I’m not even 30 yet...
And neither are my friends. . . .
About a week ago, my best male friend tells me he has a cold--and this is a guy who I’ve know since my first year of high-school, and I’ll be 27 in little over a month.
He tells me he’s feeling sick and has a cold. He’s the guy that all of our friends go to when he/we want to hang out. He’s got the house with the den upstairs for gatherings, so we go and we game and have the D&D there, and he’s got the X-Box/360 and the PS3 and the RockBand gear.
He’s smart too, brilliant. In graduate school to be a psychiatrist--or a psychologist, but someone who talks to others like a therapist. He’s clever, witty, with a black and dark sense of humor. He is irreverent, he can be a bastard some times. He’s not a saint, he’s a real human being.
He’s handicapped/handiabled. He has muscular dystrophy and psoriasis, so that means that he uses a wheelchair most of the time to get around, but he can walk--it just makes him tired to do it too much. And he can drive too.
I met his girlfriend, and future wife to be, at my Community Collage. She was already working, because she’s from the city, and I and my buddy are from the suburbs. The girl is another good friend of mine, and a fellow writer. A little younger than the two of us. The girl and I used Community to get the grunt work of our majors out of the way for cheap, and then dual-enrolled in a 4-year University to get the degrees we were after.
She’s still working, but two jobs now, in two different hospitals part time because one pays better, but the other has the better benefits.
I introduced them. I introduced them because I could see how clever she was, and how ornery both of them were. Let’s put it this way, she’s a Slytherin at heart, and a total Snape fan. He’s got plenty of Snape-like qualities. . . even if all the tests say he’s a Hufflepuff. We still don’t know how that happened, but it did make him fly into a rant about it.
That’s the other thing, he rants. A lot. It’s always funny, and always about something ‘stupid’ or ‘stupid people were doing’. Like trying to cut us off in traffic, kill us using their cars, being a Hufflepuff, Tele-marketers calling, just any time he generally has to deal with idiots who were -not- patients for the program he was in as a psychiatrist.
Yes, he’s helping others work through emotional problems. His school has a program, he’s part of it and talking to people. More than that, he knew I was suffering from depression before I did, and he talked me through it. I’m not out yet, but I’m getting there, and doing much better.
My buddy likes logic, and he likes analyzing the human brain and how it works--not the biomechanics of the chemical interactions, how the thoughts and feeling and memories drive a person, what makes a man or woman tick. Each brain is a puzzle, and he likes to solve them for his own amusement.
Which is funny, because he’s a Seth Rogen fan, and swears like a sailor if given a chance, drinks socially, uses derogatory ethnic slurs in private--the girl and I yell at him for using them, but we sometimes laugh when he does, mostly out of shock. . . I’m a bad person because I laugh a little more, and the two other close guy friends in the group also laugh, but don’t try as hard to correct them. Our last guy in the group--again I introduced him to my best guy friend and this ring of friends--will tag-team with him, making bad, racist jokes. This last friend is gay, so I don’t want to hear your hate talk.
For those wondering: My best male friend finds them funny, even if he doesn’t believe in all the stereotypes. I think the jokes are his way of making fun of everything in modern society. Like, ‘we’re so advanced, but we are still a bunch of racist bastards’. Human nature as comedy.
So he’s got a cold, and he’ll get better, and he’s complaining about the doctor to me, how the doctor needs to call in to fill his meds so he can get over this thing and get back to school/work. That was a week ago.
Friday night into Saturday morning, 3am-ish my time, the girl gets me on AIM and tells me that he had a panic attack on the way to the hospital--his dad was driving--and passed out. She tells me that he’s unconscious with stable/sustained high blood pressure. They can’t run tests until all the meds and the sickness is out of his system, so no clue what happened.
I just got the call from [Wavecrest]--the girlfriend--about 12:15pm EST.
Brain dead.
Fuck.
Matt Spiker: 1984 - 2011.
Edit: April 6th.
All of his organs are going to be donated. The operation is tonight, maybe even now.
