my life, without mark

is a tricky walk with truth

he struggled like me.

It doesn't impact my every day, Mark's passing.  Nine years on, it's a sad memory - him sitting on my couch playing his dad's 12 string and laughing as we told stories.  Us sitting in a car after his grandfather's funeral, realizing how we didn't have to lie one another and pretend our shit was together.  The memories are fog-filled now, dimmer, but somehow more poignant in the recollection of a boy that is remembered well.

And yet, not a boy.  A man.  Gorgeous.  Strong.  French.  Sexy.  Struggling.  He struggled with the same things I struggle with - not fitting in, not feeling loved, needing to pretend to be someone he's not so that he's paletable with his family.    

He ended his life.  On a cold, November afternoon when he was 33 and I was 38, devastating his mother and causing something in me yet unexplained.  Seeing someone you love end their life, when their struggles were your struggles - wondering how he didn't make it, and wondering if I should have made it, and wanting to set fire to our upbringing and the damage the church does to people like us.

Fuck, I miss him.  I miss him being on earth.  Playing guitar.  Being honest.  Being angry.  I think about his pain, though, and am glad he's outsmarted it.