best mates death

[Blackandblue]

Thanks for those comments. It did feel somewhat cathartic to write those words. I may have another crack at it some time.

This is a poem by a chap called Pablo Neruda that featured in the film truly madly deeply. It always seemed quite poignant to me.


If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.
I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.
I shall live on.
For where a man has no voice,
there shall be my voice.
Where blacks are flogged and beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.
When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory
comes,
even if I am dumb I must speak;
I shall see it coming even if I am blind.
No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died,
all the leaves will fall on my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping,
but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things you wanted me
indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.

 

[Arch]

Even if you don't feel able to write such stuff in 'public', write it in private. Get yourself a notebook, and scribble down whenever you feel like it. Even if you tear the sheet up and throw it away afterwards, you've let the feeling out. And taking time to put it into words, helps you work out exactly what you are feeling, which might not have seemed clear before.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

My best friend died about three weeks ago. Not suddenly, but after a ten year battle with cancer. Despite 'expecting it', I was still stunned by how it's affected me.

I've inherited some of his mountaineering kit and getting one of his fleece tops out of my rucksac last week on the hill, I suddenly caught the smell of him but was shocked when I looked up to find I was alone.

 

[Arch]

Yeah, I know that feeling.

What you said about 'expecting it' - I don't suppose it's any easier. And I don't suppose it 'helps' no matter how often you go through something like that, because your relationships are different with all the people you know...

 

[MacB]

Before my friend died, a few of us met in a pub and were talking about him after it had become clear to us that he was not going to make it. The sight of grown men weeping in a public house is not something you are likely to see often. It was a release we all needed.

Talk, write, whatever, you need that release too.

My brother was a huge football fan and followed Arsenal with great dedication. There was a big turnout at his funeral and many of his friends from football attended. The wake was held at his, fairly posh, golf club, and you had a large cross section of society intermingled, he'd have got a kick out of that. I've never seen so many grown men crying in one place. It's a day that I now remember fondly, and very clearly, and know that he would've enjoyed.

I've mentioned elsewhere on this forum, my one lasting sadness is that my children never knew him, my first was born a few weeks after he died. I tell them about him but he'll never be more than a picture and some shared stories to them.

 

[vbc]

My best friend took his life back in the summer of 2007, not long after I'd come home from hospital after a nasty cycle accident. He lived in Australia and gave me a call one day just to catch up on things - so I thought. I was on top form and still a bit high from surviving a near death experience and we talked for ages without me realising that he was saying his goodbyes.

We were both just short of our 49 birthdays - he was a day older than me - and we had met in basic training when we joined the RAF in 1976.

Spent some time with his widow when she was back in Blighty visiting her folks last year and she gave me a small phial of his ashes as a keepsake. So now Ronnie comes out with me sometimes when I go for a drink or down to the shops where lots of young ladies hang out! His widow has banned me from taking him to a lap dancing club though...so has my wife come to that!

Stuff happens.