Back in June a friend of mine passed away. Suddenly, unexpectedly. He was only 47 years old. It freaked me out. People my age should not be dying. We are suppose to be inventing cool things like Google. Or building things, or doing anything.
He wasn't my best friend, nor was I his. But he was always fun to hang around with, easy to hang around with.
I've been recording my memories in this blog but in the third person because it was just to sad to write in first person. But I think its time to change that and come clean. These are my memories that I would like to share.
When I first met Donny, he kept telling me that I shouldn't listen to what people said about him. If I heard something I should come to him. It wasn't until after he died that I was able to put the pieces together and figure out what he was talking about. So many people judged him; he assumed I would also. That was never the case.
I remember one night being at his place. It was late; we had had a few drinks. (This was before he quit drinking.) He started to get very sad. I can still picture him sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. Crying. Tough guy Donny. "I'm a man" Donny. Crying. Over the difficult relationship he had with his own father. Over his own sons. I put my had on his shoulder. He brushed me away saying, "Stop, I don't deserve to feel good." Yes, you did, you deserved that. I rubbed his shoulders and back, kissed the back of his neck. He calmed down.
He saved me once from some creepy guy at Horan's. I called him on my way home from work. I had gone out with some co-workers and didn't want to go home just yet. He said he would meet me there after he finished helping fix someone's car. I got to Horan's first and was sitting by myself. Some guy started to move to the next bar stool, intending to sit down. "Are you here alone," he asked. "No, she's with me," he said as he seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He was like that old Dudley Doright cartoon - always there at the last minute to save the woman in distress.
He talked about his family all the time. He missed them. I heard all the family stories as he loved to tell them. Sometimes I heard them more than once. When I first showed him faccebook he had me looking up all his family. Every search showed 4 or 5 people he knew. "That's my sister, that's my niece, that's my cousin." It seemed like he was related to the whole town. And then he would tell a story about the person we searched.
I fell asleep on his couch quite a few times. He never woke me up and sent me home, he just went to sleep himself. Then he would make breakfast the next morning. We had pancakes one morning. We had a midnight snack once of his special mac and cheese - it was delicious. He was like that. He had so little, but he was always sharing what he had.
He always appreciated a gift. I once gave him a laptop bag and one would think it was plated in gold. He said no one had every given him something that nice. (Not true, but he always said things like that.)
I wish he was here now. I miss him.
1 comment:
What a nice post! Of course I am at work reading it and of course I have tears on my cheeks! I hated it when he would call me, upset that he lost a job, a home, a friend, a woman, because of people talking. No one ever really knew the truth because they didnt wait to ask, just left him. His ex wife there did such a horrible thing and he paid for that the rest of his life, literally. I am not saying he was innocent by any means. But to have surrendered his life for a made up tale was a hard pill for him to swallow, but he did it, thinking he deserved what he got becasue somehow, somewhere and to someone, he did wrong. She doesn't understand that for all intents and purposes, she killed him with those lies and changed him forever. I could never get him to listen when I would tell him that he was only human, just a man like everyone else and the things he did were no worse than some and that he deserved to be loved, he desereved to break free from the childhood misconceptions both the "boys" carried around. Now I have lost one brother and the other will be gone soon. I wonder almost everyday why they kept the torture and we three girls were able to throw the ties away and make better decisions? I will always wonder and hope that one day when I am really, really old, I will join my brothers and see them happy! (After I smack Don upside his head and call him a dumbass for leaving! ) Thanks for these stories, and for keeping in touch with me.!
Gia
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