Matthew Odalis
November 5, 2014
I always hated funerals. I hated dressing up head-to-toe in black, showing up at a church, hearing someone who knows nothing about the person who died say something completely ignorant, then walking to a graveyard and crying. I hated it. I hated the whole process. But, can I tell you something? I hate it even more when it is for someone I knew. Especially when it was for Sam Anderson. Today I had to do something I especially hated. In less than two hours, I had to show up at a church, which is extremely contradictory to Sam, dressed in all black, and listen to an old man talk about how she is now with our heavenly father.
Until then, my mom stood behind my closed door, begging for me to eat something.
“Mom, I’m just not hungry.” I said, just loud enough for her to hear. “Honey, you haven’t come out of that room in two days. Please.” I could hear the desperation in her voice, pleading for me to be okay. To come out from under my covers, wipe my eyes clean of any tears or traces of them, take a shower, grab a bite to eat, and smile along with the rest of the world who didn’t know Sam the way I did. The fact of the matter was, she wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t come out of my room in two days, I hadn’t eaten, showered, smiled, or stopped crying. I hadn’t talked to Ian, and he hadn’t talked to me. Yes, of course that killed me. But I had to think, I needed to have a little bit of time to process it.
I guess ‘process’ is an understatement. How do you ‘process’ your best friend committing suicide? How you think about and accept that one of the most important people in your life is gone forever, and by her own willingness? If anyone knows, please tell me. Because, as of now, I am attempting to do so by starving myself, and listening to her favorite playlist on repeat while producing so many tears that if I had nothing to absorb them, my room would flood.
I was more than just sad. I was angry and upset and frustrated and I wanted to punch a wall but at the same time I needed someone to hold me. Over all of that, I wanted to know her exact thoughts before she did it. I want to know why she didn’t tell me like she normally would. I want to know everything and all the answers to the questions that are banging around so hard in my head that they’re giving me a headache.
Sam and I would have, regularly, had hundreds of conversations by this time. We would probably be in McDonalds, or at her house, or in my car, I actually don’t care where we would’ve been. I care that we are not able to be in those places anymore. I care so much. I cared about her so much. I reached under my pillow and felt the folded paper between my fingers. My eyes automatically squeezed closed, as I tried to prevent more tears from pouring out. They did anyways, and I pulled my arm back to my side, the letter coming with it. My body rotated so my stomach was facing the ceiling, and I flicked on my bedside table light. The letter was the still the same way it was when Sam’s mom handed it to me, no more than 53 hours ago. I could still hear her voice in my head, calling me “Ody”, which she knew I hated. I always hated when she called me Ody, which in her mind was short for Odalis, but for some reason I let her keep calling me that, and I let myself keep responding to it. The only part of Sam’s letter I agreed to reading was the outside, where ‘Ody’ was written in her messy handwriting.
Her messy handwriting was not the problem, however. The problem was that she did it. That she actually felt so horrible about herself that she did it. I cannot even come close to having the mental capacity to hold such thoughts for myself, let alone imagine what she was going through. Nonetheless, I partly blame myself. Because she told me countless times before the incident of her thoughts of doing it. She told me countless times and I have on record the times that she did share her thoughts with me. Yet, every time I let her go and believed her when she said she would fix it. Why was I so fucking stupid? Why did I actually think she was telling the truth? Why didn’t I read into it more, and save her while I could? Because no one knew Sam the way I knew Sam, and anyone who claims they did can take the blame for this and get the grief off of me.
