My Robbie?

What is it in our self indulgent ego-centric human minds that makes us lose touch with family that we hold so dear? What gets us to that point where people we could never envision living without become next to strangers for all intents and purposes? My cousin Shelly put it very succinctly when she said, "I didn't know how much I missed you." That's the point exactly. I get so wrapped up in what I'm doing and whatever's important to me that I lose touch with people who have greatly influenced my life, and whom I love very deeply. Should the blame be thrown at the feet of American rugged individualism, or our busy ever so micro-managed schedules? No, I don't think so. Understand I am not asking, "How is it that friends and family lose touch?" Rather, I am asking how is it possible that someone who is an integral part of your life could in a few short years be all but a stranger.

My cousin Robbie was an amazing man, but what's more he was an amazing best friend to me. When the older brothers ran off and left us, it was no big thing, we had something better to do because Robbie was always more creative than them. We found RC Cola cans that had baseball players on them by the hundreds back in the woods, we snuck around the house like ninja's stalking their prey. He told me about girls, drugs, and alcohol. We picked up cigarette butts and acted like we were smoking. We'd go to Grandma's basement and spit on the pot belly stove and watch the spit bubble, or grab the staple gun and shoot staples at each other, then call our beds for sleeping that night. We ran upstairs from Grandma's basement because the Dukes of Hazard was coming on. When it was over we went down to the Sheep Shed in Luttesville, Mo to put on old worn out skates and play shuffle board in an abandoned Main Street store front that was used as a youth rec center. Sometimes there were girls and he would show me how easy it was to talk to them, or other times he would just be the coolest guy in the room because he didn't care what anyone thought of how we played pool, in skates, with a shuffle board pole.

He was ten months older than me and I shadowed him every chance I got. The most amazing thing was we never had a cross word between us. It wasn't set up that way for him and me. There was no rivalry, not because I knew I would lose, but because we were the best of friends and we loved to be in eachothers company. We valued every second we had together. I soaked up all the worldly advice his 10 months of seniority had brought him. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever grow apart from someone so influential in my life.

Robin called me on Thursday and I could tell in her voice something was wrong. She said Robbie committed suicide, I went numb at the wheel and said, "What, Who" she said, "Robbie committed suicide." All my feelings from childhood came rushing back in an instant, and I thought My Robbie, my mentor in all things adolescent? It was and is true. He is gone, and my heart breaks for his children, his parents and his siblings. I know his children in name only. How is that possible, what is wrong with me?

It was a very difficult thing to stand over that casket and look at my Robbie's face. I could not contain the grief in those moments and I lost control as looked at this shell who was the boy I loved so deeply. I grasped his hand and wept saying I was sorry for letting us grow so far apart. Sorry for not calling or emailing. I just wanted to talk to him and make him laugh, and have him say something funny then laugh at his own joke. We shared so many formative moments together that it is unconscionable to me that we ever grew apart. But, we had, and his hands were cold and had no life. I was left with the weeping of his family and the haunting wales of his beautiful 12 year old daughter. Those cries were too much. They were the true lament of deep and utter despair. I won't let this happen again. I will not let myself become so far detached from the people I love. God Forgive me!