Looking Back 1.

Before I get into this religion, depression, and stress thing, let me just say I am not sure that this is at all related to weight gain, weight loss, or much of anything I have been talking about, what I do know is that it’s a huge part of my life and I am pretty sure that it is tied in with my self image and thus my overall health, anyway. Thinking about writing about God and the events let lead to my very real anger with him, I find my hands getting a little shaky and my chest getting tight. I do not like to relive or think about that aspect of my life, I prefer to completely ignore it in fact. I don’t mind spending long hours talking with anyone about a wide range of religious topics, but I do not often want to get into my own. Most days I will tell you I know what I believe, if fact the first 4 times I wrote this sentence it just said “I know what I believe,” but when I really think on it that’s a lie. There are certain truths I believe in that have never once changed, but there are a lot of things in relation to those beliefs that have been shaken, torn down, ripped away, or vanished overnight.

When I was a sophomore in high school I lost one of my best friends. This was the first real assault on my faith I can remember. The loss is not something I can convey in a simple way, so forgive me if this drags on, but I want to say what I mean. The loss is something that still hurts, still something I can honestly say I think about at least once a day. It is hard to believe its getting close to a decade since it happened. This friend was one that I grew up with, without getting overly descriptive of my hometowns streets he more or less lived in my back yard. I have pictures of us when we were both babies. Our friendship had some rough patches growing up, lets just say I am not the best friend to have, but regardless of any nonsense or fighting we got into on Monday by Tuesday it didn’t matter. About the time he got sick we were in a period of our friendship when weren’t as close as we had been. I still hung out with him, still talked to him, but we had entered high school and he had a large group of friends in our class, while I was hanging out with a few kids in other classes, but mostly kept to myself. Looking back I think I got frustrated with him for not being such a big part of his peer group. I was jealous that he was finding all these new people while I was pretty much restricted to the guys my sisters knew, and wasn’t really able to fit in with most of the kids my age. I guess I never thought he was going to be able to friends more fun than me, young, arrogant, and stupid (me).

When he got sick the friendship we had was as strong as ever. The first time I heard about what happened to him, his first symptoms, I assumed that it was something that would be resolved in a few days, some pill, or some surgery that would take care of it. I did no believe for a second that it would be anything remotely serious. You don’t when nothing serious has ever happened before. As the days passed and we learned more and more about what was really happening, it phased me not at all. This was my friend, in my little town, and nobody my age ever had anything serious, and if they did they beat it and in no time everything was back to normal. My little sister had several problems and the doctors were always able to take care of her, it was scary but she was always able to get the help she needed, and it wasn’t going to be any different for my friend. I hung out more with him in the few weeks leading up to losing him than I probably had in the previous 6 months, and I thank God for that. We talked about the girls he had crushes on, we talked about getting better, he never had a negative thing to say about what was happening to him. He was ready to get better from the day he got sick.

I hate writing this. A day came when I had to go into work for a few hours and when I was walking home, I walked passed his house on the way home and was going to stop in and say hi, but as I came up on the house, all the lights were off, no one was in the house, not thinking to much on it at the time, I went home. When I got there my mom told me that there had been some problems and they had taken him by ambulance to the hospital. I didn’t think too much on that, he was going to be ok, I knew that, everything always turned out. So I got a shower, did my homework, and went to bed. That night I prayed more intensely than I ever had that God would protect my friend and heal him, so he could get back to being himself. I think I could tell you that prayer word for word now, but what is sharper even than the memory of that prayer is the feeling I had after it. I had never felt so assured after a prayer before or since. I was 100 percent convinced when I went to sleep that he was going to be ok.

When I woke up the next morning I felt good. I headed upstairs to get a shower. I remember seeing my mom. I don’t think she fully gasped when she saw me, but she had my dad come over as well. I wont get into everything they said, though that memory is far sharper than I like as well, but standing there in front of me they told me I had lost my friend, that he had gone in the night. I want to be able to describe what happened to me when they told me that, but I don’t think I can. I wasn’t ready for that level of loss, I felt betrayed, I felt broken, I felt so angry at the loss and at the feeling of peace I had not 8 hours earlier. There is a lot more of this story to tell. It changed the way I love the people in my life, it started a chain of events in my faith that are still playing out. I still love my friend, and I still miss him, I wish he could’ve met my wife, and held my daughter. I will continue to think about him every day, and one day tell my kids about him, and God willing see him again somewhere down the road.