a Hummingbird......

Elijah Kent,
Having a rough day today my friend.  Last night was the Sigur Ros concert. Like you told me to do if you weren't here, I went with your brother Ryan.  He had T-ball practice with Beck & Bob and I was waiting in the front yard when he pulled up.   I took a new handkerchief for both of us because we had both talked about how emotional the night was going to be.  Were you watching? At the intermission we talked to Kyle & Jared. There we were,the 4 of us, thinking about you. I bawled my eyes out while i was getting ready, i cried a bit as i drove to Ryan's house, and then nothing during the show, which took me by complete surprise. There was this calm that i felt though.  The first half of the show was full of new material that i wasn't familiar with, during the second song, they had technical difficulties and left the stage for a minute.  After intermission, they came back out and blew us away with so many of their great songs.  Fljotavik was my favorite.....that one haunts me, always has.  We talked about it one time when i was visiting you.  The lights, the fog, Jonsi and his high falseto, playing that electric guitar with a violin bow, and these incredible images floating across the backdrop and all I could do was just sit there and study the genius of it all.  Ryan and I caught an Uber home, said goodnight, and i went home an bawled my ugly mug to sleep.  i cant explain it. With you I know I don't have to.....you always just get it. I woke up this morning and reached up to the top of my headboard and couldn't find my glasses.  I must have been thrashing around in the night and they fell behind the bed.  I got my flashlight out and tried to find them, but since i cant see a damn thing with out them, and didn't have time to move my mattress and lift the box springs up so i had to wear my ugly glasses all day and i got to work and was fighting the weeps all day long.  How long will this happen?  do you ever go to bed crying?  i have these moments of numb and then days where it just won't stop. Maybe something is wrong with me? I don't know.

UGHHHHHHHHHH! its now nearly a month later, and I am having another horrible day.  Ok, actually its been 2 terrible days and there are no signs of it stopping.. I'm not entirely surprised, I talked to to you one time about how Labor Day hits every year and I can literally feel my emotions take a sharp turn down the toilet. Everyone always shakes their head like they totally get it and they go "OMG you have Seasonal Affective Disorder, take some vitamin D and get a sun lamp, you'll be ok."  Last year was a miraculous year, winter was mild, I had just wrapped up the best, busiest, most fun filled summer of my life and I was on cloud 9 when fall came.  I had this renewed hope that I was going to get through it, and I did, but this year it's like something has snapped.  I haven't slept in 2.5 weeks.  like maybe 2 hours a night, if that.., I've been told that I look like shit by about 3 different people, and I've gotten that "whats up?" look from about 10 people and I don't know how to answer. Got a D on my geology test, funny thing is, I can't muster the strength to care. Friday, I was sitting at my desk and I pulled up my Spotify account, in need of something new, yet familiar to listen to.  Why not Wilco?  Here's why I should not have chosen Wilco....because then I was reminded of how much you and your family love Wilco,  I sent a screen shot to your dad and a quick message about how it had been some time since I had listened to one of their albums from start to finish and that I was thinking of them---the album title alone should have been warning enough (a ghost is born) but, Jeff Tweedy has that voice, the one that draws you in, so I sat there updating all of my spreadsheets at work and Hummingbird came on and every friggin' emotion I've been trying to control for months came flooding in....and I lost it. snapped, flipped my lid, LOST IT!

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird

His goal in life was to be an echo
They type of sound that floats around and then back down like a feather
But in the steep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans
no one could hear him
or anything

So he slept on a mountain
in a sleeping bag underneath the stars
he would lie awake and count them
and the grey fountain spray of the great Milky Way
would never let him
Die alone

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
floating fast like a hummingbird

A hummingbird......

so that started this bawling that hasn't stopped in over 48 hours.
I slept for 11 hours yesterday, woke up, the second my feet hit the floor I started bawling again.
Went to brunch at Finns, another mistake, another memory of you, saw Marabello from the Annex, got teary again, went home mowed the lawn, raked the leaves, bawled and bawled, called Ryan to see if I could stop by to bring Bob his furry spider that I got him for his birthday, went down and bawled some more on your brothers couch, Beck asked me what I was going to be for Halloween and when I told him David Bowie, he asked if that was a person or an animal, so I showed him a picture and he asked if it was a boy or a girl, so that made me smile and then I started bawling again.

I've never been so angry,
I've never felt so hollow,
I've never missed someone like i miss you,
I've never questioned my sanity, like i do today,
I've never questioned, life and my existence like i have in the past few months.
I've never had my heart hurt for someones loss the way it does for yours.

I told Ryan last night that one of the things that kills me is all of these thoughts I have about things you'll never experience.  Like a high school reunion. my 20th was in August and I had a blast, I was in charge of it so I went to pay the Bar for everything and was feeling like a million bucks, like we had pulled off this really awesome night, and immediately I thought of you and how you'll never go to a reunion and I had to go to the bathroom and try to gather myself.

Why this 39 year old dude has to have the emotions of a 12 year old girl i will never understand, but that's been a problem and a life long question that doesn't seem to have an answer.  If I have to be caught crying, by co-workers, family members, neighbors, I can't think of human, or memory more worthy of some tears than you, the one and only Elijah Kent.

What does this all mean, my friend?  At what point will I be able to smile and go. " he's ok, he's good, he wants us to be happy, to go do the things he never got to do?"

I love you, and I miss you\ but that doesn't even scratch the fuckin' surface, so I'm going to continue bawling cuz that is the only thing that's coming naturally to me right now.

I'm so sorry it ended the way it did for you. you deserved so much more.
If this is the last post I post with any sort of sanity left in me, I want you to know how much it meant to me to have you as a friend....I mean that from the bottom of my guts.....no one will ever compare. It was something that can't be explained. you grabbed my guts more that anyone ever has, at a time when  my guts needed grabbing cuz i was pretty much ready to throw in the towel...The how, and what and when and where and why just boggles me every time i try to wrap my head around it, you would think i would just quit trying, but it remains one of the greatest and most beautiful mysteries to me, and someday i want an answer.

gonna go crazy now.....

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jentry