Day Eight 2016

I am not alright. I said I was struggling this month and today I am not OK.  Today they buried my friend Jay.  Sometimes I call him Okie Jay, or BJ, to differentiate from Texas Jay, or the Jay that was my roommate at OBU. 

I knew this crazy dude for 20 years, then he went and ended his own life a week ago, and I am not even close to being alright.  Once again I find myself explaining that of course there are people who are probably mourning him more that I am, his parents, his son, his family, his former loves.  By all accounts tonight his best friend was in pretty bad shape.  However, while all that is true, I am not OK with him being gone.

He once called me his mentor and said I taught him everything he knew about sales.  That is flattering because that boy could sell a hairbrush to a bald man and had a personality that could fill a room.  Have you any idea how hard it is to say goodbye to that?

Some people at the Remembrance and at the after party were angry with him, and some people are looking for someone to blame, or trying to find an explanation why.  I think everyone was thinking if he had just called… So many people loved him, and this is unbearable.

So what is my big holiday take away?  How do I make this merry?  I don’t.

There is this quote from The Little Prince that I like

And there is this, that I got from Texas Jay.

I will miss my friend, and I will never forget him.

Denver 2011