Rest In Peace

Victor was pronounced brain dead this morning and they plan to remove him from life support ... well, about now I think. I guess I should mention that I haven't referred to Victor before and it is an alias but the picture is of him. His cousin Isabel is a coworker and friend, I've mentioned her before, that's not really important. What happened was, sometime around 11 or so on Monday Isabel got a call that he had been airlifted from home to the nearby hospital. Something about him not breathing when he was checked on, I gradually accumulated details as the day wore on. Overdose, unfortunately not a surprise.
It is starting to affect me now. I knew he was gone as far as the person everyone knew when the doctors were telling them that he had brain damage, they didn't expect him to wake up, still wasn't breathing on his own, etc. What I didn't know until yesterday was that they had called an ambulance for him six hours or so earlier and he had refused to go. He was an adult, they couldn't force him, and I have no problem with that. He died of playing with prescription meds, and I would love to have had a moment with him if I had known it was getting that bad, but I'm okay with that too. I don't have an "If only I had" scenario that is going to keep me awake at night. I was friendly with the kid, but really had only spoken with him a few times. I remember him showing me a bag of weed he was particularly happy about, and I was able to appreciate by smell that it was certainly a very nice bag of weed, but my being sober for 8 years and almost 20 years older than him, we weren't exactly Frick and Frack. I do wish I had tried to talk to him about how bad he was looking the last couple of times I saw him, but I'm giving myself a pass on the guilt, well, mostly.
What is starting to get to me now is how his family is going to suffer for a long time over how he died. He was living with his parents, only 19; and his Mother was the one that called the ambulance. She is going to be 'If only I had'-ing herself for the rest of her life. People can, (and hopefully will), tell her that she couldn't make him go against his will. They will tell her that it wasn't her fault, that there was nothing she could have done, but she won't believe them. Nobody that loses someone under these kind of circumstances ever completely forgives themselves, it's just not human nature to detach like that. Even the ones that go on Orpah and say they do, and she hugs them and tells them what an inspiration they are to the rest of us - they can't completely forgive themselves. But that's okay, sometimes we have to fake it 'til we make it, to borrow an old 12-step chestnut. And most of the time that fakin' never gets all the way to makin' it, that's okay too. It will get better, eventually, and they will go on with their lives, even if there will always be a shadow across even the very best of days. This particular family has a lot of guilt that is certainly justified, not limited to whose prescription meds he had nor whom he learned such behavior from, but I wouldn't wish any of what they are going through on my worst enemy.

Duty Freebie: Lady cabdriver over at Heard in my Cab tells of her experiences driving people around. Funny, sad, weird, it's the real deal.