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what the actual fuck, Universe?
Jun. 9th, 2023 09:31 amYou ever get news you can't really process because it doesn't feel like it's yours to process? So not only are you fucked up by the news itself but by your own reaction to it?
I'd decided to go to bed early yesterday because the two previous days I'd been up far too late and I was dragging. So I'm in bed, nice and comfy with my problem ankle propped up on some soft blankets, when my brother calls. I debate not answering because I don't want to get out of bed and look anything up downstairs. But then I decide I should be good and answer, especially since I didn't hear the house phone ring. I answer and he sounds weird, then says the old, "you should make sure you're sitting down."
And then he tells me one of his friends died. Ben lived across the highway from where I work and would come in every so often and we'd chat (when my brother and an old friend from elementary/middle school were dating, we had a whole conversation about how the pair seemed to desperately want a reaction) and in general, he'd become one of the friends who seemed to bring out the better parts of my brother. I won't say he was always respectful of my mom (or dad) but that's only because he was one of the many kids my parents took in over the years and his stay didn't end well. But he grew up and was making the effort to be a good dad to his daughters and to be better than he was before. He was, as they say, good people.
And now he's past tense and it's fucked up.
At the time of my brother's call yesterday (so 10:30am), he'd been found by one of his workers (coworkers? I'm not sure) because no one had heard from him in two days. They'd thought nothing of Tuesday because maybe he was just taking a day to himself but Wednesday and no word for work that morning was weird as fuck. So they went over and found him on the back porch. I later found out a little more info, like his ex was playing keepaway with his kids and he was fucking miserable about it, and that the person who found him was my coworker's brother in law and she let it slip that it was the back porch and he was blue when he was found. She seems worried he did something but my brother thinks it was just one of those genetic flukes.
Then I had to go tell Mums, who asked when told I had bad news, "did _family member_ die?" and I had to tell her not _family member_ but Ben and she was probably more shocked than I was. He was just here helping fix the downstairs toilet so it stopped trying to tip over and had just gone out of town with my brother and his oldest friend. Wtf. He's one of the few people Mums has saved in the phone because he was reliable to call on if you needed help or if you needed to get a message to my brother when he was in a funk.
I won't say the next part is the worst part, because him being gone at all is the worst, but he's yet another friend my brother's lost. And while the boy and I have a complicated relationship, it breaks my heart that his friends keep dying on him.
I'd decided to go to bed early yesterday because the two previous days I'd been up far too late and I was dragging. So I'm in bed, nice and comfy with my problem ankle propped up on some soft blankets, when my brother calls. I debate not answering because I don't want to get out of bed and look anything up downstairs. But then I decide I should be good and answer, especially since I didn't hear the house phone ring. I answer and he sounds weird, then says the old, "you should make sure you're sitting down."
And then he tells me one of his friends died. Ben lived across the highway from where I work and would come in every so often and we'd chat (when my brother and an old friend from elementary/middle school were dating, we had a whole conversation about how the pair seemed to desperately want a reaction) and in general, he'd become one of the friends who seemed to bring out the better parts of my brother. I won't say he was always respectful of my mom (or dad) but that's only because he was one of the many kids my parents took in over the years and his stay didn't end well. But he grew up and was making the effort to be a good dad to his daughters and to be better than he was before. He was, as they say, good people.
And now he's past tense and it's fucked up.
At the time of my brother's call yesterday (so 10:30am), he'd been found by one of his workers (coworkers? I'm not sure) because no one had heard from him in two days. They'd thought nothing of Tuesday because maybe he was just taking a day to himself but Wednesday and no word for work that morning was weird as fuck. So they went over and found him on the back porch. I later found out a little more info, like his ex was playing keepaway with his kids and he was fucking miserable about it, and that the person who found him was my coworker's brother in law and she let it slip that it was the back porch and he was blue when he was found. She seems worried he did something but my brother thinks it was just one of those genetic flukes.
Then I had to go tell Mums, who asked when told I had bad news, "did _family member_ die?" and I had to tell her not _family member_ but Ben and she was probably more shocked than I was. He was just here helping fix the downstairs toilet so it stopped trying to tip over and had just gone out of town with my brother and his oldest friend. Wtf. He's one of the few people Mums has saved in the phone because he was reliable to call on if you needed help or if you needed to get a message to my brother when he was in a funk.
I won't say the next part is the worst part, because him being gone at all is the worst, but he's yet another friend my brother's lost. And while the boy and I have a complicated relationship, it breaks my heart that his friends keep dying on him.
