Why?

I've struggled with posting about this for a long time. Now seems a fitting time, since it's all over.

I have to come up with something to say at my friend's funeral next week.

Yes, my friend died. I think it's the first time I've had someone close to me die who was not a relative.

He was only 44. And I knew this was coming. It was inevitable, with the events of the past two years.

He wasn't himself anymore. As time passed, less and less of the person I loved could surface for a conversation, for a glimpse of the person I became friends with. I knew he was in there, drowning. But it was like he was laying face-down in standing water and he wouldn't even get up to breathe, no matter what the people around him tried to do to help.

I'm trying to think of the good times, the hilarious stories that left my stomach aching and tears streaming from my eyes. I'm trying to remember the way he always had a tidbit of trivia about presidents and Gilligan's Island to share.

And those memories surface like bizarre pieces of a shipwreck floating in the midst of a sea of anger and confusion.