What's Your Story? Submitted Stories

Innocence Lost

“I sat in pain on the floor for what seemed like an eternity. Then I looked into my best friend’s face and heard her voice change.I screamed in agony. I knew then she was dead. My body hurt everywhere.My heart felt like it was literally breaking into pieces. I was hot and could not breathe. I felt trapped inside the most intense pain I had ever experienced.”

Over 13 years have passed since I first wrote that paragraph in my journal – my “Ode to Rose*,” so to speak. Actually, it could probably just as easily be called my “Ode to Innocence Lost,” because that is what happened. Within a moment, a split-second, my life changed and the innocence of my twenties was gone. My best friend, my high school friend, my college roommate, my traveling companion, was dead at age 25. How could it happen? How did it happen? She loved life, how could hers be gone? Could our seemingly innocent, carefree lives kill us? Regrettably, the answer is yes. It killed my friend. She was here one day and gone forever the next. She was home on a break from graduate school, went out for a night of fun in NYC, had a great time, and then never woke up. In a way, I never woke up either. Not in the life that I knew before her death. My life changed in that instant, all of her friends’ lives changed in that instant, her family's lives changed in that instant, and most importantly, Rose’s life changed in that instant. The carefree living of our twenties tragically ended and our lives became full of doubt, desperation, and guilt.

Drugs killed my friend – plain and simple. I know that now and feel okay with it. No, I’m not okay with drugs and drug abuse.What I am okay with is her death and how she died. In the beginning (and I mean for a few years), I blamed everyone – Rose, her boyfriend who she was out with that last night, other friends, and myself - for her death. Nearly thirteen years later, I now know and understand that it wasn’t her fault or my fault, but that it was the drug’s fault. Addicts and even or one-time users, don’t set out to die, they just sometimes do. Unfortunately, no one wants to talk about it. We are ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid. The disease of drug addiction and death by drug overdose are taboo. Everyone wants to ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist. But we need to talk about it; it’s okay to talk about it. It’s not the drug user that is bad. It is the drugs that are evil and the addiction that’s the enemy. I am proud to say that Rose was my friend. I will never be ashamed to speak about her, her life, or her death.

I am better now, so many years later, as are all of us – her friends, that is. Most of us are now married with kids, living the lives that we all knew we would someday. All of us, that is, except Rose. I still cry when I read the words at the opening of this letter. The pain and the loss they bring back are still as wrenching as the day I first felt them. As guilty as I sometimes feel about it, I do not think of Rose every day anymore, and frankly, the entries into my “Ode” are quite less frequent, but there are plenty of moments throughout my life when I find myself smiling and knowing that she would be smiling too. Unfortunately for me, and for Rose, these are all that I have - memories and letters that she will never read - to remind me of my best friend. Recently, on what would have been her 38th birthday, I did make an entry in my journal. I wished my friend a Happy Birthday, and just let her know that I still miss her dearly thirteen years after our last time together.

To all of you out there who are going through the pain and guilt of loss, I can only hope and pray that as it has done for me, it will get better for you. Of course I have never stopped loving or missing my friend and the pain has never completely gone away. But it has lessened and I have learned to live with it, it’s just another part of my day and another part of my life.

“But what I wish most of all, is that I could say, one last time – Good-bye my friend, I’ll miss you.”

“For I know an angel, and she is my friend.”

*Name changed.

CONTENT DISCLAIMER

The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Drug Awareness does exercises limited editorial control over the information you may find on FRONTLINE STORIES web pages. Opinions expressed on FRONTLINE STORIES web pages do not necessarily represent the official views of The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Drug Awareness.

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