| This remembrance is one of the
toughest pieces of writing I have undertaken.
Less than 24 hours ago, I learned of the
passing of my best friend, a man whom I have never met in
person. I am dodging tears as I write
this. I've had moments where life has gone on
only to have a storm of emotions sweep over me where all I can
do is to cry.
Tim and I met on an online porn site called
"Fratpad". He became a member after I was
there as a member - possibly around 2007 -
2008. My online persona was and still is a bit
rough and opinionated. As a gay man I have had
decades of being able to insulate my true self from reality of
words and overt hate. I am not the most easy person
to get to know. I don't befriend easily and have a
flaw of valuing trust and loyalty and delivering the same onto
others whom I let into my heart.
Tim, known as Tearle, was my online persona
opposite. He was kind - almost to a
fault. He carried with him a shield as
well. One that didn't try to mask that he was
gay. He suffered from bipolar disease brought
about by a serious car accident years before.
He could go into ever escalating high moods and then on a dime,
he would plunge into the darkness of low moods that sometimes
took him to flirting with self harm. He no
longer could work and was going through the Canadian health
system that is light on healthcare and heavy on pushing things
back.
Tim's medication was indifferent at the
beginning. He'd black out after having those spaced
out highs where he'd make phone calls to people and never
remember what he said or to whom he called. He would
order things online without remembering why he ordered
them. And he'd get preciously close to being
like Judy Garland and committing suicide by the age of 48.
Yet learning of this situation, I found Tim to
be extremely intelligent and a kind and decent
man. Over the years we had found a kinship
that we joked was two brothers separated at
conception. While we were polar opposites in many
ways, we shared much and ended up selecting Friday evenings for
a weekly phone call that usually lasted for several
hours. This went on for the last 15 years.'
I didn't press the issue - didn't ask how - I
was stunned - it was as if I ran face first into a brick
wall. I lost my best friend. And now I
can only hope he didn't suffer. I've played the
blame game - "What if I'd called on a Wed" to say
hi. But there hasn't been a bad health day for him
in months. In many ways this is harder than when my
Richard died in 1993 of AIDS. I had lived with him
for three years. But I have never been as close to
someone on a mind to mind level as I have been with Tim for
15. This pain is just starting to hurt.
I lost the one person I could turn to if I needed advice or
inspiration. This may not be my first death rodeo,
but this bull is getting ready to kick my ass.
Until Friday, July 18th.
Tim liked to call me so I would get my things
ready so I could answer the phone at 7pm and we'd talk about
theater, movies (he being so much more in tune than I), art,
men, and a shared life experience growing up in the 1960's and
entering our sexual awareness in the late 1970's and early
1980's.
On Friday, July 18th, I made sure I was ready
for his call. 7pm, 7:01, 7:02,...7:10pm.
No call. This was so abnormal. Time was
a clock setting punctual kind of guy. If he was
late, at 7:01pm his natural "I'm sorry" Canadian came
out of his mouth and we'd laugh.
But there was no sorry. There was
no laughter. Just his answering machine.
I called at 8:00pm. Then
Saturday morning at noon. At 6pm
Saturday. And daily through Tuesday the following
week. Something was not right.
Tim developed Parkinson's about two years ago
and had fallen and hit his head once before but he was able to
call for help. He typically had his phone with him
at all times. While this situation was
injurious, it was not fatal. It was the seminal
moment where tests were done later to determine his Parkinson's
diagnosis.
I felt deeply for Tim over the
years. I've had one true love in my life and this
situation with Tim was as close to that on a non-physical way as
I've ever had. I opened up to him and he to
me. There was this special bond that was beyond
friends. Had I not been in the US or him in
Canada with limited means to travel, we might have been together
over those 15 years - in person, not in phone calls.
With me not hearing from Tim as of Tuesday,
July 22nd, I was balancing my angst and worry about Tim with the
peak of my work week and anticipated that perhaps Tim had gone
into the hospital and would be back by the following Friday,
July 25.
In the 15 years we reached out and touched
each other over the phone, we had never missed a
week. Even in illness we'd check in and move on to
the next week saying good night and "love ya".
I almost dreaded Friday the 25th.
I didn't have good feelings that all of this would suddenly be a
situation where he was hospitalized or that there was a
technical reason he could not respond. I
called promptly at 7:00pm not waiting for the sands to fall
through the hour glass.
I got his answering machine again.
I had a sinking suspicion that Tim was on the
floor somewhere in his apartment injured and he couldn't get
up. And my mind played the game of since he didn't
answer on the 17th, he's been there for a
week.
We never exchanged mailing addresses
throughout all of this. We had our phone
numbers and emails and our twit accounts. So finding
Tim was an exercise in piecing together things he had
said. One was that he lived on the 12th floor
(top) of an apartment in London, Ontario.
I went to work yesterday, July 26th, with the
determination that when I came home, I'd call the London,
Ontario police to report him missing. I did
just that at 4:30 pm and talked with a nice lady and gave her
information and my number. Around 5:30pm a police
officer delivered the news I had feared.
"Timothy passed on the 17th." |
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