Nate's Legacy

I can’t really justify spending the money to build or buy my very own DeLorean time machine, but I often wonder why Enterprise or Hertz doesn’t have one available for a weekend rental. I don’t want to see my future or rig a lottery win in my past – although neither one of those would suck – but instead, I’d use my weekend time machine rental to rewrite the script on some conversations that seemed inconsequential in the moment but that have stuck with me years later.

What would you say if you knew that this was your very last opportunity to talk to your best friend? Would you say I love you? Would you tell him how he inspires you to be a better person? Would you compliment her artistic talent and tell her how you admire what she stands for? This question is top of mind for me today as I replay the last conversation I had with my beloved Nate 15 years ago.

When he stepped out of my car that slushy, wintery February day, I didn’t realize how precious and fleeting time was. If I’d known this was the very last time I’d see his face, hear his voice, and be able to talk to him, I probably wouldn’t have been such an asshole. Sure, I was tired. I was under tremendous stress at work; worried about money and my weight and probably my teeth; distracted; and needy all at the same time. My patience was non-existent, my compassion was on strike, and I was in a hurry to get to the airport to catch a flight that would take me 827 frequent flier miles away from home – and Nate – at a time when he needed me more than ever.

In hindsight, I can clearly see and feel the depths of Nate’s pain that last day we spent together. He wasn’t himself. He struggled to be present with me and he was obviously distracted. In that moment, I didn’t recognize what was happening, and I made it all about me. Was he mad at me? Had I done something wrong? What was his problem? Why was he behaving this way? It never even dawned on me that he was buried under the weight of his emotional and physical pain and it took every ounce of strength he could summon to get out of bed to go through the motions of living. How I wish my vision was as clear real-time as it is in hindsight!

My last words to this amazing, sweet soul aren’t worth repeating. In fact, they shouldn’t be repeated. To anyone. Ever. Under any circumstances. As I left him that day, I remember being irritated that he didn’t get out of the car faster – and then I sped away, assuming that we’d have 50 more years to make memories and express gratitude. A few days later, the phone rang in my Memphis hotel room with the news. Nate - the boy who’d captured my heart in 11^th grade and held it for the next decade and the man whom I imagined living happily ever after with – had taken his own life. And he died without ever knowing how much he meant to me.

There was a funeral, of course. We sang “On Eagle’s Wings”. The casket was closed, presumably because the self-inflicted gunshot to his head made an open casket a gruesome impossibility. I sobbed uncontrollably and simultaneously tried to rip the casket open so I could climb inside. The priest had to restrain me and I’m not proud of the fact that I cursed a priest, in God’s house. Trust me when I assure you that it takes a special kind of asshole to ruin a funeral. (But be not afraid: I confessed my sins and the very same priest absolved me. Eventually.)

The USPS doesn’t deliver letters to heaven, or whatever version of the afterlife you may choose to believe in. And I wrote letters to Nate anyway. I delivered pages and pages of letters to a mound of dirt that gave way to a headstone in the cemetery I could see from my balcony, reminding me that Nate was gone. I wrote page upon page of apologies for failing him. If I were a better friend; a better woman; a kinder soul – perhaps he would have, could have shared his burden with me. Maybe I could have written a different ending to our story.

I didn’t just write letters, though. I sat at his grave every single day for a year, and I talked to him. Out loud. I told him all the things I wish that I’d said when he was alive. I begged for forgiveness. I apologized for being cold and weak when he needed warm and strong. Nate was a better person than I could ever hope or dream of being, and his death cast a dark shadow over my soul. Why would God take this gentle, kind man and leave a shrieking, selfish, priest-cursing asshole behind? And so, between my letter writing and my grave-talking, I made a promise to Nate that has become my very moral compass. I promised to live a life that honors his memory and that would make him proud.

And guess what? Some days, I know he’s proud of what he sees. Other days, when I binge-watch Real Housewives or when I cop an attitude with a server at Applebee’s, I can feel him cringe. (And really – he should. WTF am I even doing at an Applebee’s?).  I try and there are days when I succeed and there are moments when I fail so spectacularly that I could drown in a river of my own shame.

Suicide cuts one life story short every 12.3 minutes. 105 people will take their own lives today in the United States. Untreated mental illness killed Nate and robbed all of us of his shining light and joy; a loss I feel profoundly every day, even 15 years later.

When you get your hands on that DeLorean time machine, let me know. I’d like a few minutes to return to 2001 to flip the script on a conversation that should have started and ended with, “I love you.”