#1 Letter to My Dead Best Friend
Do we need a backstory here? It has been so long I have to check my phone for pictures timestamp to be sure. Anyway the quick context for all of you noobs here is I had a best friend, we’ve known each other since we were 18 (WAY TOO LATE IF YOU ASK ME) and he died way too soon. Just a few days shy of his 29th birthday actually.
I always tell this as a funny story when I talk about his death. Right before he passed we had dinner together because he was about to fly home for his treatment and his prognosis was GREAT. Yes, all caps great. We parted ways (I said I love you to him for the last time, and I’ll always thank myself for that) and think I told a few mutual friends of ours after that ALL IS GREAT AND HE WILL BE ALL GOOD!!! It was as if I was on a media tour to spread the good news. If I look at it from a cinematic point of view I was basically spreading death flags for him lol.
So, the day came. It was a Friday. I remember the sequence of events so so so clearly. I went to the gym with my then boyfriend (now husband btw) in Chinatown. I was high on the coming weekend, the fact that my best friend is doing great in our hometown and that I am meeting another longtime friend tomorrow for brunch. I was just texting her about how great everything will be. Then I got home, tired post-gym and just lying on the floor using my phone when my bff’s bf called me. I ALREADY KNOW because I’ve learnt since young that nothing good ever came from late night phone calls. He was sobbing and I was just numb. Before I even realised it I asked him if he was serious (duh). I knew, but I had to.
So yeah, that was the ‘funny’ story I told people whenever I talk about his death and I have come to realised not everyone finds it funny unfortunately. There you go, context.
Hello. It has been a while.
It has been so long Telegram deleted your account and I had to stop messaging your lifeless (lol) account. I used to do because I can still see your profile picture and messages still has that single tick. Telegram is saying maybe, just maybe, you will get the messages. Now it says Deleted Account and messages all came with an angry red exclamation.
USER IS DEAD! STOP MESSAGING HIM!
I need to confess, I fear I have forgotten most of you. How you sound like. How you talk. How you message. All I remember and have with me is this void you’ve created and as much as I tell myself this is what you would say/do/think/likes I don’t know for sure anymore. All I know is I miss you whenever I think of you and it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. I just am reminded of the void whenever I think of you. Unpleasant feeling for sure, but it is definitely not pain.
Some days I find myself realising I have not thought about you for a while and it fills me with this weird combination of guilt, sadness and emptiness. I do wonder if I’ve been willing myself to not think about you because as I sit here thinking about you and letting myself remember it kinda hurts. I just said it wasn’t pain but I can feel this tiny tiny pinch in my heart.
I’ve stopped writing since you’ve been gone. I just don’t have it in me. Recently I’ve been wanting to because I felt like there is just so many feelings, emotions and words that I’ve been bottling up since you’ve been gone. I think I’ve been numbing myself through life telling myself I am tired and lazy. There is too many things going on. That is what I would tell myself again and again. Well not anymore. I’ll write you letters whenever I have something to say or just whenever I want to say something. Although the Chinese thing to do is to burn you a copy of the letter I am writing but the millennial in me is quite keen to believe they have Wi-Fi wherever you are at.
The things we tell ourselves lol.
Write you again, bye.
xx,
LT