A Hazy Farewell

I’m so sorry, dude. I really am. I wish I could have gotten to you sooner. I wish I could have helped you the way you helped me. God, I remember the times we used to spend together, shooting the breeze, smoking and talking and laughing and being a bunch of goofballs. It’s still hard for me to believe that the guy who’s been with me through all that, who’d been with me through thick and thin, just ain’t here anymore.

People often ask me why I even bother to come here. “You’re a rich dude. Why do you go and visit someone who died before you were rich to begin with?” and honestly, the answer to that is that I loved you very much. Not in a love-interest kinda way, but I really felt we were like brothers. We did everything together, saying we’d get super rich and spend our money on outlandish things, and yet, when you asked me to go with you that day, I said no, and that forever haunts me.

It’s especially haunting since I snapped at you for wanting to do something so risky. Sure, we had our fun riding when we were younger, but we were both getting older, and the idea of  you riding late at night without a helmet, where you could get crashed into, struck me as way too risky, and I got so upset at you. So we both left off feeling mad at each other, and then a few hours later I get a text saying that you’re dead.

At first, it was hard for me to believe. You were such a lively dude—your smile would light up the room—and you’d be cracking jokes about anything and anyone. The idea that you were no longer there was just mind-blowing to me, since that’s when death really first struck me. You always hear it said that you’re gonna die—everyone knows that—but it never really hits you until someone close to ya dies, and you were that man.

It feels so weird, knowing that had I gone with you, that we’d both be dead, and yet, I almost wish that had happened. It feels wrong that I’m alive and you’re dead. It feels wrong that we ended on such a downer after years of friendship. It feels wrong that I became so rich like we wanted to and yet, I don’t have you to share that success with.

But here I am, and all I can say, after having reached that success, is that it wasn’t worth it in the end. I’d trade it all, after all, to go back to those carefree days when we were young and life was long to live and we hung out. I wish I had ridden with you, for I’d be with you right now, but things—things—went a sunder way. I know you’re up there, dude. I hope you look down on me with all the joy and love we had together.

And I hope you know that I think about you every day and every night, and that I hope that we may one day be brought together again.

I’ll smoke this blunt for you, bro. Good luck and Godspeed. I love you.