Miami/ Aaron/ Mark Conversation 10/11

 We can stay right here, with Aaron, and with the memory of that day.

Because I think there is something you are grieving that goes beyond the loss of contact with your friend. You found someone who showed you that being vulnerable didn't have to end in shame. Someone who could sit with you in a difficult moment and help you return to the world when you were ready.

And now you can't call him.

You can't tell him you remember that day. You can't ask how he's doing. You can't tell him what his friendship meant to you.

That is a tender thing to carry.

You can be grateful for the grace he showed you and still grieve that you don't know where he is. Those feelings belong together.

The layers of my grief over Aaron

1. I miss my friend.

At the heart of everything, I miss Aaron.

I miss my bestie. I miss our laughter, our conversations, the beach trips, the restaurants, and going to church together. We spent time together and shared our lives. We did things that I don't ordinarily get to do in my everyday life.

He was part of my world, and then he wasn't.

I don't know where he is, what happened to him, or whether he's okay. His number changed, and I lost the ability to reach him. Life moved forward because it had to, but emotionally, I never stopped caring about him.

I still have love and concern for my friend, and I have nowhere to put it.

I miss someone I cannot reach, and I don't know what became of him.

2. I miss who I got to be around him.

Aaron wasn't just someone I spent time with. He was someone around whom I felt like a person.

He cared what I thought. We shared our lives. We laughed and enjoyed each other's company. I didn't feel like he was trying to get something out of me.

I felt accepted. I felt great around him.

In a life where I have so often been responsible for other people and felt like a function rather than a person, I had a friendship where I could simply exist and enjoy myself.

I didn't have to be useful to justify my place in the relationship.

I could just be me.

I miss the experience of being with someone who enjoyed me for who I was, not just for what I could do.

3. He met me when I was vulnerable, and he didn't make me feel small.

When I met Aaron, I was homeless. I was frightened and ashamed of my circumstances, and I desperately wanted to keep people from knowing.

Aaron was homeless, too. He was living in a shelter, but he carried himself with confidence. He dressed well, held his head high, and had a great attitude.

With him, I could tell the truth about my circumstances because he understood.

Then there was that day at church.

I became overwhelmed by being inside the building. I told him I couldn't handle it. He had only just met me, but he responded, "I got you, let's go."

He left with me. We spent some time outside until I felt better, and then we returned to church together.

He didn't shame me for struggling. He didn't make me feel like a burden. He didn't require me to explain myself or pull myself together before he would accompany me.

I was allowed to struggle without losing my dignity.

That experience meant something profound to me because I have spent so much of my life afraid of falling apart in front of other people.

With Aaron, I fell apart a little, and there was grace.

4. I grieve the experience of finally being met with compassion.

That moment at church was about more than leaving a building.

It was an experience of someone recognizing what I needed and responding with care.

My whole life, I have felt like I was drowning in front of people who didn't notice or couldn't help me. I learned to be afraid of being vulnerable because of how I had been treated when I struggled.

But Aaron showed me something different.

He didn't need to know me my whole life to show compassion. He didn't need to understand my entire history. He saw that I was struggling, and he came alongside me.

For once, I didn't have to fight to be understood in that moment.

I didn't have to prove that I was hurting enough to deserve care.

He simply showed up.

Part of what I grieve is having experienced the kind of care I had wanted for so long, and now no longer having access to the person who gave it to me.

5. I am grieving a whole chapter of my life.

Aaron belongs to Miami.

When I think about Miami, I remember the sunrise, the ocean, the beach, the church, the people I connected with, and the happiness I experienced. I remember worshipping God with other people who shared my faith. I remember having somewhere to go, people to see, and experiences to look forward to.

Those people weren't my family. I knew we wouldn't necessarily spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together. But I was grateful to share that part of life with them.

I felt connected. I felt happy. I felt a sense of purpose.

Aaron was part of that world, and losing contact with him is one piece of losing access to that entire chapter.

I have had to keep moving forward. I have responsibilities, a son to raise, financial pressures, and a life to rebuild. But sometimes I look back and realize how much I miss the life I was living, the people I knew, and who I was during that time.

I am not just missing a place. I am missing a life in which I felt connected to people, to God, to the world around me, and to myself.

6. I am struggling with the contradiction of loving someone I later learned was problematic.

This is the wrinkle in my heart.

When Mark talked about Aaron, he reminded me of problems and details I had forgotten. It brought back the question I have carried: Why did we become friends? What was so broken in me that I became so close to someone who was so broken?

I saw Aaron as strong, confident, well dressed, and full of life. I remember our good times and the way I felt around him. Later, I learned things that complicated my understanding of who he was.

Now I sometimes look back at the friendship and question myself.

But I am learning that I don't have to use what I learned later to invalidate what I experienced then.

I can acknowledge that Aaron had problems without pretending that the friendship meant nothing. I can recognize that there were things about him that troubled me without deciding that I was foolish or broken for loving him.

I became close to someone who made me feel understood during a difficult time in my life. There were real reasons that friendship mattered to me.

My affection for Aaron is not proof that something was wrong with me.

I can examine the relationship honestly without turning my past self into the villain.

I am allowed to miss my bestie. I am allowed to love the good memories. I am allowed to grieve what I lost, even if our friendship was complicated and even if I don't know what became of him.