Dear D,
I was twelve years old when you took me under your wing. Brand new to an online world so vast and unfamiliar, I was just a kid learning what it was to play games, a pastime I thought impossible for me. You brought me into a circle that has since widened and often shifted but still lingers in some capacity to this day. Who would I be today without you? Where would I be without your influence?
The de facto leader of our band of misfits, I think you became a brother to us in all but blood. You celebrated my transition to high school with me. You were there through a turbulent adolescence, listened patiently to my venting, and offered kind words and comfort in the face of challenges I thought world-ending. You sighed and shook your head with each new crush I brought up to you. They were never good enough for me, even when it was one of your own friends. You never tried to dissuade me because you knew it wouldn’t work; you simply waited and observed, prepared to help fit the scattered pieces back together when I, seemingly inevitably, fell out of orbit with a broken heart. I could so easily see the battle within you, torn between letting me make mistakes and learn and protecting me from the hurt before it could reach me. You teased me endlessly, but nobody else dared while in your vicinity. You let me fight my battles, but I had no doubt in my mind that, if you could, you’d fight off the world to give me a chance to breathe.
My presence ebbed and flowed. I ranged into new spaces with new faces, and I followed my heart far more often than I should have. Without fail, I’d come home to you and the others and be welcomed as though no time had passed at all. There was always space for me. As I got older, the intervals grew longer and longer, and yet the familiarity was beyond compare. To return was like stepping back into a childhood bedroom, still boasting the evidence of the heart of a much younger me.
I don’t remember the first time we all talked about meeting up. It was little more than a happy daydream for years, with us scattered across countries and some still walking the uncaring hallways of high schools. The potential of it carried me through some of the darker moments. I was comforted by the possibility that distance might one day be erased. I, so intensely lonely despite a wonderful group of friends at school, could envision nothing better than even a few moments spent occupying the same space as those who’d become as good as siblings to me.
You wanted to see me graduate high school. You marked the date on your calendar and planned the trip, but life happened, and you couldn’t make it. You never stopped apologizing for it, even when I tried to tell you that it was all okay, that there would come a day when we’d all be together, and I held nothing against you. Still, years passed, and it stuck with you. Even your wife remarked on the regret you felt over your absence on that day. She seemed to share in it, this woman whom I barely knew and yet who seemed to care about me simply because I mattered to you.
That day will never come. A meetup with all of us will never happen. Each of us grew up and out, branches of the same tree—or maybe simply trees within the same forest. We found our paths, and there is delight when one briefly crosses with another. In many ways, we grew up together. There will always be threads that tie us to one another, even as we flourish into people unrecognizable from the chaotic adolescents we once were.
Your path, though, will never cross ours again. Its sudden end cuts across the landscape of my life like a jagged scar, while ours stretch on into the hazy unknown. I always thought I’d find you somewhere along the way—that we’d have more chances to reminisce, to share our fears and hopes for the future. But now, every step forward takes me farther from where your journey ended. I look back and see the tear in the earth, the moment someone asked if I’d heard about you, and I knew. She didn’t have to say it. I already knew you were gone.
I didn’t know you were so sick. I wish I had known, so I could have thanked you for the impact you had on my life. I wish I could’ve told you that I still talk about you, that I still marvel at how remarkable you were to survive so much. I wish I could’ve hugged you in real life and told you that, no matter where life takes me, I will never forget the years you were by my side.
All I have now are memories. You’ll never call me “lil bit” again. You won’t be there to guide me through my endless habit of loving what—or who—I know will hurt me. You won’t drive me crazy with your latest game idea or story pitch, leaving me to wonder what happened to the last thousand. You won’t tease A about her book chapters or wish you could bonk one of us on the head to knock some sense into us. You won’t ever again share the wild stories from your life that we’ve heard a hundred times but still listened to.
I grieve for the girl I once was, who entered a strange, vast world and found your outstretched hand waiting to guide her. I grieve for the girl who trusted you with her whole heart, knowing she was safe. I grieve for your children, who undoubtedly felt the same, and for the love that now searches for somewhere to go. I grieve for your wife, who spoke of you with nothing but adoration and pride.
We were so different, you and I, yet our lives intertwined in ways I’ll never fully understand. I spent over half my life in your orbit, and though we hadn’t spoken in months, adjusting to your absence has been harder than I could have imagined.
I think about all of those whom I love and care for, and I grow terrified at the potential of their loss. Nothing is set in stone. Nothing is guaranteed. All I know is that you slipped out of this reality before I had the chance to tell you how integral you were to who I have become. Were it not for you, I suspect I would not still share in laughter and heartbreak with those to whom you introduced me. I have lost many, and I fear losing more. Some part of me wants to withdraw, to protect myself from all of the hurt that lies in store because I dare to love with such ease. I’m so scared.
I want to be to others what you were to me. I want to be the one with a hand outstretched, prepared to catch another. I want to be the person to whom my loved ones can come without fear of judgment or criticism. I want to love as you did. I cannot do such things if I hide from the world. But oh, how I want to. How I never want to receive another phone call from a sobbing woman telling me of the death of someone close to me. How I never want another text asking if I’d heard the news. How I never want to open social media again only to see that someone else had passed on. How I want to both cling to my loved ones with every ounce of strength in my body, while simultaneously retreating into a darkness so complete that I can convince myself that maybe this is how I won’t get hurt.
You wouldn’t want me to hide. I know that. You wouldn’t want me to vanish, and I think—I hope—that they wouldn’t either. I miss you, my friend. I miss you, my big brother. I’m endlessly sorry I didn’t tell you before your time came. I’m sorry I never told you how much you meant to me, how much you shaped who I’ve become. I’m sorry, and I thank you. I’m sorry, and I thank you. I hope you rest easy now. I’m glad you don’t have to fight anymore, because God, how you fought.
I love you, friend. I love you, big brother.
Lil Bit