it's not easy deleting people.

nobody@vox.com(reesie) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:34:10 -0700

The other day I was flipping through my gmail contacts that were imported from my old hotmail/yahoo mail accounts. I had gone through and created a couple email lists for friends in the area that I email quite often, and decided to go through all my contacts and update them, deleting the people with whom I've fallen out of touch.

Then I ran across across his name, MH. He has been in there for a while, even though I hadn't contacted him in over 5 years. I wondered if I should delete him, in an effort to clean up my contact list. I hesitated, my mouse hovering over the button, while I thought about all the good memories I had of him.

Exactly who is he, you ask?

In grad school, through several mutual friends, I managed to make acquaintances with MH. He was a nice guy, a little bit nerdy, a little too into nerdy-type activities like Star Trek, but an overall good guy. He was good people. I always liked hanging out with him, having fond memories of time spent together.

A few months after I graduated and left NY for Boston, he killed himself in a manner that left no chances for survival. Afterwards, I would morbidly joke with Frank that he really knew what he was doing.

Suicide never makes sense, and I don't know that anyone will ever be able to understand the motivations behind it. As most people who know someone who has committed suicide might say, I really never saw it coming. He and his girlfriend had just got engaged and they had started planning their wedding. He was having a decent time at work, enjoying what he was doing. It all seemed to be going well (at least to an outsider like me), so it was a total shock when I found out had happened. The really sad part is that his fiancée had to send out notices to all the wedding guests informing them that it was cancelled due to his death. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been, especially having to do it right after it happened.

I've had other friends who have died, but only a couple have committed suicide. It never seems to get easier when I think about them, or run across their names in my address book.

In the end, I decided not to delete his entry.

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a life in progress

it's not easy deleting people.