I'll never know what happened now. Dad says, based on what I've told him, that it most likely was a brain aneurysm/clot.
It hurts. Gods above, it hurts.
Edit:: April 7th
"There is a viewing on Sunday from 3-6 and on Monday from 10-11. Monday after the viewing is the service." From :devwavecrest:
She'll be at both. I'll be at the Sunday one and at least make it for the service if not the Monday one.
I'm at the point where it hurts to the point I'm numb.
Functional wrecks all of us. . . some more wreck than functional. . . I'm note sure, but I think I'm either equal parts or a hair's breath more functional than I am wreck.
Just have to get the group together to see Hop. He wanted to. . . .
After that no plans but one:
Me and Wave, when we see Matt next, 50+ - 70+ years from now . . .
We are going to beat the shit out of him.
And he fucking knows it, smug bastard.
::Edit:: April 12th (or 13th, depending)
Made it through both viewings and the funeral.
The gang decided to have a small party in Matt's memory. The guys played disk-golf beforehand, and then we got together in our one buddy's house--which has a built in bar. Everyone drank, and those who drank didn't drive that night. We did a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream for him, and the only other thing I had for the night was a Mike's Hard Lemonade. Didn't feel it, but I don't drink. Did feel the Bailey's burn goinging down. . . .
Damn you Matt, you found the only thing that would get me to drink.
And a tradition has been born. The operation to harvest his organs for donation was April 6th, and the Obit' says that's when he died. The funeral was on the 11th. Matt's Birthday was on July 15--two months to the day after mine. So . . . shots on all three days from now on, though I think we could do Celtic Cross Whisky, or 'Buttery Nipples' too. Eh, the guys are going to be crazy enough to chug down 'Car Bomb' drinks on Matt's birthday, but the girls who don't wanna/can't, can get away with shots. That's me.
Didn't get drunk off the shot and the Mike's, at least. But I did entertain everyone by making a face at the Bailey's and saying it burned going down. I get it, I don't drink, so I'm a light weight.
That's all the weight I need to honor my Matt.
About a week ago, my best male friend tells me he has a cold--and this is a guy who I’ve know since my first year of high-school, and I’ll be 27 in little over a month.
He tells me he’s feeling sick and has a cold. He’s the guy that all of our friends go to when he/we want to hang out. He’s got the house with the den upstairs for gatherings, so we go and we game and have the D&D there, and he’s got the X-Box/360 and the PS3 and the RockBand gear.
He’s smart too, brilliant. In graduate school to be a psychiatrist--or a psychologist, but someone who talks to others like a therapist. He’s clever, witty, with a black and dark sense of humor. He is irreverent, he can be a bastard some times. He’s not a saint, he’s a real human being.
He’s handicapped/handiabled. He has muscular dystrophy and psoriasis, so that means that he uses a wheelchair most of the time to get around, but he can walk--it just makes him tired to do it too much. And he can drive too.
I met his girlfriend, and future wife to be, at my Community Collage. She was already working, because she’s from the city, and I and my buddy are from the suburbs. The girl is another good friend of mine, and a fellow writer. A little younger than the two of us. The girl and I used Community to get the grunt work of our majors out of the way for cheap, and then dual-enrolled in a 4-year University to get the degrees we were after.
She’s still working, but two jobs now, in two different hospitals part time because one pays better, but the other has the better benefits.
I introduced them. I introduced them because I could see how clever she was, and how ornery both of them were. Let’s put it this way, she’s a Slytherin at heart, and a total Snape fan. He’s got plenty of Snape-like qualities. . . even if all the tests say he’s a Hufflepuff. We still don’t know how that happened, but it did make him fly into a rant about it.
That’s the other thing, he rants. A lot. It’s always funny, and always about something ‘stupid’ or ‘stupid people were doing’. Like trying to cut us off in traffic, kill us using their cars, being a Hufflepuff, Tele-marketers calling, just any time he generally has to deal with idiots who were -not- patients for the program he was in as a psychiatrist.
