See you around, Freeze.

[East Coast Hustle]

I know we had our differences, but they were never unbridgeable.

Or, at least, they shouldn't have been.

And you tried. Every time I came back to town, 3 or 4 different mutual friends would call me and ask if it was cool if you came along because you wanted to be tight again, wanted to bury the hatchet, wanted to make it good.

But I was never down for that. It was too easy, too satisfying to hold on to my pointless dislike. I never even hated you. And I really never blamed you for what you did. After a short while, I stopped thinking of it as "what you did" and realized that like every other similar situation, it was "what she did". I guess it was just a stupid way for me to hold on to the old order of things, to reinforce a hierarchy that had long since slipped into irrelevance. It was so petty and small of me, but I just wanted to make a point to you that you don't do that sort of thing to me when I'm higher on the totem-pole than you are.

A totem pole that, upon reflection, should (at best) be a lesson in the tunnel-vision of youth and more probably (at worst) a source of enduring shame for having aspired to be the king of that particular hill in the first place.

Even last year, 10 years after the "incident", I couldn't bring myself to swallow my pride and accept you back into my circle of friends with open arms. As bad as I wanted to want to, I couldn't let go of that part of me that viewed it as a loss of face. Even in the face of your condition, knowing that you wanted to make it right while you still had time, and even though I had just struggled through helping someone else do just that before they passed.

And when I moved to Oregon 6 weeks ago, I decided that the first time I was up in Seattle with more than a day to spare I would seek you out, would make room in my heart for your friendship, would take you out for beers and let you get it off your chest and we could both be cool again in each others' eyes. To be honest, when someone fights their sickness as long as you did, people start to forget that you're living on borrowed time. They start taking you for granted again, like they always did when they KNEW you'd always be around.

Freeze, I'm fuckin' sorry, man. I'm sorry I was so petty about something so ultimately meaningless and I'm sorry that it cost us years of friendship that can never be made up.

I was really looking forward to seeing you next week when I went up to Seattle. I was looking forward to dragging you out for beers with Chad and Meinert and catching a shitty punk show at Tony V's. I was looking forward to watching you clown the local crackheads and reminiscing and laughing about the time we had a sledgehammer party at Courtney's house and charged people $1 for 3 swings at your old broken-down buick. I was looking forward to being true friends again, the kind of friends that only happen when two people go through the same trial by fire at the same time.

I thought I called Chad this afternoon to tell him about Cliff Lee being traded to the Mariners.

Turns out, I called him to find out that you died today.

I'm drinking a beer in your honor, right now, and thanking you. I'm thanking you because I can be a hard motherfucker to get through to and today you taught me a lesson in humility that I will never forget. I'm glad I knew you on this earth, and I'm glad that I had forgiven you in my heart before you went, even if you never got to know it for yourself. I'm glad that, when I heard the news, I still had enough love for you to shed tears over your death. And I am as proud as I can be to have been friends with a man who fought that motherfucker for five long years and went out kicking and screaming and living life until the very end.

I loved you, and I'm going to miss the hell out of you.

See you around, Freeze.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There is nothing that sucks so much as being just in time to be too late.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Well, damn.

That was moving.

[hooplala]

Fuck, sorry ECH.

[Suu]

 

I'm sorry, dude.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

That really sucks.  I'm sorry!

[Richter]

Shit man. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh god. I'm so sorry.

[Jenne]

  So sorry, ECH.

[East Coast Hustle]

I appreciate the sentiments, but...don't feel sorry for me, I'm not the guy who died a prolonged and painful death from cancer.

I'm just the petty asshole who needed to get that off my chest somehow.

[BabylonHoruv]

wow.

*touched*