice note, I don’t know what it said. I won’t listen to it but our friend’s mom played it for him and she says his eyes moved. I don’t know what that means. I doubt that it means anything other than he is reacting to stimuli. My science brain says its just a reaction, but the hole forming in my chest wants to believe that its recognition.

I want to say something, something meaningful. But none of what I think sounds right, it all sounds so hollow and nothing like how we would normally interact. It also sounds so final. I can’t do it.

We met in second grade. My best friend had moved away and I was in a social free fall.

I can’t say we were inseparable, but we were close, close as you can be in early elementary school. I think we really connected in the 5th grade, and we kind of became trouble makers.

Middle school was no different, except I think we had mostly burned up our propensity for causing trouble. We rode bikes, he came on canoeing trips with me in the summer, his family had a pool, and we spent a lot of time at the library.

In high school he was the first of us with a job, he rode his bike there because his family wouldn’t drive him. He always had the newest gadgets.

I remember one time he rode his bike to my family’s house in the middle of winter, carrying this big ass DVD player on his handle bars. He was so proud, he had bought it with his own money and wanted to show it off because he knew we would be as excited about it as he was. My mom insisted on driving him the rest of the way home so he wouldn’t risk slipping while riding home and break his new (expensive) toy. After he got his home theater system set up, we used to visit Blockbuster every Friday and pick out 2-3 movies to watch that night.

When he got his first car he brought it around to show it off. He had to buy it on his own because his mom and step dad wouldn’t co-sign. He was so proud of that car, and rightly so! He worked hard for it.

We used to play pool in the billiard hall above the bowling alley and hang out into the wee hours of the morning after we graduated. We drove almost all the way to Ohio in search of a 24 hour Walmart one time, just for the experience. And we ended up buying pool cues with matching cases. We weren’t really any good, but we had fun and that was what mattered.

I was with him when he got his first tattoo, and witnessed him blackout from it.

We went to cedar point sometimes just the 2 of us, and sometimes with another duo.

He was my adventure buddy! We had plans to tour all of the waterfalls in Michigan. WE HAD PLANS DAMNIT!

He introduced me to my husband though obviously none of us knew it at the time. But I will be forever grateful for this.

I wrote him constantly while he was in basic training, and he would call me when he was allowed phone time. He was one of the few people that I would answer the phone for if I was on the toilet, and he was the same when I would call. *phone rings* “Hello?” “Hey! What are you up to?” “Nothin’, just dropping the kids off at the pool.” “ME TOO!” *we both cackle*

He was stationed in Cuba when Joe and I finally got together. There were some WILD parties after he got back. I think the 3 of us saw WAY more of each other than we had any business laying eyeballs on. By the time he was being deployed again, I was pregnant. No there is not any chance that my daughter is related to him. Our parties were wild, but not THAT wild. By the time he returned on leave I was in physical therapy because I had been in a roll over car accident that August where I broke my shoulder and had given birth 11 days later.

Our friendship had changed a bit as a result of Joe and I having a child. Its funny how having a kid makes your childless friends think that you suddenly don’t like the same kind of fun anymore.

He moved to Florida before my daughter’s first birthday. We flew down to visit for our anniversary one year, we were the first people to make the trip to visit him since he had moved. Not even his own family had made the trip. We drove down again in 2016 splitting the week between Christmas and New Year between visiting with him and my Uncle who lived on almost opposite sides of the state. We didn’t make it down again until this past January (2025)

Distance and social media had a strange effect on our friendship. Even though we both had a presence on Facebook, we rarely saw updates from each other until weeks after the fact. And after I got rid of the platform and deactivated my account, staying in touch seemed that much more difficult. Becoming long distance digital friends with someone you are used to being able to pick up and go have coffee with is a difficult to wrap my brain around.

After his first bout with the cancer, I made it a point to keep in touch with him via text. Every message sent with intent, communication specifically to him.

Did it make any difference? I don’t know.

I don’t know what the point of all this is.

I don’t have some profound piece of wisdom to wrap this up with.

But I can tell you that life is shorter than any of us realizes. What you do with that knowledge is up to you.

Protect your peace. (Mine is currently in pieces)