Leaving the world behind
I found out yesterday that my "cousin" Link had died. The story starts with me going to college. Link is maybe the 4th person I talked to in my moving in and getting settled. We met over very sweet and very warm punch at the President of the College's house. We had a conversation about what I don't recall but decided that we were bored at the fakeness of every ones smiles and decided to leave.
It was a hot August night and we were shimmering in sweat. Neither of us knew that our destinies would be intertwined that night but I knew I had made a very ADD friend. We soon started having dinner and sometimes lunch together I got to know his roommate Jeremy and then other people started floating in and out of my life friends and then not friends. We visited haunted houses, natural settings, farms, barns, restaurants, we loved road trips, he would mostly kidnap me and we would go adventuring. I remember even spending 3 hours in Walmart with him and not remember anything we saw, bought, or did. He would visit a few times a summer, but never on my terms, only his, sometimes 8am and sometimes 1am I never knew what day it would be sometimes either. Through my mom Link decided that we were related somehow and so he would always be my Cousin Link when my mom spoke of him. When she found out he had died she was very upset.
Our college careers continued we had one class together and it was in the declining stages. Finally Link just fell. He fell hard and fast and wouldn't be the same. I tried to be understanding, patient, and loving with him and sometimes he tried it all. My sister and I visited him at the mental institution and I told him he better get better or he would incur my wrath.
I don't know if he ever got better. We would talk over the phone occasionally when we had each others numbers, sometimes an email, and most of the time I wouldn't know if he was alive or dead or even in this plain of existence save a facebook update or live journal entry here or there.
I was thinking about how upset I was that he didn't attend my wedding the other day, and that somewhere I knew in my heart he wasn't coming to the wedding but I hoped maybe one fiber of his being could be coaxed into making him behave for a few hours in a lifetime. The last communication I remember having with him was sometime in December. I told him of my diagnosis and he was just his same old silly self and told me I could be as bald as a baby and he'd still think I was pretty. He wasn't worried I was going to die, he was more worried about me losing my "wonder tits".
The things that remind me of Link are: grape juice punch, The Movie Alien, Cha!, smoking, Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination, 2001: A Space Odyssey, elbow dancing, hair mousse, coffee, Spanky's, investigative reporting into much of the Staunton/Waynesboro area, and how you were never the same person to everyone. Memories and thoughts of you will haunt and enlighten me for a very long time. I will speak to my children about "cousin" Link.
It was a hot August night and we were shimmering in sweat. Neither of us knew that our destinies would be intertwined that night but I knew I had made a very ADD friend. We soon started having dinner and sometimes lunch together I got to know his roommate Jeremy and then other people started floating in and out of my life friends and then not friends. We visited haunted houses, natural settings, farms, barns, restaurants, we loved road trips, he would mostly kidnap me and we would go adventuring. I remember even spending 3 hours in Walmart with him and not remember anything we saw, bought, or did. He would visit a few times a summer, but never on my terms, only his, sometimes 8am and sometimes 1am I never knew what day it would be sometimes either. Through my mom Link decided that we were related somehow and so he would always be my Cousin Link when my mom spoke of him. When she found out he had died she was very upset.
Our college careers continued we had one class together and it was in the declining stages. Finally Link just fell. He fell hard and fast and wouldn't be the same. I tried to be understanding, patient, and loving with him and sometimes he tried it all. My sister and I visited him at the mental institution and I told him he better get better or he would incur my wrath.
I don't know if he ever got better. We would talk over the phone occasionally when we had each others numbers, sometimes an email, and most of the time I wouldn't know if he was alive or dead or even in this plain of existence save a facebook update or live journal entry here or there.
I was thinking about how upset I was that he didn't attend my wedding the other day, and that somewhere I knew in my heart he wasn't coming to the wedding but I hoped maybe one fiber of his being could be coaxed into making him behave for a few hours in a lifetime. The last communication I remember having with him was sometime in December. I told him of my diagnosis and he was just his same old silly self and told me I could be as bald as a baby and he'd still think I was pretty. He wasn't worried I was going to die, he was more worried about me losing my "wonder tits".
The things that remind me of Link are: grape juice punch, The Movie Alien, Cha!, smoking, Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination, 2001: A Space Odyssey, elbow dancing, hair mousse, coffee, Spanky's, investigative reporting into much of the Staunton/Waynesboro area, and how you were never the same person to everyone. Memories and thoughts of you will haunt and enlighten me for a very long time. I will speak to my children about "cousin" Link.