Off topic
When I started my blog, it was my primary intention that it focus exclusively on poker. I could write about a zillion other things, but I don't figure anyone really cares about my opinions on politics, religion or anything else. A lot of folks probably don't care about my opinions on poker, either, but that's beside the point. I wanted to create a poker blog and not clutter it with other topics.
But today, I feel compelled to digress. Last night, I attended visitation for one of my old high school chums who died over the weekend, less than a week shy of his 35th birthday. And while I certainly mourn an old friend's passing, his death is far more complex for me emotionally.
"R" and I had only seen each other twice over the past 17 years. Although we frequently hung around together in high school, our lives took divergent paths afterwards. I went away to college, found a career afterwards and put together a family. R sank deep into the drug culture that ultimately killed him.
As noted on many previous occasions, I live in Eastern Kentucky. If you do not live here, what you might not know is how this region has fallen victim to an epidemic of drug abuse in recent years. No, I'm not tossing out the typical anti-drug hyperbole in making that statement. Drugs have always been here in one form or another, although it was largely marijuana in the past, which has minor societal impact. But right around the turn of the millennium, prescription painkillers, such as Lortab, Vicodin and, most famously, Oxycontin, became the new drugs of choice, and the result has been catastrophic. Drugged driving now surpasses drunk driving. Crime has truly skyrocketed, with pharmacies now forced to install steel bars over their windows. Drug overdose deaths are now tenfold what they were five years ago. R fell into that trap, but his troubles began long before the pills took hold.
I'm ashamed that I cannot remember exactly when it was, but shortly after I graduated high school, R ran into some trouble. He had always been the type to allow his mouth to get him in trouble, but he didn't have the fighting skill or will to get him out of it. Fortunately for him, he usually had his cousin, T, there to bail him out. T seemingly loved to fight, and although he often griped at R for having to repeatedly come to his defense, I don't think he really had much of a problem with it. T, though wiry, was a damn good fighter, and he seemed to relish that fact. They made a good team: R would start the fights and T would finish them.
But one night, T wasn't there. Instead, R was hanging out with H, who was a year or two younger than T and wanted to be just like him. I wasn't there and have only heard about everything that happened secondhand. But from what I understand, the two of them ended up in some drug dealer's trailer that night, and R's mouth got him him trouble once again. When R got into one of his moods, he could be one of the most obnoxious people you could come across, and he evidently got under the skin of some other guy at the trailer that night. That guy got so angry at R that he left the trailer vowing to come back and kill him. A short time later, he came back with a gun and pointed it at R's head. H, seeing his opportunity to come to R's rescue, just as he imagined T would have done, jumped up and said, "Why don't you stick that gun in my face?"
He did.
A few days later, H was buried. Even though I'd gotten quite close to H, I never made it to the funeral. I had attended the visitation the night before and grew sickened at all of the pretty and popular people who were suddenly distraught over H's passing. Our group of friends had always been outcasts of sorts, and I knew that if H were in the room right then, many of them wouldn't have given him the time of day. Now they were suddenly best friends. I wasn't there long before I'd had enough of what I felt was their phony grief, and I left in anger. It was childish, I know, but I was a child in many respects, even though I was 18 or 19 at the time, and I was deeply hurt by H's death. I reacted the only way I knew.
But I was also angry at R. I knew his tendencies and was convinced that he was just as responsible for H's death as the guy who pulled the trigger. Once again he had run his mouth a little too long and, once he got in trouble, he waited for someone to save him. This time, though, his reluctance to fight his own battles had cost us a dear friend. I don't know if I'm justified in feeling that way, but I still feel that way. To this day, I've never forgiven him.
I only saw him twice after that. The first time was a few weeks after H's funeral. We ran into each other on the street and tried to talk. It was uncomfortable. I could see that he blamed himself for what had happened, and although that softened me toward him some, it also cemented in my mind his culpability. I asked him how he was holding up and we spoke a little about what a tragedy it all was. But then we changed the subject to trivial matters, and then we said our goodbyes, each heading in our own directions.
The last time that I saw him was a couple of years ago. I was at the local hospital to be consulted about getting a vasectomy and was sitting in a waiting room shared by several doctors when I saw R come in. At first, all the anger slipped away and I was genuinely happy to see my old friend. But then I took note of his condition and knew without a doubt what had become of him. We eventually spoke for a few minutes. He told me he was there to see one of the pain specialists for his back, that he had injured it a few years before. I knew he was only there for whatever prescription he could get. Once again we made another uncomfortable attempt to revive the friendship we'd once had, but after a few minutes of talking I knew that the drugs had already killed any chance of that, just as I knew that they would eventually kill him.
