The Passing of a Friend

Do y'all remember Country Boy? He comes up quite frequently in my posts because he confuses me. He gets me all sorts of excited for his attention but bugs me at the same time because I crave his attention.

Well, turns out he passed away about two weeks ago.

I'm in shock.

I don't know what to do. This is the first time I can remember a friend dying. I keep going through anger, sadness, questioning, doubt that this really happened, then I'm jolted back to believing that this is reality and not some movie that I can stop and rewind. I feel a lot of guilt. Guilt because I could have texted him. I've been thinking about him for about a month now which usually means that he is about to text me. I fought with the idea of texting him first, but I decided it was a bad idea. Then I start playing the what-if game. What if I had texted him way back a couple of weeks ago when I had wanted to to see how he was? What if I had actually gone to hang out with him the couple of times he invited me somewhere, especially the last time that was about 2-4 weeks ago? What if I had been sending him snap chats when I learned that he had added me on it? What if I had not just said "no thanks" the last time he asked me out and instead said "I'm sorry but I just got a boyfriend and he's a little jealous" or "I think I'm just going to stay in this weekend, but maybe we could go shooting some time"? What if, what if, what if...

He was supposed to turn 20 this Friday. I had been waiting to text him until his birthday. It was taking all I could muster to wait until then. 

I suspected he had depression. I figured that's why he had a tendency to talk to a lot of girls and why he seemed to always have a girlfriend. See, his dad died last year a little after Valentine's Day. He really loved his dad and the father's death happened really unexpectedly due to a heart attack or something. It was a traumatic way to see his dad die because by the time the ambulance arrived at their house, nothing could be done. He talked about how his best friend and his sister were dating and then broke up. When that happened he lost his best friend (they used to see each other every day) and he said he didn't have any other real friends. He had gotten into a car wreck a few months back and had some really bad pain from that. He told me about how he had gotten into marijuana back in high school and how he had gotten into trouble for doing other stuff and all of this lead him to getting kicked out of high school. He then went to a high school program for troubled teens that allowed them to finish their high school career while also doing college work. He ended up graduating high school and getting an Associate's degree at the same time. He had recently started a new job that he liked significantly more than his previous one at a retail store and he was going back to school to get more certifications and maybe even a degree in mechanical engineering. He turned his life around and he seemed to be doing great.

After he told me a little about his past, I told him I thought it was great that he was so young and yet had gotten so much done. He brushed it off out of either humility or disbelief that he was actually being genuinely complimented on his accomplishments. I have a feeling it was the latter.

He had offered to take me hunting this fall. I had gotten really excited and almost went right out and bought head-to-toe camo. He had said I was gorgeous. He wanted to hang out with me and had asked me out but agreed to be just friends for awhile. We talked about needles and sterile fields and he ribbed me about how I thought learning sterile field was cool in college but he had learned it in high school. We almost took an EMT class together because we both thought it would be amazing to be EMT's. He told me he thought I was smart and funny and, did I mention, gorgeous? That was after he met me for the first time and I was a wreck because I had just gotten off of work and he was helping us get back into my friend's house after the whole evacuation ordeal.

I've been informed that his death was likely self-inflicted.

I could have helped. I could have texted or talked to him on Facebook or Snap Chatted him. He could have texted me! I would have driven right to him and talked him through his troubles. He could have called! I would have prayed with him and talked him through the struggles. He could have reached out. I could have shared my story of near suicides and my season of severe depression. I could have let him know that there is help and people can listen to him so that he doesn't have to bear the weight of life alone.

How do I process this? How do I not go over the past month repeatedly until it is fixed and he is back with us and this is all just a bad dream that I will wake up from? How do I keep myself from being eaten alive by the guilt and the what-if's? How do I handle the first death of a friend? Not just any death, but a suicide? How do I not blame myself for not talking to him when I thought of him? What am I supposed to do?