I’m broken, man.
I’m broken and you’re gone.
Not away. You’ve been away for a while now.
You’re gone and though it’s realer than real, I don’t know what to make of it and I sure as shit don’t want to be writing this.
I have trouble breathing if I think about it too much and my face starts to look like my son’s when he’s throwing a fit.
But I can’t help thinking about it, Doug, because you’re such a part of me.
You can’t not be in my heart and thoughts because most of the worthwhile shit I think about is followed by: “Dode would appreciate this.”
Now you’re gone. And I’m real fucking broken.
And all these tears and weird sounds coming out of me won’t change it.
And I don’t want you to be dead, Doug.
We were supposed to grow old together.
We were supposed to grow old together and teach our kids how to beat each other at chess.
We were supposed to grow old together and go on family camping trips.
We were supposed to grow old together.
Even if you never moved back to KC, we were supposed to grow old together.
I don’t want to celebrate the life you had.
I lived the past 16 years of it with you, some years nearly every day and I don’t want to celebrate that.
I’m glad you got to live your dream and if you had to die I’m glad it was doing something you loved. But I know about that.
I know what happened, both good and bad.
You’re a part of me, Doug, and I don’t want you to be dead yet.
We’ve got so much still to do.
I haven’t even really talked with you since Eric’s wedding.
And I wanted to call you last week to tell you about the D&D character Roman rolled up with me (Barbarian Dwarf with an eye patch) and tell you how excited I was you guys were thinking about moving back and tell you about HEALTH and see if you still had all our OTE cards and –
I’m glad D got to talk with you.
I’ll help take care of Jes and Liam, Doug.
I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with you when you were in town.
I’m so sorry.
You died. You fucking died.
I just finished a play and I wanted you to read it. It sucks but I know you would read it and tell me why.
Sarah’s been going through all of our photos of you. And goddamn we have a lot of them. I don’t really want to look at them. Not yet.
I went to bed last night trying to remember everything about you I could. And it had me doubled over in pain.
Ry told me he called your voicemail so he could hear you talking.
And these words aren’t doing anything so I’ll probably go have a smoke.
We’re all so sad, Doug.
Sad and broken.