Benny

This sneaks up on me every year.  It is a solemn day that marks the anniversary of the most heartbreaking event of my life.  Five years ago today—February 7^th---my loving, smart, discotek-throwing friend Ben took his own life.  Every day since then, I ask myself a million questions.  Why didn’t I see it coming?  Why didn’t any one else?  Why did he make a coffee date with me for the next week?  How did he do it?  Why didn’t he want to be saved?

I’m a writer.  Writing is what I do. When something happens that moves me, I write.  But today, I was numb and sorely out of words.  He is missed by so many people, it’s amazing how one person can move so many people.  To think, to write, to share their love.  So, after reading some messages from his friends and family, I am just going to start.  As hard as this is, this is for Benny and for anyone else who knew him.

When I think about him, I smile. I re-live every single moment we had together.  Spending time with Benny was different than spending time with anyone else.  There was always intelligent conversation and a grasp on reality that shone through his maturity.  Thinking that 5 years have gone by, and what he would be like today, I am sure that he would be very much the same person.  The rest of us have just been catching up to where he was.  Now, as I grow older and further away from that 17-year-old Benny, I don’t know what I am going to do.  Except to remember these things.

Every morning of senior year of high school, I would walk through the front doors at 7:20am and there he was, sitting in the same spot in front of the art room.  He waved to me with his pinky, and then got up and give me a huge hug like he hadn’t seen me in weeks.  He gave the absolute best hugs in the world.  He would wrap his arms and shoulders around me, and despite how skinny he was, it was like being hugged by an 800-pound teddy bear.  And no hug ever wavered.  He gave me three bear hugs the last time I saw him, but three was not enough.  I want a million more to save up for the rest of my life.

A couple months before he died, he and I were walking in the hallway together.  All of a sudden he said, “You’ll be getting a surprise soon!”  I was clueless but a few days later, there it was in the mail: an envelope addressed to me.    I will never forget the front of that envelope.  In the corner he drew a little picture of a stick figure on a mountain with a speech bubble saying, “woot!”.  It made me laugh.  He always made me laugh.  The note inside was scribbled in pencil on a piece of lined paper, and it said how much he missed having class together and how he wanted to catch up sometime.  I remember being so overwhelmed with appreciation when I got that letter.  I thought, “who else would do that?” No one, that’s who.  But it was no big deal to him.  It was just what he did.  That is what made Benny Benny.

There were so many reasons why I loved him.  The hugs.  The letters.  The Thin Mints he put in my locker.  The way he called our little crew his ‘familie’.  The layers of pants—the average was three.  My favorites were the smiley face ones!  His Sharpie fetish.  The little dance he did when something excited him.  His artistic knowledge.  His quirky sense of humor.  He was the most original person I knew, and I hate that I didn’t embrace that fully when he was still here.

But Ben changed me forever.  He showed me with grace and truth that I could be whoever I want to.  I could do whatever I want and never, ever be ashamed of who I was, what I said, and how I felt because he never, ever did.  He taught me that I can clash my clothes and wear paper clips in my ears and I would still be a wonderful person.  He was a fierce friend and I know that he cared about me deeply.  I hope he knows that I still love him and that I hate that he was hurting so much that he needed to leave us.  But I also hope that he is happy wherever he is and that he knows I can feel his radiant smile shining on me right now.  I don’t know if I believe in God, but I do know Benny can see me.

This is my favorite picture of him:

What a smile, huh?