December 2019 I lost an important special friend. Someone I felt was a kindred spirit. I felt like I was supposed to know him in my life. I had met him in 2011. We had stayed friends throughout the years. Somehow I had let him in to the warmest place I could find in my heart. I allowed him access to the corners of my mind and the sights of me that I would never allow most. He got me through some rough times and I got him through a few. 

Well... He had gotten into an accident at work again... the injuries this time around were very severe. His depression started to flood in. I talked to him almost everyday trying to keep his mind from sliding into the darkness. The year of operations, absence of his loved ones, and hospital rounds took their toll on him. He was told he would not be returning to the job he loved. Injuries were permanent. He thanked me for keeping him sane for so long. Then he went silent.

I was worried so, I go to check on him one day... the phone was given back to work. His sister replied with an email. It heavily insinuated him leaving this world by taking his own life. I broke apart. I fell apart at work and home. Anywhere. Everywhere. To songs. To voicemails. To old emails. To text messages. To memories. To wishes. To unmet aspirations. Visited an old friends grave and dropped to my knees in the rain to gut wretch the tears out of my entire being. I could almost feel my organs squeeze the life out of me so that the tears could spill out of my eyes. Greif attacks were everywhere. I hid them the best I could. I could never hide the redness under my eyes made by the tears that slipped out of them. 

I found books on bereavement and I looked up research on specific suicide loss. I tried doing things to bring myself calmness. To get me through it. I tried talking to him out loud but I'd stop mid sentence and the silence gripped me. 

Then corona came into life... and a job lay off... the losses were mounting. My old life was dying. I needed to let all of it go... all of it. It overwhelmed me... 

I suddenly had a lot of time to grieve. To face it head on. There was nothing to stall it. Nothing to ease it away. No work to divert my attention from it.

For months I was writing in a journal, electronic notes, on scraps of paper,  to his personal email because no one would read it... so I could vent there. This month I got an email replying to me from his work email... it was a letter trying to bring me peace... but it broke me more. It said, it was set to send out at a later date... to say goodbye... it was meant to give me closure but my mind would not grasp it. I wretched and locked myself in my room for days after reading it. Face in my pillow to muffle the whimpers. Curled like a ball... grasping my pillow... hiding from everyone... holding on to the slightest bit of sanity inside of my head. Forcing the conspiracy theories of unacceptance out of my mind as it fights to force me to see that this is not true. I dont fight back... but I hug me... and I just repeat, "it will be ok". Even as my head hears those words, it comes up with another story.. and again, I tell myself, "it will be ok" like I'm telling my mind to come with me to the place where we accept this death as truth. I'm hard headed.

I am riddled with guilt and pain. Depression holds on to me and somedays I function only because I mentally drag myself to physically do so because I know its good for me. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just selfish because I'm not ready to let him go. Like that's where I get to see or feel him even if its just in my pain. I believe in energy transfer when we die... I do. Something about this one though... it haunts me. Like, I'm needing to see this. 

The grief attacks... those have slowed down. But now, its replaced with this "deadness". It's not empty and its not full... its stagnate. I could float through it like it was air. I can't tell if its stifling or clearing. 

So...  a while back I realized how much he meant to me... in order to process through it, I started writing a story about us. It is my hope that by the end of the story, I will have found my closure and I will have a story of my life with him existing somewhere in it. 

The research tells me, I am needing counseling. The tests are showing an abnormal amount of oddities that show need for concern. All the while I think this is normal... and now I'm seeing it is not. Its become a tragic event in my life. One I will need to get through, no matter how slow I get through it. 

I found this group forum because I know I need it. Yet, I don't even know what to do with it. 

So... how long is too long?