05-24-2026, 10:21 AM
This post was last modified: 05-24-2026, 10:24 AM by SteamyAmerican.
I lost my best friend 6 years ago at the beginning of COVID.
Memories were painful enough at first. I promised myself I wouldn’t drink myself to death as he had. Took a long time to work through the stages of grief. Still have a huge hole in my heart and life where he once was.
Besides drinking, he suffered along with other poor life choices. I didn’t know you could have a brother that wasn’t blood until well into adulthood. Full well having other childhood friends I’d known for much much longer. Dude was a legend. I miss him dearly. Bitter he checked out right when I needed to confide in someone how the world was changing due to the pandemic, me on the fringe losing my shit daily on ATS.
I would walk the railroad tracks out by the beach outside of town, talking to him. Then after a time I just walked and thought of him. Then I took up meditation for a time because like him, I didn’t deal in healthy choices.
It was a few years after he passed that I finally saw him in my dream. Clear as day. Like starkly and definitively him. He smiled and said “Hey”. His own voice clear as a a bell. I was like “No way! I thought you passed man!” I woke up sobbing. But so very grateful I finally got to see him in my dreams. I get the feeling he keeps an eye on me in his absence.
What I wouldn’t give for a round of beer, a few words, and one more game of chess with him.
Thanks for the thread OP.
Memories were painful enough at first. I promised myself I wouldn’t drink myself to death as he had. Took a long time to work through the stages of grief. Still have a huge hole in my heart and life where he once was.
Besides drinking, he suffered along with other poor life choices. I didn’t know you could have a brother that wasn’t blood until well into adulthood. Full well having other childhood friends I’d known for much much longer. Dude was a legend. I miss him dearly. Bitter he checked out right when I needed to confide in someone how the world was changing due to the pandemic, me on the fringe losing my shit daily on ATS.
I would walk the railroad tracks out by the beach outside of town, talking to him. Then after a time I just walked and thought of him. Then I took up meditation for a time because like him, I didn’t deal in healthy choices.
It was a few years after he passed that I finally saw him in my dream. Clear as day. Like starkly and definitively him. He smiled and said “Hey”. His own voice clear as a a bell. I was like “No way! I thought you passed man!” I woke up sobbing. But so very grateful I finally got to see him in my dreams. I get the feeling he keeps an eye on me in his absence.
What I wouldn’t give for a round of beer, a few words, and one more game of chess with him.
Thanks for the thread OP.
