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It has been three weeks since Tim passed from a heart attack, and I'm still struggling to deal with his death. My relationship with Tim was strictly virtual - weekly phone calls on Fridays at 7:00 p.m.    We had done this for over 15 years without fail.   Even when one of us might have been sick, we'd at least check in with each other.    We'd conclude the phone call with him uttering Dame Edna's "Possum" and I'd repeat the line from Mrs. Doubtfire, "Bye, bye, Poppet." I know that there were many who were put off by Tim - he had bipolar and was a handful at times with his manic mood swings and phone calls.   Even though he was under medical care for this with varying prescriptions for his mood swings, he would have his good days - his normal days.    And then there were those weeks during his 48th year on this earth where he talked about not making it through this year because he was fixated on Judy Garland and not living longer than her. Maybe I'm one of those people who has this veneer of standoffishness because I need to protect myself from the outside world.    Ever since my Dad read my diary when I was around 10 when I wrote about liking boys my age and having touched another one through his pants and grabbing his crotch like he did with me, I have erected that personal force field so that I dare not let anyone in nor to have to deal with torment.   My Dad told my 4th grade self that "normal boys don't do that."   I gave up writing anything about my feelings until I was in college during my tumultuous years of accepting my homosexuality and the nearest I've come to ending my own life. It did not make it easier that in later years I never fit in and was subjected to "smear the queer" ball game when I didn't even know what queer was.   Or that I was persecuted for being smart and put on trial on a snow bank one winter in 5th grade where a rotten banana was rubbed in my face. So for someone to be let into my world is quite an achievement.   I once did it with my one true love, Richard, who had AIDS and died in 1993.    We were together for three years and I learned the difference between love and lust in that Richard was so far away from an object of lust.   But he was so spot on with love.   It was as if I had known him forever and he just fit into my life in the right kind of emotional way.   His passing in 1993 was the most difficult thing in my life as I felt my entire heart torn from my soul.   Knowing what love is and living without it was hell on earth.   Being gay it was hard to deal with.   After a year or so I tried dating but the dead have a lingering perfection to them where the bad things - the hurting things about them melt away into their brillance and love.    Dating afterwards was so hard.    No one came close.   No one had that well worn favorite shirt feel.    There was nothing wrong with the others.   But they never had that "thing".    I knew what that "thing" felt like and it never hit me again. Until I spent week in and week out with Tim on those phone calls. He was three years younger than myself and we still had a generational bond that often came up in our discussions of life and how things have changed.    It wasn't long before our friendship became something more - we joked that we seemed like brothers separated by conception.    We laughed and cried over those 15 years.   Tim lost his mother last year and he was able to lean on me as he was grieving and trying to fill in that local support that he could lean on.    It was a mere phone call but I was a support - a shoulder he could cry on and who would work to keep him focused on life.   The digital phone line had become my own life line. What is difficult for me to deal with is I never met Tim in person - he lived in Canada and I live in the south eastern part of the United States.   There is no logical reason for me to have felt as I did for Tim, but my heart opened for the first time since Richard passed.   I should have known.    But I never figured that I would be facing another loss like this that was so close to my heart.    Funny thing about our hearts - a partially opened one becomes a fully invested one that allows us to enjoy life. And to feel joy. I should have known something was up when July 18th rolled around and there was no Tim calling me.    I don't know how we managed to fall into this pattern, but Tim always called at 7pm on the dot.   It was the one thing I looked forward to in a week that often had work and little more.   But when Tim didn't call on the 18th by 7:02pm, I called him.  I left several mesages that night.    My fear was that Tim had fallen due to his Parkinson's that was getting worse.    I had visions of him lying on the floor unable to get up or unable to reach his phone.    Perhaps I knew more than I suspected because I didn't learn of Tim's death until I called on a Saturday that following week and spoke with the London Ontario police.    They told me Tim had died.    I didn't ask any questions.   I was as dumbfounded as that day when Richard's mom had called me after Richard had gone home a few weeks prior.    He died.   I was speechless.    And then I hung up.    Wash.  Rinse. Repeat.   I hung up the phone with the London PD and balled my eyes out.    I was living that moment again   Heart ripped out.    Losing another that I held so close.    What makes this time so difficult is that I now what I'm going to go through.   I know the torment, the dreams, the re-occurring memories that make me wander off life into tears and loss.   I know what the freight train sounds like and its schedule.   I know that I'm going to get hit with emotions on this life track.. I know the triggers.   I know all of this.    Nothing logical can move this away from the total heart break I feel.    And now without that one support that I could count on, I'm back to wandering through misery with a flash light with weak batteries for which to illuminate the next part of my life. I should not logically be torn by a mere stranger over a phone line.    But Tim was so much more.   He was that fit for me - an odd ball loner who never opened his heart.    And now I'm lost.    I know I need to find something new - a joy - a passion - but I have to also face every Friday at 7pm.    That ghost will haunt me until the end.