Loss

Right up front, I'll tell you that I debated this one intensely with myself.  How could I write about it...how farcical could it be to describe my state over something that didn't happen here, when warriors in this country lose friends, brothers, comrades-in-arms every week?  Well, Vince wasn't that last one.  But he was a comrade-in-soul.  And losing him bears a great deal of relevance to something personal, as this blog has turned out to sometimes be.  It would be dishonest in a way to not pay some sort of brief, surely inadequate tribute.  And besides that, I doubt I'll ever put together those long-delayed recaps of last month's excursions west and north until I do so.

My friend Vince has passed away, and I can't so much as make the trip home to say goodbye the way I'd like to.  Vince was so much more than my buddy of countless concerts, Giants games, ski trips and occasions of just grabbing a needed beer in a nondescript Irish pub...we had a hell of a lot in common, and a lot of deep conversations about life.  Vince had the sweetest nature of just about anyone I've ever had the pleasure to know, and between that and his off-the-wall sense of humor, he was simply someone who always made everyone around him feel better.  God, I hope he felt at least some of that love in return.

What does this have to do with the experience of spending a heavy stretch of time deployed?  For one thing, there's the universal feeling of loss...that shitty, gnawing feeling of a gaping hole in your gut where something used to be.  I haven't experienced the shock of losing someone alongside me in combat.  Hell, the only combat I even experienced lasted for probably just a few minutes.  So I fully understand your snickering if you're a hardened veteran of countless firefights who's listening to a desk jockey in Kabul moan about his friend back in New York.

What I do know is what it feels like to receive a bewildering, disorienting note informing you that one of your greatest friends is alive no more...to frantically call your parents in the urge to know something, anything...to make the futile stab at trying to understand a "why" when you don't know jack yet.  I know how low you can sink when you realize you'd have been home if you didn't extend, somewhere in the States, maybe even in the right place at the right time to somehow alter the course of the most tragic circumstance imaginable.  If you think that feeling is easier to shake because I'm half a world away, you're absolutely wrong.

"In my life, things have a way of growing downward...
So I don't know...if I can watch myself be a coward...
Again."  (Warren Haynes, 'In My Life')

Vince was one of those friends I was most looking forward to seeing after I got back from Afghanistan...it seems like only yesterday we treated me like a damn king in New York when I returned four years ago: "Deuce, you're the King!" he'd literally and enthusiastically say over and over.  It was going to be a challenging December anyway, but one in which the intense workload of finishing a long tour strong and completely turning over three jobs at once was going to largely keep my mind off the holidays.  Now it seems like an abyss, as New Year's Eve looms -- too many memories of this time of year spent in the joyous company of Vinsanity.  I can only imagine how difficult the season will be for his family.

That's not the whole story of this past week...I've received an outpouring of thoughtful sentiment from some unexpected places; I've discovered that I can still work exhaustive hours through sometimes crippling grief; and I've had my spirits buoyed countless times by family and friends who made me laugh, or took my mind off the sadness, or helped me see the light...at least for a moment.  Of course the bizarro live theater that is this place doesn't stop, or even slow down.  But now I'll emerge from a block of work briefly believing that my friend is just fine...only to have to process again what has happened.

I've never had a friend quite like Vince -- in all his random nicknaming of everyone, his sheer joy in each good time, and his incredible compassion for others -- and even the tons of memories from those good times don't do much to plug the emptiness.  He suffered more than I knew; more than anyone knew.  But that's not what I'll think on.  My hope in the darkness is that he's smiling...and that his pain is eased.

"Hold on to me if you need to...I know the river's deep and wide. 
Trust in me, I'll see you through...and I'll be there, on the other side." 
(Gov't Mule, 'Frozen Fear')