EPTFor once I'm not going to talk about my ladder experience. As probably everyone here knows KT_Violet just passed away due to leukemia and this brought back some memories. I have also lost loved ones, people closest to my heart.
In 2001 just before I turned 8 my family received the news that my grandfather had had a stroke and was in the hospital. He had taken a cab home from somewhere, I don't remember where, and when the cab-driver pulled up at the house my grandfather wasn't responding and was unconscious in the back seat. Paniced as the driver was he pulled my grandfather out of the car and put him down in front of the frontdoor, rang the doorbell and quickly got in the cab and drove away. My grandmother found him lying outside when she answered the door and couldn't see anyone around. He was rushed to the hospital but it didn't look good. My father, my brother and my sister traveled across the country to go see him in the hospital. I didn't dare come along because I didn't really understand what was hhappening and it was my first encounter with death. When my family got there my grandfather was paralyzed on the left side of his body and was only awake and understanding short periods of time. Eventually he just gave out and so, he was no longer with us.
This was about a week before my birthday.
I didn't get to see my grandfather before he died. This is something I will regret forever. He was the best possible grandfather anyone could possibly ask for. He used to read me cartoons and more than often the same one, but it never had thesame story. He made it up as he went along and I never had any clue.I just looked at the pictures and was amazed at his stories.
My other grandfather, on my mothers side, battled alzheimers for about 5 years before he eventually passed away in 2006. It wasn't very dramatic. We all knew it was his time and had been for some time. I don't remember much of him even though he died ehn I was 12. What I remember about him was only in his sickest moments. Once when we visited he asked me and my moher who we were and what we were doing in his house. We managed to explain to him together with my grandmother. He always got this sad look on his face when he realised that he just didn't remember. The strongest memory I have of him though was one christmas when I was handing out christmas presents and it was one from my sister to my grandfather. I handed it to him and opened it and he didn't really understand what it was even though it was just a teacup. He thanked me dearly for the present and stumbled away into another room. I remember I was very torn up about it because it was from my sister and he didn't realise when I told him.
Neither of these experiences were very traumatising though. It was just the way of the world. Old people die sooner or later and I managed to understand this.
When I was in sixth grade I was playing a lot of Magic the Gathering and there was this place in town called "Playground Backstab" that held weekly free to enter tournaments twice a week. I was at every tournament I could get to and I even won a couple of them. Here is where I met my best friend. Her name was Malin. She had come there with her brother and I faced against her twice in one tournament and won both times. I eliminated her in the quarterfinals and I was eliminated in the semis. We started talking and playing.
This was the start of a great friendship.
One year later her mother died in a traffic-accident and her father started drinking a lot. Malin got depressed and stopped playing Magic the Gathering. We still saw each other a lot and we always had a good time and she said I was the reason she was getting along. This was the first time in my life I felt I had meant something to someone. It was a great feeling to be depended upon.
In the ninth grade I got a girlfriend who didn't like me spending time with Malin. I didn't really care though, she was my best friend. Naturally though I didn't spend as much time with Malin. Eventually I found out that my girlfriend cheated on me witha friend of mine and drama ensued. One day during the springbreak surrounding easter, Malin called me and said that she didn't understand the world and that the world didn't understand her, she couldn't handle it anymore.
I knew what this meant.
I called her father and told her what was going on and where I thought she might be. I rushed over there as well. It was on a mountain where we used to go to look at the city. When I got there her father wasn't there but neither was she. Fearing the worst I looked over the edge and it felt like my heart exploded. I felt an immense physical pain in my chest and I went completely numb. I fell to my knees and everything just went cold. Eventually I got back on my feet and climbed down to where her body was. She was still alive! I called an ambulance and then her father again. He showed up about a minute later and you might imagine how devestated he was. I have never seen such pain in a grown man.
She was rushed to the hospital with her father in the ambulance and I was left behind.
All alone.
I made my way to the hospital where she was in surgery when I arrived. 8 hours later she came out of surgery and her father managed to persuade the hospital staff that I should get to stay there with her. After a while when she was stabilized I went to get some coffee for her father. When I came back she was dead. She was still there she just wasn't alive. She didn't breathe. She was gone, forever.
I never got to go to her funeral. Her father had dacided that it was my fault that his daughter was dead and I was not to be allowed anywhere near her. I was crushed. At the same time I understood that he needed someone to blame since he had been so absent the last few years and I don't think he could handle the weight of it all.
His blame was not misplaced. I was all she had. When my attantion shifted elsewhere she no longer had anything to hold on to. The world slipped away and so did she.
I went through the darkest period of my life. I was constantly sad and I was bullied at school because of it. That summer was horrible. I no longer had school to distract me. I was all alone with my thoughts. I thought about ending my own life because I felt that it no longer had any purpose. I had lost the one thing I held dear.
That fall I started High School and I was extremely lucky to end up with the classmates that I did. They were the best thing that could happen to mo at the time. I was angulfed by school and my newfound social life. All was good and I found me a girl. We were togeather for about one and a half years, until last summer when we had a mutual breakup.
The very same summer a girl in my class who I was relatively close to hung herself in her apartment after having been depressed for a very long time. This brought everything back in a crushing wave and all was lost. I was completely destroyed. I felt like I couldn't get to close to people because they would just die and I isolated myself.
Eventually I started getting back in to reality and I met my current girlfriend. She is the best thing to happen to me and she really has gotten me through a rough period.
Not a day passes without me thinking of these people. Reminiscing the good times we had together. Now a days I have decided not to waste the time I have on this earth. If it's one thing that Malin thaught me it's "Fuck what others think. This is my life and I do what I want with it.". Don't be afraid to be who you are in fear of what others think.
