Goodbye.

… It was just another night of not sleeping. I crawled into bed a few hours before and I just laid there thinking. My mind usually wanders when I’m laying in bed right before I drift off to sleep. On rare occasions though, my mind is so busy that I can’t fall asleep. For reasons unknown, I found myself thinking about death. Within the last four years, I’ve had three people die in my family. Two weeks ago, a childhood friend was found dead by the local police. Investigations were still going on, so information was quite limited. I went to the memorial by myself, but left early because I wasn’t in the mood to be around anyone.

As I lay on my bed, I look at the clock noticing it’s two in the morning. Closing my eyes, I try to rest and just listen to the rain from the outside. I love the rain. The sound of it is very soothing to me and I often rely on it to get me to sleep. My eyes were finally getting heavy and I was starting to get sleepy. Just when I think I’m about to doze to sleep I get a phone call. The voice on the other end of the phone was from a old acquaintance of mine. He called to inform me that one of our mutual friends had just passed away. His voice was shakey and it was hard for him to form complete sentences. I gave him my condolences and started to feel very sad about the whole situation. He said that he would call me back as soon as he was in a better state of mind. I hung up the phone and started to shake. I got up out of bed and started to pace back & forth thinking on what to do. I wasn’t sleepy and I didn’t fell like staying in this room anymore, so I decided to go out for a drive.

The rain had stopped for the moment as I pulled my car out of the garage. I found myself just driving around town thinking about her. We never met in person as she was a online friend I met thru a social network. It was almost a year ago when I was informed she had cancer. She didn’t like talking about it and would be very cold to me if I asked too many questions. We were not very close, but I cared for her as a friend and I let her know this many times. It’s very hard to care for someone that keeps you at a distance. I think most would eventually give up, but I never found myself doing that. I just knew she was the way she was and left it at that.

I managed to drive about an hour and started to get sleepy. The rain had started to fall again, so I headed back home. Feeling completely exhausted, I laid down on my bed and fell asleep. When I woke up, I looked over at my clock and noticed that I slept three hours. By this time, my little brother was also awake and making all kinds of noise downstairs. To drown out the noise, I decided to practice on my piano. A few minutes later, I hear little footsteps running up the stairs to my room followed by loud pounding on my door. I get up to open the door and my little brother wants to dance for me while I play the piano. I tell him he can dance as long as he keeps quiet because I take my playing quite seriously. While I play, I turn around to look at him and he’s flapping his arms around dancing in a circle. He tells me this is his chicken dance and then starts jumping up and down. I tell him he’s being too noisy and then he asks to sit with me. I scoot over and let him sit on the piano stool. I start to play and he starts to play along on his invisible piano which made me laugh. He then jumps off the stool and runs back downstairs.

A few hours later, I get a call from Kasumi asking if I want to go shopping with her and Yumi. I tell her no and that I made other plans. She asks if I’m alright and I lie and tell her everything is fine. We end our brief chat and agree to meet up sometime later. When I hung up the phone, I noticed that the rain was coming down really hard now. I walked over to the closet and got my favourite heavy jacket and decided to go for a walk.

The sky was dark and cloudy as I walked slowly towards town. Generally I love walking in the rain, but now my mind was occupied by too many thoughts. When I got into town, there was no one around. I felt so alone. I started to window shop to take my mind off the negative, but quickly got bored. I squated down. I leaned against a wall lifting my eyes up to the sky to watch the rain fall. Not even bothered that I was completely soaked now, I stayed in this position for quite awhile.

I decided to visit my favourite record store and look around. There was nothing new or interesting, so I was about to leave and my phone started ringing. The music was too loud, so I raced upstairs to answer the call. I didn’t recognize the male voice on the other end, but he said that he was a relative of my friend. He then explained that he had a letter for me written by my friend and wanted to know where to send it. I give him my address and he tells me that he will mail it out the next day. As I said goodbye, I could feel my eyes start to tear up. Wiping them away, I walk to the window to watch the rain. I lay down on a ledge and look up at the sky while thinking about my friend. I lay there wondering what her final thoughts were and about her letter. I wonder if she misses me as much as I miss her…

… for Koraa.