Oh Scott…you haunt me still.  Turns out you haunt others too.  Grant and I have bonded now over your macabre act.  We are puzzled/afraid/awestruck about what seems like an orchestrated attempt from “beyond” to pull us together. First came his letter and my response.  Next came a random encounter on Highway 65/610 (where I NEVER drive).  Suddenly, I found myself following Grant’s motorcycle, with that damn banana patch and worst-yet, stuffed banana strapped to the rack.  He didn’t see me, so I took a picture and later sent it to him as proof that something divine had occurred on our mutual evening commute.

That was a springboard to finally getting together, talking about our common grief, laughing and crying about our experiences with you and how we handled, (and have NOT handled) the trauma. It made me ache, but perhaps, for the first time, I felt that I could be real with my true feelings.  Your friend understands the thin line between love and hate.  I feel no judgment coming from him as I describe how angry I am with you in one sentence, followed by how much I loved you, followed by how much I miss you, and finally, followed by how I am finally free without you.  

Did you orchestrate our attendance at “A Star is Born” that forced us to both relive and revisit your own experience? Did you want us to cry when we realized that Jackson was going to kill himself? (Yes, I saw the parallels from his last request to look at her face one more time and your request to give me a hug. Yes, I cried when he fed his dog the steak dinner and they showed the dog whimpering outside the garage door…how could I not think about Toby’s experience?  Yes, I saw the deliberation in Jackson’s decision to move the truck, take his belt off, take his hat off, and close the garage door…the same way I imagined you leaving your vest on the counter, taking your rings off, taking the gun out, and closing the garage door, knowing that the next person to open it WOULD BE ME.). The sirens, faintly heard in the background, along with the shadows of the lights in the movie, unnerved me because it brought me right back to sitting on my driveway, watching police officers walk into the house, the garage, taking over, leaving me broken. 

We sat perfectly still until the credits stopped, the lights came on, and the 16 year old kid came in to pick up garbage.  People had to wonder why we emerged with tear-stained eyes and stunned at the similarities and the sense that you had somehow emerged from the grave, held our hands, and led us to this coincidental, divine, and belated suicide note gifted to us as a popular movie.