Yes, he’s helping others work through emotional problems. His school has a program, he’s part of it and talking to people. More than that, he knew I was suffering from depression before I did, and he talked me through it. I’m not out yet, but I’m getting there, and doing much better.
My buddy likes logic, and he likes analyzing the human brain and how it works--not the biomechanics of the chemical interactions, how the thoughts and feeling and memories drive a person, what makes a man or woman tick. Each brain is a puzzle, and he likes to solve them for his own amusement.
Which is funny, because he’s a Seth Rogen fan, and swears like a sailor if given a chance, drinks socially, uses derogatory ethnic slurs in private--the girl and I yell at him for using them, but we sometimes laugh when he does, mostly out of shock. . . I’m a bad person because I laugh a little more, and the two other close guy friends in the group also laugh, but don’t try as hard to correct them. Our last guy in the group--again I introduced him to my best guy friend and this ring of friends--will tag-team with him, making bad, racist jokes. This last friend is gay, so I don’t want to hear your hate talk.
For those wondering: My best male friend finds them funny, even if he doesn’t believe in all the stereotypes. I think the jokes are his way of making fun of everything in modern society. Like, ‘we’re so advanced, but we are still a bunch of racist bastards’. Human nature as comedy.
So he’s got a cold, and he’ll get better, and he’s complaining about the doctor to me, how the doctor needs to call in to fill his meds so he can get over this thing and get back to school/work. That was a week ago.
Friday night into Saturday morning, 3am-ish my time, the girl gets me on AIM and tells me that he had a panic attack on the way to the hospital--his dad was driving--and passed out. She tells me that he’s unconscious with stable/sustained high blood pressure. They can’t run tests until all the meds and the sickness is out of his system, so no clue what happened.
I just got the call from [Wavecrest]--the girlfriend--about 12:15pm EST.
Brain dead.
Fuck.
Matt Spiker: 1984 - 2011.
Edit: April 6th.
All of his organs are going to be donated. The operation is tonight, maybe even now.
I'll never know what happened now. Dad says, based on what I've told him, that it most likely was a brain aneurysm/clot.
It hurts. Gods above, it hurts.
Edit:: April 7th
"There is a viewing on Sunday from 3-6 and on Monday from 10-11. Monday after the viewing is the service." From :devwavecrest:
She'll be at both. I'll be at the Sunday one and at least make it for the service if not the Monday one.
I'm at the point where it hurts to the point I'm numb.
Functional wrecks all of us. . . some more wreck than functional. . . I'm note sure, but I think I'm either equal parts or a hair's breath more functional than I am wreck.
Just have to get the group together to see Hop. He wanted to. . . .
After that no plans but one:
Me and Wave, when we see Matt next, 50+ - 70+ years from now . . .
We are going to beat the shit out of him.
And he fucking knows it, smug bastard.
::Edit:: April 12th (or 13th, depending)
Made it through both viewings and the funeral.
The gang decided to have a small party in Matt's memory. The guys played disk-golf beforehand, and then we got together in our one buddy's house--which has a built in bar. Everyone drank, and those who drank didn't drive that night. We did a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream for him, and the only other thing I had for the night was a Mike's Hard Lemonade. Didn't feel it, but I don't drink. Did feel the Bailey's burn goinging down. . . .
Damn you Matt, you found the only thing that would get me to drink.
And a tradition has been born. The operation to harvest his organs for donation was April 6th, and the Obit' says that's when he died. The funeral was on the 11th. Matt's Birthday was on July 15--two months to the day after mine. So . . . shots on all three days from now on, though I think we could do Celtic Cross Whisky, or 'Buttery Nipples' too. Eh, the guys are going to be crazy enough to chug down 'Car Bomb' drinks on Matt's birthday, but the girls who don't wanna/can't, can get away with shots. That's me.
Didn't get drunk off the shot and the Mike's, at least. But I did entertain everyone by making a face at the Bailey's and saying it burned going down. I get it, I don't drink, so I'm a light weight.
That's all the weight I need to honor my Matt.