Lost my second friend during covid, and again this time not because of covid. My friend’s name is Andrew Minigan. He was very dear to me. A true light of joy and wit and warmth. We were to be roommates until covid rolled around. He was going to live with me and my brother in Boston. I’m not sure where he ended up moving into after the landlord essentially borked our master plan. We had a lot of master plans. Master plans for mindfulness NGOs, master plans for for-profit education companies, master plans for being silly with life. He was 4 months away from completing his PhD in Education. A real giver. I wrote him some songs.
I struggled with whether I should share them or not. They were for me and they were for him. I burned incense and called his name. I printed a funny photo of him and put it on our family altar. He’s there with my grandparents and greatgrandparents and my brother Calvin’s high school friend who died from a heart attack on the quarter-mile track at school, just a healthy guy who’s heart gave out suddenly. Christian was a good guy. Andrew was a good guy. Norbu was a good guy. Noah was a good guy. Christiana was a good guy.
Death seems to have no apparent pattern, as far as I can tell. People really do randomly disappear from this world. There’s a pattern for like 5% of how it works: are you riding motorcycles too fast all the time, are you a very bad eater, do you have a history of depression. But the other 95% is not covered. My friends keep dying and it always catches me off guard. Why? Why did you die? Why am I still here?
I never know how to answer these questions. I never know what to do with my words. Usually when people die, I can feel them even though they’re not here in the classical sense anymore. I can feel their spirit inhabiting the green things of the world, inhabiting the cold air and the bright sky. This time was the same. I was able to play for Andrew. I was able to play for him my sadness and my grief and my confusion.
Young people shouldn’t die, is the common sense. And yet all my friends have been young. What’s the takeaway? I can’t take friends for granted. How many times do I need to learn this lesson?
I am sending my heart out to all the people whose lives have touched mine. To all those who have loved me and trained me and held me and challenged me.
In the past week, I reached out to a number of friends I hadn’t talked to in a while. It’s interesting the names and faces that come up when you’re thinking of the people that are important to you. In this time of covid especially, why are they all so far away?