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smith
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On fire! |
Registered: January 1970
Messages: 1095
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of your time. A friend told me once that when something eats at your heart to write it down. Where better than here, where I know I'm accepted; where I know I'm safe.
I helped bury a friend yesterday. He died the first of the week in a senseless car accident. He was 16 like me. Nothing went easy; his death, his girlfriend's attempt to go with him, the constant pouring rain, his mother's insistence on a rather 'different' funeral........nothing. Thank you timmy.... Ron, Steve; I don't think I could have gotten through it without ya'll. I'm not an easy person to know, so your patience helped me through the impossible dark in the middle of the night.
He was a skater...one of a group of 13 boys that grew up together. We knew almost all our secrets. His mother asked that we be the pallbearers and insisted that we wear our skater stuff. The objections were loud and weird but, for once, blue hair, pierced eyebrows and black skin were accepted quietly in the church.
There is something about a young person's funeral..........you can't celebrate their life....they haven't had one. The silence was deafening. His mom had asked that one of us say something...it was left to me, standing there in my ripped jeans, OP t-shirt and my vest with the sunrise that my best friend had sewed on the back. I had written some words, meaningless and trivial, but when I walked up there, I just started to talk. Some of timmy's words flowed into my mind.
"In Heaven, there's a place called the Rainbow Bridge. It's arched and comes into a beautiful meadow where all the pets we've loved are playing, waiting for us. Go there, Cam. Wait. One day, we'll skate that bridge, all of us. God will let us, maybe he'll even try it too and you'll finally make that double back flip. See ya, bud."
The last song was not a hymn......It was 'Imagine' by John Lennon. The school jazz chorus sang and the world came back into focus. We had a wake for him last night, his girlfriend has promised not to try again, little Eddie, the fella that was getting beaten up last year, is now officially the 13th skater and the world goes on; less one beautiful boy who would have made a difference.
Please just accept this as something I needed to say; one of the steps, I guess, of letting go...........moving on. God bless......
smith
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I'm sure Simon the soccer kid will sit there and watch your friend do his awesome moves, and then the two can go kick a ball around for a while and chill...
As long as you keep your friend close in your heart and honor him, he won't be truly gone.
Thanks, JJ.
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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proud of you, and have no other words
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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tim...of usa
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Likes it here |
Location: buffalo, new york...USA
Registered: July 2002
Messages: 266
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No Message Body
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You talked to that congregation from the heart. That was a brave thing to do and I am sure that they were moved by what you said.
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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You did a wonderful job through a tough time. I'm sure you weren't expecting a response, but even just the thoughts you set down, the clarity and feeling behind them, I'm sure they will help others just as much as expressing yourself helped you.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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Hey...
I too know what it feels like to bury a friend, and sadly I don't know if there's anything I can say to make it better. He's in a better place now. Lots of {{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}} to you.
Setras
PS. If you want to talk, you know how to find me. But don't feel compelled, ok?
That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.
-Master Li in Neil Gaiman's Sandman
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mihangel
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Likes it here |
Location: UK
Registered: July 2002
Messages: 192
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smith lad, you've heard this from me before, but it bears repeating in public if it gives any comfort.
Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle, and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
Behold, we know not anything.
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last - far off - at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
Hugs, Mihangel
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smith, I almost lost a friend to a car accident and I can sort of imagine how you must feel. I can only send you some hugs from OZ and sit and hold your cyber hand while you remember a friend that will be absent in your circle. As you all think of him and talk about him, so he will be always with you.
People have a habit of changing your direction through life
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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It's hard to be the one "left behind". Be strong smith and know we are all here for you and your friends. Hugs, oliver.
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Hey smith, I know we just started chatting, but I'm sad to hear about your friend. You always have us here! IM me anytime buddy. {{{HUGS}}}
Brian
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
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I can only agree with all the good thoughts and words that others have already told you...you handled it much better than many others would have, that's for sure.
But that just proves that you're our smith!
One thing I remember from when my mother died. It felt weird for weeks afterwards that the world and people and everyday things just sort of went along "normally", even though this huge thing had just happened in my life, and I didn't feel at all "normal". I felt out of synch with everything and everybody, and found myself sometimes angry, sometimes sad, sometimes resentful that life was going on as it had before.
But eventually, I was able to re-join the world, so to speak, and still hold the image of the one who was no longer with us.
Nothing is ever the same again, but you do learn some things...to appreciate life and health and friends and love more. And to remember the person who died, the good times and the goodness of him, as gifts that enrich your life forever. Kind of like what you said to Andy in the other thread.
I know you know this already. Just sometimes, when it's me, I need reminding. Thinking of you today...hoping all is as well as can be expected.
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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I'm so sorry smith. I only just realize now how awful an expieriance that is... The words that comforted me unfortunitly are not relavent for you. I'm so very sorry you lost a friend, I hope life gets better for you. God will watch over you're friend, I know he will. Please don't worry and make yourself sick one day you both will be together skating again. I need to go. Accept my condolences I hope they help somewhat
~Andy
Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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And a kind word should you want one.
Think good thoughts,
e
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{{{{{{SMITH}}}}}}
I think your friend is right. You needed to say it, and as always we needed to hear you say it; so I'd like to add my own "thank you" for (again) sharing with us here like this.
Along with deepest condolences to your friend's family, there should also go commendations for wanting to make his funeral as much for his friends as for his family, realizing that, after all, his friends loved him just as much. Among those who looked askance at the blue hair, pierced eyebrows, ripped jeans and (horrors!) black skin, there were (I would suspect) also those who took great umbrage over John Lennon's "Imagine" being sung in church. In the end, it was all quietly accepted (happily) for this occasion; but hopefully this will (at long last) lead to acceptance and love being not just an occasional thing. If, in hearing that song sung by his schoolmates in that setting, at least one of the "nay-sayers" was touched enough by it to understand what that song really says, then it would provide at least some meaning to it all. ("You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one; I hope some day you'll join us, then the world will live as one.")
His family must think quite highly of you (and why shouldn't they?), seeing as how it was you they asked to speak on his friends' behalf. Those words you had prepared in advance came from your head; and while that is a most excellent place, the words you actually said came from an infinitely more meaningful source: your heart. I know I'll want to be there when God joins him in doing a double back-flip off the Rainbow Bridge on a Kicker41!
I know you don't need to be told to be there for his girlfriend, since I know for a fact you have been in your typically (and uniquely) generous way. Yes, the world has lost one beautiful young man who would have definitely made a difference; but now it's up to you (and Little Eddie, and the rest of the "13", and everybody else who loved him) to keep both him and his spirit alive in your hearts (but that's another superfluous reminder, isn't it?!).
Even though I feel it is so woefully inadequate, I'll close the way I began:
{{{{{{SMITH}}}}}}
We do not remember days...we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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Sometimes you really have a way of putting things in perspective for me.
I'm proud too - you really stepped up to the plate. Know, too, that by fulfilling his mom's request, you helped her immensely in her time of need, I'm certain.
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