“Into the land of the living, black bleeds orange into blue” - MPJ

I woke up this morning incredibly sad, and also in awe of how the brain can work.

Let me back up.

About nine years ago, a crazy and wonderful person I knew passed away. He was in a terrible car accident and never woke back up.

Most of my October nine years ago was spent in hospitals, between my mom having cancer and my friend in a coma.

I spent my birthday that year on a bus filled with my friend’s fraternity, driving nine hours to attend his funeral. I had spent the previous weekend with my family, rejoicing that my mom was still alive, and then the very next weekend, I was packing up my black dress to attend one of my favorite people in the world’s funeral.

I spent years of Octobers blaming myself for his death. Let me clarify, there was nothing about his death that was my fault. He was crushed between a semi and a median, early in the morning, after spending time with his family for his niece’s birthday, when he decided to drive back to school instead of staying the night and skipping class. I wasn’t there, I didn’t make him drive back, I didn’t even know he had gone home that weekend. We were close, but not the kind of close where I knew his whereabout every weekend. But he had a lot of struggles and issues in his life, and somehow I twisted things around in my mind and told myself I should have been a better friend, I should have spoken up more and told him when he was being an idiot and making poor decision, I should have prayed for him more. I got it into my head (probably a combination of the Enemy and a lack of sleep since I didn’t sleep much that October) that if I prayed hard enough, I could save my mom and my friend. But sometimes I got lost while praying for my mom’s recovery from cancer, then felt I didn’t have the energy to pray for him, too.

The day I found out my mom was going to be okay was the same day he died.

Since I felt so many strong emotions during that October, it really shouldn’t be surprising that I still feel the impact nine years later, but sometimes I forget the way the brain works.

For several years after my friend died, I would try to take a day or two in October and be by myself and cry out to God and try to work out things in my own head. It’s been a few years since I felt like I had to do this, and even though I’ll always remember that goofy idiot, Octobers have looked a lot different the past few years for me. I’ll even confess that I haven’t thought about him in a long time. I certainly wasn’t thinking about him yesterday or last night.

But my brain gave me the craziest dream last night about him and about his death, and I woke up sad at the memory of his passing, but also in awe that this part of my brain, the part that gives me dreams, remembered a day nine years ago (I woke up from the dream I think exactly nine years ago to the hour when he had his car accident). And I’m so thankful that part of my brain remembered today, because I’ve spent the day in a way I haven’t in nine years - just remembering him.

Not the sadness of his death, not the guilt that plagued me for years, not the forgetting of his passing like I did last year, just fondly remembering him. We weren’t best friends by any standards, but he was there for me a few times when no other friend was. We didn’t share every aspect of our lives together, but we shared a few things with each other that we shared with few others. We didn’t even talk all that much honestly, we knew each other for a little over a year, but we also had some of the most brutally honest and prophetic conversations I’ve ever experienced. And that’s what I’m remembering this year, just the sweet moments I did get to share with him.

It feels nice to remember and to note his passing.

And then to continue on with the living.