Dear Jim

Tonight I found out someone I once knew died this week. Suicide I think, from the vague messages filtering through.


It's a weird one. I didn't know him for a long time. He was the best friend of an old friend of mine. We had a fling of sorts about four years ago. He worked abroad, and when in the UK lived in elsewhere but we spent some interesting and fun times together.

We connected in a way we all sometimes, but rarely, preciously, do with folk. A bright spark of recognition, soulfulness and humour.

I haven't seen him for a long time. We enquired after each other via the mutual friends, but our paths rarely crossed.

He was a wonderful man with tattoo of Calvin and Hobbs on his bottom that was acquired in a drunken dare in Hong Kong. He was a photographer, amongst other things. Silly and passionate with an inherent sadness at his core.

I was with him when he got the call to tell him his mum had cancer. I watched him receive the news I had heard for myself only a couple of years earlier. I watched him deflate. That kick in the guts of life turning in an instant, of child becoming parent. I watched him cry, and begin to run through the scenarios. I held him, and told him the truth.

I am sad for him. But, he is free. I am more sad for my friend who has lost his best man. Tonight I have cried for them both.

I will write to our friend tomorrow.