Yesterday was the birthday of a very good friend of mine.
If he were here, I would have taken him out and drank a lot
more than I should. We would’ve eventually ended up either in a gay bar or
club, with me spending the night watching him have a great time, flirting and
dancing, and completely losing himself in the moment.
If he were living back in Miami or San Francisco still,
where he was living when he moved away from DC, I would call him, scream HAPPY
BIRTHDAY into the phone, before asking him to tell me what he had planned for
the evening, ending with an “I love you” and “I hope that you have an amazing
birthday.”
These are the things that I would have done, if he had not
passed away this past September.
It’s still something that I wrestle with how to even handle.
He was only 26, and generally healthy. Next thing I know, I am getting a call
out of the blue because someone from his family posted on Facebook that he got
pneumonia, and he was gone. He had just moved to Miami a few months prior to
that to start a new job, start a new chapter in his life. I had just spoken to
him recently about said job. About how stressful it was, how he felt that it
was getting a little over his head. But none of this truly concerned me,
because Ricky was like Superman to me. Because Ricky, that’s my friend’s name,
was no ordinary man.
This was the guy who charmed the pants off of almost
everyone that he ever met. He could not walk more than 5 blocks without running
into someone that he knew, or that he was destined to know. Although he was not
the tallest, or the biggest person (although his butt was legendary, but that’s
a story for another day), his presence was always large. Everything that I
write about him seems to fall short of being able to describe how truly amazing
this man was. However, I feel that I have to try. I have to. I cannot bear the
thought of a world where people don’t know who he is.
See, for me, Ricky was that friend who pushed me to “live”.
He was constantly getting me to do things that in my normal hyper-worried
state, I would never do. He got me to try food that I wouldn't have tried
unless being held at gunpoint, drink drinks that I’d never heard of, and visit
places that I would not have even known about. In a word, he was my hero.
I could write forever and a day about how much of an amazing
guy he was, how much knowing him changed my life for the better, how much I
miss him, and think about him every day; but I won’t. No matter how much I say,
no matter how many Ketel One White Russians I drink, or Harold and Maude
screenings I have, it will never feel like enough. He is gone, and I was not
ready for him to go.
Although I still look to him for advice, thinking about what
he would say in this situation or that, and think back on the bountiful bank of
fond memories I have of my experience with him, I realize that I will never be
able to have another conversation with him, never be able to hug him again, and
it makes me truly sad. Not even so much of a tear-filled sobbing kind of sad,
but like an a-piece-of-my-heart-is-missing-and-the-void-is-permanent-and-I-can-feel-it
kind of sad.
I guess that I’ll just have to leave it at, Happy Birthday
Ricky. Thank you for everything that you did for me, and thank you for being
such a good friend to me. I love you, and I will miss you always.
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