Vol. 87 - Bravery and Tragedy

On unexpected sadness

I found out a guy I grew up with died last week. We weren’t friends but we were friendly. But, for some reason, his death hit me harder than I would have anticipated.

I’m used to this by now. Where I grew up, people die too soon. That’s just a fact of our hometown and it always has been. Whether by drugs or suicide or drunk driving or any combination of the three, I’ve been watching my friends and acquaintances put in the ground since I was barely a teenager. And so, over all those years, I’ve come to know and understand my grief process intimately.

When it happens to those close to me, it hits a lot harder (obviously). With those I barely knew, it’s more of a passing, “Man, that’s a shame/drag/bummer/whatever.” And for those people I was acquainted with, it’s somewhere in the middle.

But for some reason, hearing about this guy fucked me up in a way that it shouldn’t have. Or at least, in a way that it wouldn’t have in the past.

In working through this unexpected sadness I’m feeling (unexpected because it was a sudden death and unexpected because my sadness is far outweighing the relationship I had with him), I’m wondering why his death is laying into me so hard. And I think it has a lot to do with being a father and seeing just how unkind kids can be to one another.

Because growing up, a lot of kids were unkind to this guy. Maybe I was. I don’t remember. I don’t think I was, but who knows. Kids can be the meanest sons of bitches on Earth, myself included. And if I was, I’m sorry. Of course, it’s too late to apologize now, something I might have done in the few friendly conversations we had since graduating from high school twenty-three years ago.

In a time and a place when and where it was really, really, really difficult to be a queer kid, this guy was unapologetically himself. He wore his queerness with pride. At least, he did on the outside. Who knows what was happening on the inside. But I’m sure it wasn’t as easy at he made it seem. And I always admired his bravery, even when we were young. I used to think I was fiercely independent, waving my freak flag as high as I could. But here was a kid who was really a freak, in the best possible ways, and he let the world see it. In a way, I was jealous of his bravery.

Part of me hopes my kids are fearless like he was; to be exactly who they are no matter the social ramifications. Part of me hopes they aren’t because I saw and heard the things people did and said to this guy when we were kids and I want no part of that for my children.

Whatever the cause, thinking about this guy over the last week or so has made me reckon with a variety of emotions that are usually only reserved for the mourning process of those closest to me. And it’s made me realize that, more than just about anything else in my role as a father, I need to do my job to ensure my kids practice kindness to everyone, no matter who they are or what they represent.