A sad goodbye to my dear friend

My friend, Scott, died last week. I don't think that many people will notice his passing or feel the loss. I will. My children will. When I found out on Friday morning that he was gone, I immediately began thinking about all the things that I will miss about Scott.

Before this begins to sound like a trite obituary about how marvelous someone is now that they're dead, let me say that Scott was not the easiest person to love. I can already see my Ash smiling as she reads this. She'll be thinking...what fun are easy people?

Scott could be difficult and abrasive. He drank too much. He was obstinate in the face of logic. He was loud. If those are all the faults that I can come up with, then he must have been a pretty good person.

He really did have a heart of gold. I guess the most important thing about Scott was that he always wanted to do the right thing. Once, when we hadn't seen each other in a while, he hugged me so hard that he broke my rib. That is almost the quintessential essence of Scott. Trying so hard to be good that it hurt.

He had this wonderful floppy 80's hair. He had twinkling blue eyes that lit up, especially when he smiled his quirky, almost crooked smile. He had a great belly laugh; almost like a little kid who laughs so hard that they make you laugh even if you don't understand what they think is so funny.

Scott and I shared a lot of life's ups and downs. He was there when I lost boyfriends to tell me that the guy was a jerk and I didn't need him anyway. I was there for him when his mom died and he was grieving their estrangement and dealing with the guilt. We watched Bugs Bunny together in the mornings after we worked night shift at adjoining businesses and laughed like 5 year olds. Whether it was hard stuff or easy stuff, good or bad, we were there for each other. We dated and stopped dating. We were roommates at other times. We didn't see each other for months at a time sometimes. No matter how much contact we had or didn't had, we loved each other.

I could fight with Scott like I was never able to fight with anyone else. A wierd thing to say in a positive tone. We would yell, scream, and say vile things to each other. I guess we could fight so well because we loved each other so much. We knew we'd go lick our wounds, then forgive each other.

I remember Scott coming home one night, late, half-drunk, and walking through the front door at an odd angle. I asked if he was ok. Only one word came out of his mouth, "home". That's what Scott and I were to each other. We were home to two people who often felt as if they didn't really belong anywhere.

The last few years have been very hard; both for Scott and for those of us who loved him. He was very ill. His medications caused short-term memory loss. He would take his medications multiple times in a day. He would forget that he had talked to me on the phone and call yelling that I hadn't called him. It was sad. It was hard. He was no longer like a brother to me. He was more like a rapidly aging favorite uncle. Yet he didn't forget our past. Just our present. He drank more and more and took too much of his anti-anxiety medication, which only increased his confusion. He told me often that he didn't want to be alive anymore. I could understand how he felt but couldn't tell him that it was ok to go. In the end, he didn't ask my permission. He just left. I hope that it was his decision to go and that, wherever he is, he is finally happy and well and knows how very much we loved him.

Scott had feared for years that he would die alone and forgotten, without making his mark on the world, with no one to mourn him. To that I have to say, "Are you kidding me?" You will never be forgotten, Scott! You don't need the whole world to remember you to be immortal. You just need a few people to remember you with love. That you have, my dear, dear friend. All the best to you and see you when I get there.