But they almost didn't get the chance. R had come to abuse his friendships almost as badly as he abused drugs. Growing up, we could see the beginnings of that in his constant need to be rescued from someone who wanted to beat him to a pulp. He felt no need to monitor his behavior because he knew someone would step in to save him. Then, last year, I got word that R had pissed off the wrong people. A few weeks or months earlier, several dozen drug traffickers were arrested in one of those drug sweeps the police stage from time to time. R's name surfaced as one of the people who ratted out several of those arrested, and I heard that those people wanted him dead. I don't know how serious those threats were, or how truthful the accusations behind them, but knowing him as I did and seeing how his life fell apart around him, it's all very plausible. Still, he had once been a friend, and out of loyalty to that person he was long ago, I tried to get word to him that he was in danger. I don't know if it ever got to him, but he survived long enough for the drugs to kill him instead.
Monday night, looking at him in his coffin, it was somehow appropriate that he seemed almost unrecognizable to me. Gone except for some small trace was the boy I had known, replaced by a man I never wanted to know. He didn't look like he had been sickly before his death, like you might read about some addicts wasting away before your eyes. But he didn't look quite real, either, like maybe the mortician had gone to great lengths to make him presentable, only to end up making him look plastic.
Prior to attending the visitation, I didn't know what to expect from myself emotionally. While we had once been friends, I felt no connection to the person he had become. Maybe I would feel sorrow or maybe I would feel nothing.
Instead, I felt anger toward him, the same rage that overcame me when H died. I feel like he should have been the one to have died all those years ago, not H. Instead, he not only ended up getting H killed, he lived long enough to cause even more misery. In a perfect world, neither would have died; in a just world, R would have died instead of H.
If he had died then instead of now, he wouldn't have put his family through the agony of trying to save him from his addiction. If he had died then instead of now, he wouldn't have left behind three children who must now come to terms with his death. If he had died then instead of now, we would have mourned his tragic death, instead of his tragic life.
I know all of this sounds cold, but I can't help feeling this way. I can't help being angry because I feel like R wasted the life H died trying to save. In the end, both are gone, and for what?
Deep down, I know I am mourning the loss of my friend, even if I can't quite feel it yet. I know R's life was more than these horrible circumstances, that there was far more than these terrible glimpses I've witnessed. I know there was something there that made him worthy of living and of being loved. I know these things because he was a friend, so long ago, and I really miss that friend now, even if I can't quite see him for the hurt I feel.
Wherever you are now, old buddy, I hope you are finally at peace.
But today, I feel compelled to digress. Last night, I attended visitation for one of my old high school chums who died over the weekend, less than a week shy of his 35th birthday. And while I certainly mourn an old friend's passing, his death is far more complex for me emotionally.
"R" and I had only seen each other twice over the past 17 years. Although we frequently hung around together in high school, our lives took divergent paths afterwards. I went away to college, found a career afterwards and put together a family. R sank deep into the drug culture that ultimately killed him.
As noted on many previous occasions, I live in Eastern Kentucky. If you do not live here, what you might not know is how this region has fallen victim to an epidemic of drug abuse in recent years. No, I'm not tossing out the typical anti-drug hyperbole in making that statement. Drugs have always been here in one form or another, although it was largely marijuana in the past, which has minor societal impact. But right around the turn of the millennium, prescription painkillers, such as Lortab, Vicodin and, most famously, Oxycontin, became the new drugs of choice, and the result has been catastrophic. Drugged driving now surpasses drunk driving. Crime has truly skyrocketed, with pharmacies now forced to install steel bars over their windows. Drug overdose deaths are now tenfold what they were five years ago. R fell into that trap, but his troubles began long before the pills took hold.
I'm ashamed that I cannot remember exactly when it was, but shortly after I graduated high school, R ran into some trouble. He had always been the type to allow his mouth to get him in trouble, but he didn't have the fighting skill or will to get him out of it. Fortunately for him, he usually had his cousin, T, there to bail him out. T seemingly loved to fight, and although he often griped at R for having to repeatedly come to his defense, I don't think he really had much of a problem with it. T, though wiry, was a damn good fighter, and he seemed to relish that fact. They made a good team: R would start the fights and T would finish them.
But one night, T wasn't there. Instead, R was hanging out with H, who was a year or two younger than T and wanted to be just like him. I wasn't there and have only heard about everything that happened secondhand. But from what I understand, the two of them ended up in some drug dealer's trailer that night, and R's mouth got him him trouble once again. When R got into one of his moods, he could be one of the most obnoxious people you could come across, and he evidently got under the skin of some other guy at the trailer that night. That guy got so angry at R that he left the trailer vowing to come back and kill him. A short time later, he came back with a gun and pointed it at R's head. H, seeing his opportunity to come to R's rescue, just as he imagined T would have done, jumped up and said, "Why don't you stick that gun in my face?"
