Every year this weekend rolls around, I slowly lose my ability to function. To many, Super Bowl Sunday is one of the most celebrated days of the year. To me, it’s just the day I lost my best friend. I don’t mean to sound morbid, but there’s really no other way to describe it. I’ve mentioned Brian in previous posts, but he deserves so much more than a few sentences. And it’s not like I’ve thought of anything else this week, so I may as well get it out.
It was a beautiful afternoon in Florida, so I was going to Bekah’s to go swimming. Brian, in typical Brian fashion, was laying on his bare mattress and pillow – because why would a bed ever need sheets – wearing only his orange, unwashed gym shorts. The dude never wore a shirt. The TV was on blast, but he wasn’t watching it because his tablet was glued to his face with Facebook open on his phone. I went to his room to tell him I was leaving. Like the overprotective “big brother” he was, he made sure I wasn’t going where I was forbidden to go and threatened to show up at Bekah’s if I was lying. I told him to suck my dick and that if he didn’t wash the pan he’d ruined with his sweet potatoes before he left to work at the bar, I’d never let him use my shit again. He goes “Ok fuck off MOM”. I told him to go make some money and enjoy the game and heard him yell “Bye faggot.. love you!” as I closed the door. It was the last thing he ever said to me.
Looking back at that moment, I realized the whole exchange couldn’t possibly have been more “us”. When his funeral came around shortly after, I refused to attend the open casket because I wanted my last memory of Brian to be exactly what it had been: typical Brian. Brian was the kind of person you only meet once in your life. He was an awful roommate who never locked the door at night, cooked full meals at 2 am because I guess my sleep wasn’t important, and believed that a car air freshener would fix the stink of his room. Yet he was the most incredible human being in the world. And anyone who met him for even an hour can vouch for that. I could go on for another 42 pages about how much I adored him, but I’ll spare you. There’s just no rhyme or reason for why it had “been his time”, and it’s fucking bullshit.
It’s been four years, and while most things have gotten easier and I can let myself laugh thinking about him, this day, this weekend, and the weeks leading up to it, have yet to get better. I cry more often than usual, I drown my feelings in tequila, and I just get furious all over again. I can’t be left alone, yet leaving the house is near impossible. It’s hard to put in words how difficult of a time it is for me, especially when everyone is out having the time of their life, and I’m looking for the nearest bridge with all my Brian memories playing on repeat as I sob through each one. That said, I’m sincerely grateful to those who do what they can to put my needs before their own to be there for me. I’m also grateful beyond words that I have a second family with the Winholtz’s – Timmy can always be counted on to be just the sweetest asshole, and I can always count on Papa Craig to send me a picture I really didn’t want to see. They’re my little piece of Brian, and I’m gonna hold onto that forever.