Don't

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"Don't"

This is a video to commemorate

the 3rd death day anniversary of

Kel

... and also

to reflect on the helplessness

that friends might

all of a sudden have to face,

when it comes to

trying to help, in a situation where 

all help is doomed to fail ...

—  and still, all of their efforts

are much appreciated, anyhow!

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Yesterday marks the third anniversary of Kel's death. He died on April 19^th 2009, at the age of only 13, and his untimely and tragic passing left me a complete wreckage back then, with close to no energy and will at all left to continue living myself.

In the video I made for this year's return of the saddest day of the year for me, you can read a poem, written in 2008 by an online friend of mine named Duane from Australia, in which he is looking back at a time when he himself had been suffering a heartbreaking loss.

I found this poem online, by a stroke of luck a few months after Kel's death, and I was stunned. Duane had put into words everything, really everything, that I wanted to tell friends of mine, really good friends, online, and also to offline friends, who lived basically right around the corner from me, or at least in the same town.

My friends saw how much I suffered, and at times, I also told them about how terrible I felt. And these two things made them so helpless ... which was okay, because what can you say about something that is so terrible and weighs you down so much that words fail, feelings fail, and failsafe nets fail?

Still, these friends wanted to help me, catch me, stabilize me, redirect me.

They did not realize, though, that this was not possible during this time, with the things they tried to do:

Coming up with thoughts and ideas, well-meant, but made up and planned out from their point of view, which was not mine, which COULD NOT be mine … Things that should help me  —  but ever so often only intensified the pain, and even brought up whole new waves of it, because all of a sudden at times I had to start defending myself (on the inside) against my friends  ...

- ... my friends who were trying to give answers (to questions I had not asked  —  and IF I had done so, there WOULD HAVE BEEN no answers!)

- ... my friends who were trying to give explanations and excuses / justifications, religious as well as rational ones (where I knew, KNEW, that there were none)

- ... my friends who were trying to sketch outlines of "he is in a better place now", when I wanted to scream out that Kel DID NOT NEED any better place to be in  —  he was fine, actually, better than ever before, for the first time since his adoptive Dad had died almost a year prior to that time!

- ... my friends who were trying to think that Kel would "rest in peace", and this was what he needed.

They could not be more wrong. Kel was 13, and he was so looking forward to what life would bring him now, and to so many things that were about to happen for him sooner or later! "Peace" was not needed  —  excitement, joy, happiness and new experiences were!

These friends of mine meant so well, and did their best. But ever so often, they were hurting me, without wanting it, and I had to fight so hard again and again, to sidestep their attempts of comfort that hit me like cannon balls and burned like fire and acid, although I knew they really did not intend any of that to happen, and that they actually cared for me a lot ... it was a terrible dilemma.

The thing is:

No one really asked questions. They obviously did not dare to, because every answer I would come up with was very precise and, by that, tough to bear. And those answers were possibly even intensifying their own sadness they felt for what they knew about Kel.

They all more or less wanted me to stop thinking about Kel, and talking about him, thinking I'd need to distance myself, in order to heal. How understandable, and still wrong can an approach be? My friends did not know it, but they were, with their words and advice, trying to take away everything I had left to try to somehow come to terms with what had happened.

The memory of Kel is indeed all I have, to keep me sane.

This has been true from the very fist day after he had died until now, exactly three years later. And it will be true for all the life time I have left.

That I can keep his memory alive, by thinking of Kel, by remembering him, by talking to him (yes, I do that), and by sometimes also telling others about him ... THIS is the only remedy I have to keep the ice-cold flames at bay that engulf me when I think about what I lost, WHO I lost  —  and how this came to happen.

Nevertheless, I want to say Thank You to those friends, most of who still remain present in my life.

You engaged yourself in a mission that was impossible to achieve ... But the fact that you tried to do so in the first place makes your friendship so valuable to me!

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My video and blog for the first anniversary of Kel's death day:

The saddest anniversary ...

My video and blog for the second anniversary of Kel's death day:

Two Years

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