Mourning the loss of a friend!

On April 17, 1999 at about 4:01 PM, I got the saddest news of my life. My aunty Pat had died. I still remember hearing my cousin Kareema screaming in the background. I dropped the phone and I started wailing. Camille and Hopeton, and our maid at the time, Miss Maisy, was there to comfort me and I will always remember that.

This past friday, Feb 6, 2009 was the second time in my life that I've regretted answering the phone. At 7:38 AM, as I was making breakfast for Austin and Andrew and arguing, Andrew walked in the kitchen and said Horace is on the phone. I knew immediately it was not good news. And as I suspected, it wasn't. He said what I feared for the past week, "they found him". Him being someone I considered a friend, that him was Reggie. A week earlier, I found out Reggie had been missing. He went out at like midnight. That doesn't seem so unusual, but what did was the fact that is was 22 degrees that night, with an wind chill of 8 and worse, he left his wallet and keys at home. As soon as I was told that, I knew it wasn't good. But I tried not to speak negative for the sake of Frances, his fiance, who he's been with since high school, 10+ years and Anyece, his beautiful 2 1/2 yr old daughter. As the week passed, and no sign of Reggie, I knew it wasn't good, but continued to hope that maybe he was just angry and wanted a break, but the fact that no one had heard from him just confirmed those fears.

Through my tears, I asked Horace if he was ok, knewing in my heart that he wasnt. And through his tears, he was able to say no. He then went on to tell me, he hung himself. WHAT!?!?!? How could he? Why? When? How? So many questions and sadly, we will never know the answer.

The thing is, that wasn't the worse part of the day. I still had to go over and see Frances. When I got to her apartment, it was quite and all I could hear were sniffles. I hugged her and we both sobbed. It was very hard. It was even harder to see beautiful Anyece, who looks exactly like her dad, wonder what is going on. His mom arrived later in the day, and we all broke down again. Reggie was an only child and just 6 weeks ago, his mom lost her father as well. How will this woman be able to cope? Who will be there for her?

Reggie's funeral is this saturday, yes Valentine's Day. Our hearts are all heavy, especially those who have significant others. How can we celebrate when we know Frances has to bury her lover on this, the supposedly most romantic day of the year? We will be there for her and try our best to ease her pain, knowing that what she is going through cannot be easy.

In some weird way, this is me venting. Reggie, I miss you. I didn't know you as well as others, but from what I knew you were a great guy with some amazing qualities. I am also angry, angry at the fact that you did this to Frances. How could you? How could you leave her to raise Anyece on her own? Why didn't you talk to someone? Suicide was not your only option and we could've helped you had you just told us that something was wrong.

So there are now 2 days that I mark as truly very sad days in my life, 04/17/99 and 02/06/09. RIP Aunty Pat, and you too Reggie. I hope that when this life ends, that maybe our paths will cross again and you can answer the question that is on all our minds, WHY?

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2009/feb/13/reginald-lowell-robinson-iii/