To Eric

This feels really weird, dude, because I have this strong sense that the episode will end and fade to black and then the next episode will start and you’ll be back, like nothing happened. Poof, no problem, back to normal. 

It’s hard in this moment because I feel like I need to say something but I don’t know what that is exactly. I guess I need to say goodbye to you.

I feel guilt because we haven’t seen you much the last few years since we had kids. All day barbecues, all day beer drinking, and late nights babbling about esoteric stuff over absinthe are pretty impossible when you gotta be up at 4am and juggle work, karate, doctors appointments and so on. I know it’s all excuses now that you’re gone and there’s no going forward with you in the picture but it’s the truth.

Again, it feels weird. 

I look at your pictures, watch that video of Kurt talking at you, and you’re alive again. You’re not dead. New episode, it’s all back to normal. 

At your funeral I kept thinking people there were you because, and let’s be honest, most of us were white guys with beer bellies and facial hair in baseball caps. Still, I kept looking up and briefly catching you before realizing it was someone else. 

I also forgot how much your dad sounds like you, or I probably should say that you sounded like your dad. As a father myself I can only imagine his loss in a way that taps into my most primal fears. 

I lost a friend and the ability to make a proper reconnection when the time was right, but your dad and your family lost a son and a brother. Honestly I’m surprised your dad did so well today because I put myself in his shoes and I don’t think I’d have been nearly as composed. 

I’m sorry we’ve been unintentionally distant the last few years. Hindsight is awful. 

I hope that if there’s something else or anything after this that you’ve ended up someplace you’d want to be. I know that at some point after 40 beers we’ve discussed this kind of thing, probably several times, but I can’t remember specifics. 

There’s no easy way to leave this world and there’s no easy way to end this kind of thing so I’ll leave it at that.

I miss you, dude. We all do.