...That's What She Said

October 18, 2001 was the darkest day of my young life. On Monday, October 15, 2001 I brought a white long stem rose to my best friend who was in the final stages of his fight with cancer... his third time battling the disease. We talked about the Baptist youth group that had visited him in the hospital. We talked about heaven. We talked about how I was the only friend still visiting him. We reminisced about our photography outings on Lee Road and how much fun we'd had working in the photo lab together. He asked me if I thought he was going to make it. I said, "Yes, of course you will, you've done it before. I'll see you Wednesday." Then I kissed him on the forehead, he thanked me for the flower and I left. Unfortunately, those were the last words I ever said to the first person to truly challenge my way of thinking and help me grow into the person I am today. That Wednesday, I woke up late and rushed to work, missing my morning visit. That Thursday I received a phone call advising me that he was "gone". I stood in the back of the funeral home alone watching the pastor that had only known him for a few weeks try to convey what "a special young man he was" while wearing red Converse one stars in his honor. Through tear filled eyes I watched long lost relatives and friends who I'd never met pick up and admire all the black and white portraits I had taken of him... they flipped through the pictures with looks of wonderment at the young man they hadn't taken the time to know the way that I had. I wanted to snatch my photos out of their hands and tell them that it was too late to appreciate him, to late to remark on how amazing he was... but instead I slipped out the back door and cried in my car alone.

He once told me that I should cut my hair shorter to stop hiding my face, and I did... but not until years after he died. He once wrote me a three page email telling me that I shouldn't be with my ex, that I deserved someone to treat me right and not put me down constantly. He said he adored me and that if I was ever going to be happy, I should leave my ex, and I did... but not until years after he died. He once locked me in my bathroom and told me that I couldn't come out until I'd looked in the mirror long enough to realize how cute I was, and I did... but I didn't really mean it until years after he died.

I've held on to the pain and regret of not telling him how much he meant to me, or how much I loved him, or that he was helping me change my life. I never really thanked him for any of it. I thought I had more time. To this day I regret that my last words were a broken promise. "See you Wednesday," I'd said. Every October 18th since, I've driven out to the abandoned park/hotel area that used to sit across from the Eckerd that we used to work at. The first year, I took a photo that I'd taken of him next to this odd stationary merry-go-round looking thing and sat it in the spot he was in, cried a while, told him I missed him, told him I was sorry and left it there. The following year it was the same, except I went to the strange "French alien turtle", and last year it was the oriental style bridge. All of those unique constructions that were once a playground have all now been replaced by a parking lot and a brand new Home Depot.

I don't really know what I'm going to do this year. There's nowhere left for me to go and sit and remember and cry. Maybe this year is the year that I'll be forced to let go of the pain and regret... it's just so hard to think about NOT doing this to myself. I've wanted to cling to the pain because I've always felt that I deserved it. I told someone in recent months that I'd never regretted anything I've ever done, and that was the truth. It's what I didn't do that has haunted me for nearly four years.

In about 250 hours it will be October 18th, 2005.