A friend of mine died yesterday

43 is way too early for the end.

Restricted my drinking to F-Sat.

Doing 30 min of cardio per day.

Doing weight lifting every day between muscle pain ( about 2x per week)

Eating as healthy as I can

Outlive the bastards, amen...

Death sucks, no matter how or when it happens.

The Weeping Gardener
By Miguel Hernández


I want to be
the weeping gardener
of the ground you occupy,
and compost so early,
my soul mate.

To feed the garden snails in the rain,
organ of my voiceless pain,
surrendering your heart as food,
to the disheartened roses.
Such pain clumps in my chest,
that breath is agony.

A hard fist, an icy blow,
an axe strike, homicidal and unseen,
a brutal push tumbled you.

There is no wider chasm than my wound,
I cry to misfortune and her companions,
I feel your death, more than my life.

Unkempt and unshaved,
without warmth or consolation,
I tend to my affairs soullessly.

Death took flight early,
and early came the dawn of morn,
and early it spills upon the ground.

I do not forgive death for loving you,
or forgive life for its distraction,
or forgive the ground,
or forgive oblivion.

With bare hands I raise a storm,
of stones, bolts and strident axes,
thirsting and hungering for catastrophe.

With bare teeth I want to dig the ground,
and move the dirt part by part,
in dry and furious bites.

I want to mine the earth until I find you,
to kiss your noble skull,
unbind your body and return you,
to my garden and my fig tree.

Your soul that was,
so effortlessly gentle,
will flutter lie a bird,
among the flowered trellises,
and will return at the murmur
of the iron gates,
where lovers meet.

You will lighten the shadow of my brow,
and your blood will flow through my garden.
Competing for the bees and for your girl,
your velvet heart will summon forth,
a crop of snowy almond blossoms.
But my jealous voice will call you
away from the almond trees,
to the winged souls of the roses.
For we have much to talk about,
my soul mate,
my companion.

damn. You are so well read Xipe I stand in awe. Jealous awe, but awe nonetheless

He was too young, for sure...

Please be gentle with yourself as you pass through this time of grief...

A toast to him and his far too short life and remember he was lucky-he had a friend who cared enough to mark his passing.

It was hard because I didn't know he passed...

I meant to check in on him, but got caught up with being too busy for life..

We think he intentionally departed too, he just had enough, and wanted to escape this life

He did steal a bunch of money from me once, and after that I severed our relationship.

But for a few years, we did everything together.

Like I said, mean streak with a kind streak.

Last summer, I lost a friend with whom I had lost touch. He had a severe drinking problem. I saw his obituary in the paper, and was shocked by it. He was my age--just short of 50 at the time. I expected that he drank himself to death, but it turns out he died of a massive heart attack, most likely caused by heavy smoking and a shitty diet. The sad thing is that he was dead for a few days before they found him. Kind of surprising, since his family lived in town. In light of that, I'd like to add to what you said, Taverner. Check up on friends and family every so often, especially those who live alone. You never know what might happen...

especially one so young. Did his parents pass early too? Oldest boomers are about 66, that would be relatively young too these days.

Something I hope does not happen to me

Not sure the exact cause of death, but from what it sounds like, it was either a stroke or a heart attack.

Now this not only saddens me, this scares me too. When your friends die off, you feel the sharp, cold, razor teeth of mortality clinching ever tighter into your skin.

Xipe's poem made me cry.

Think of the good times and forgive the bad. It will help, believe me.

I don't hold grudges

Thx