The Note On My Desk.

 

A year ago today, I sat for hours in a motel room with a friend while he held a loaded gun in his hand and I begged him not to kill himself.

I still have this note sitting on my desk a year later.

“This is where I went. Motel 6. NLR.”

I scribbled those words onto a sticky note before slipping away from work to try to save his life. I didn’t know what I was walking into, and something in me felt the need to leave behind where I had gone.

Before I left, we spent hours texting about his demons. He didn’t want to talk on the phone. That felt too personal. He refused to tell me where he was, but I knew he was somewhere alone, drunk, and holding a loaded gun.

Sprinkled throughout our text thread, I would randomly text:

“Where are you?”

He finally answered me:

Him: “I want to feel like I can trust you, but I don’t want to tell you because I don’t trust anyone to not get cops involved, especially now that I’ve mentioned a gun.”

Me: “So if I’m hearing you right, you are saying for me to quit texting you and leave you alone and let you die in peace. You are telling me to give up on you.”

Him: “Basically, yes.”

But I never gave up on him, no matter how many times he asked me to. The more he pushed me away, the harder my heels dug in.

When he finally told me where he was, he made me promise not to tell anyone his location. I kept my promise, jotted down where I was going, and went alone.

It was his 52nd birthday. He wanted to end it all on his 52nd birthday. Years of severe alcoholism were winning the battle.

For hours in that motel room, he sat on the bed while I sat in a chair. Our conversation went everywhere. Moments of arguing. Moments of laughing. Moments of me crying and begging.

Every argument I made, his answer was the same:

“I’m done, Becca.”

He didn’t follow through with his original plans that day. When he answered my text the next morning, I thought maybe… just maybe… I had quite possibly saved a life.

But two weeks later, he officially ended his battle on his own terms.

I don’t really know why I’m telling you all of this.

Maybe because it’s been hanging heavy over my head for 365 days. Maybe because this complicated grief has taken over my thoughts. The grief of losing my friend, but also the grief that I sat with him for so long in that same motel room where he ended his life. His name comes up often in my therapy sessions. 

I miss him. I’m mad at him.

He was a good man, even though he didn’t believe he was. So many people loved him. He just was never capable of receiving it. That damn alcoholism will turn you into someone you are not. It lies to you. It convinces you that you are worthless and a burden.

You were not, my friend.

You. Were. Not.

Sadly, he isn’t the first friend of mine to die this way. I mourn for all of them and their pain, but this experience was different. Completely different.

My life changed 365 days ago, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly how it changed me and how to carry that forward.

But I do know this:

I still can’t bring myself to throw away that note.