Guilt and Death...

I lost a close friend last year, Ray, some of you may have read my blog about him then and a cpl of days ago..His presence has been all around me for days now. I feel him constantly near. It used to bug me when i felt a presence of someone long gone but now i embrace it cus i think they do it cus they feel i need them to be nearby.


At any rate, i kind of think that part of the reason why is cus i felt guilt-ridden for some time after his tragic death about something really stupid that i've never bothered to whisper to a soul. So tonight i feel the need to put it in here so i can get it off my chest, so to speak...i was supposed to go out w/ Ray the night after he passed on..he had an aneurysm and it burst, he was in the hospital on life support for hours while the family and close relatives said their goodbyes. What hurt me the most is i never had the chance to say my goodbye and i guess this is why it troubles me so.

Anyway, i'm getting sidetracked..only reason i found out was because i kept calling ray and finally his mother answered the phone..and she was like 'we pulled the plug an hour ago, i'm sorry we didn't think to call you' I was devastated! So many things we had planned on doing...so much left undone..i was supposed to make a CD of a group for him that was on our jukebox at work...he really liked them and i had all their albums, but i hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. I had loaned him a psychology book and never got it back...why does stupid things like this bother me still a year later? I'll never know.

I tried to do a few things to have some closure but then Ray started showing up at my work. I wear a lil bonnet thingy most of the time, and every now and then a small breeze just big enough to flop it up over my head (something he used to do all the time) and i'd turn to look and of course he wasn't there.

Every night he came up to my work to spend time and hang out, he'd be there for hours. He was a funny man, god he would crack me up so much..we'd laugh the night away and work seemed to go by so much faster when he was there. He always sat up at the same spot at the counter and for months after his death i couldn't deal w/ anyone sitting there but me. It made me so angry..i'd be like you can't sit there ray's sitting there! I know that it was because i felt him there....then one day he just went away...

The day of his death was the first time in ages i had felt his presence again and it scared me a lil when it happened. I was sitting on my bed, where i am now, and i was crying, thinking about him and some other stuff going on in my life..

I recently broke up w/ a guy i was dating, but i'll get into that later..

I felt Ray lay his head on my shoulder and somehow everything seemed so clear...He was saying to me..hey i'm here and you'll be okay, there are other guys out there...etc etc

Something Ray was good at, cheering me up..something not easy to do when i go into bouts of depression, ask anyone who has known me for long periods of time..

I could be crying and he could make me burst out laughing w/ just the smallest of phrases.

Anyway, Ray, i'm sorry for not making that CD for you, and never having the time to go out and play pool like we had planned. I hope you know that i will always love ya buddy, and i refuse to forget you..ever! I hope you're in a better place, i truly do. Thank you for all that you've done for me in the past and all that you still seem to do. I miss you.