He did.
A few days later, H was buried. Even though I'd gotten quite close to H, I never made it to the funeral. I had attended the visitation the night before and grew sickened at all of the pretty and popular people who were suddenly distraught over H's passing. Our group of friends had always been outcasts of sorts, and I knew that if H were in the room right then, many of them wouldn't have given him the time of day. Now they were suddenly best friends. I wasn't there long before I'd had enough of what I felt was their phony grief, and I left in anger. It was childish, I know, but I was a child in many respects, even though I was 18 or 19 at the time, and I was deeply hurt by H's death. I reacted the only way I knew.
But I was also angry at R. I knew his tendencies and was convinced that he was just as responsible for H's death as the guy who pulled the trigger. Once again he had run his mouth a little too long and, once he got in trouble, he waited for someone to save him. This time, though, his reluctance to fight his own battles had cost us a dear friend. I don't know if I'm justified in feeling that way, but I still feel that way. To this day, I've never forgiven him.
I only saw him twice after that. The first time was a few weeks after H's funeral. We ran into each other on the street and tried to talk. It was uncomfortable. I could see that he blamed himself for what had happened, and although that softened me toward him some, it also cemented in my mind his culpability. I asked him how he was holding up and we spoke a little about what a tragedy it all was. But then we changed the subject to trivial matters, and then we said our goodbyes, each heading in our own directions.
The last time that I saw him was a couple of years ago. I was at the local hospital to be consulted about getting a vasectomy and was sitting in a waiting room shared by several doctors when I saw R come in. At first, all the anger slipped away and I was genuinely happy to see my old friend. But then I took note of his condition and knew without a doubt what had become of him. We eventually spoke for a few minutes. He told me he was there to see one of the pain specialists for his back, that he had injured it a few years before. I knew he was only there for whatever prescription he could get. Once again we made another uncomfortable attempt to revive the friendship we'd once had, but after a few minutes of talking I knew that the drugs had already killed any chance of that, just as I knew that they would eventually kill him.
But they almost didn't get the chance. R had come to abuse his friendships almost as badly as he abused drugs. Growing up, we could see the beginnings of that in his constant need to be rescued from someone who wanted to beat him to a pulp. He felt no need to monitor his behavior because he knew someone would step in to save him. Then, last year, I got word that R had pissed off the wrong people. A few weeks or months earlier, several dozen drug traffickers were arrested in one of those drug sweeps the police stage from time to time. R's name surfaced as one of the people who ratted out several of those arrested, and I heard that those people wanted him dead. I don't know how serious those threats were, or how truthful the accusations behind them, but knowing him as I did and seeing how his life fell apart around him, it's all very plausible. Still, he had once been a friend, and out of loyalty to that person he was long ago, I tried to get word to him that he was in danger. I don't know if it ever got to him, but he survived long enough for the drugs to kill him instead.
Monday night, looking at him in his coffin, it was somehow appropriate that he seemed almost unrecognizable to me. Gone except for some small trace was the boy I had known, replaced by a man I never wanted to know. He didn't look like he had been sickly before his death, like you might read about some addicts wasting away before your eyes. But he didn't look quite real, either, like maybe the mortician had gone to great lengths to make him presentable, only to end up making him look plastic.
Prior to attending the visitation, I didn't know what to expect from myself emotionally. While we had once been friends, I felt no connection to the person he had become. Maybe I would feel sorrow or maybe I would feel nothing.
Instead, I felt anger toward him, the same rage that overcame me when H died. I feel like he should have been the one to have died all those years ago, not H. Instead, he not only ended up getting H killed, he lived long enough to cause even more misery. In a perfect world, neither would have died; in a just world, R would have died instead of H.
If he had died then instead of now, he wouldn't have put his family through the agony of trying to save him from his addiction. If he had died then instead of now, he wouldn't have left behind three children who must now come to terms with his death. If he had died then instead of now, we would have mourned his tragic death, instead of his tragic life.
I know all of this sounds cold, but I can't help feeling this way. I can't help being angry because I feel like R wasted the life H died trying to save. In the end, both are gone, and for what?
Deep down, I know I am mourning the loss of my friend, even if I can't quite feel it yet. I know R's life was more than these horrible circumstances, that there was far more than these terrible glimpses I've witnessed. I know there was something there that made him worthy of living and of being loved. I know these things because he was a friend, so long ago, and I really miss that friend now, even if I can't quite see him for the hurt I feel.
Wherever you are now, old buddy, I hope you are finally at peace.
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