The following is something I felt I had to write, because I'm still sad and pissed off about something.
On May 10, 2003, I was in the middle of living with my soon-to-be-wife at her parent's house for a few weeks while our townhome was being built. It was Mother's Day. The sun was out. Every window in their crib was open. The fam was all downstairs preparing for a party that was set to start in a few hours, and I was just getting out of the shower.
I moistly sauntered in my towel manskirt into my makeshift bedroom, climbing over boxes and shit, towards my pile of clothes. I remember smelling some shorts and some armpits on some shirts, finding just the right mix of musk and fabric softener to adorn my body in when my phone rang.
It was one of my best friends who just so happened to also be one of my old roommates from college, Rannal, and I don't think I had talked to him in at least a month, but I was happs to read he was on the other end.
Answering the call, Rannal wasn't the usual Rannal. All dude could spit out was "Fasil's dead".
Just like in the movies, where there's a certain climax or moment of realization or a storm that finally hits, I was punched in the stomach and now sitting on a basket full of clothes and other assorted bullshit with my mouth hanging open.
Rannal shared what little information he had, but the story was he had hung himself in his room in the house I had just moved out of a year earlier.
The same room where my roommate peed the bed while I was sleeping in it. The same room where we successfully drank three 30 packs of Old Milwaukee and created a giant wall of cans that went from floor to ceiling. The same room where I received a pan of rice krispie treats with the misspelled words HAPY BIRTHAY JOLE in green frosting. The same room where we trapped a pair of bats who flew out of the attic that we attempted to corral with lacrosse sticks, while also wearing lacrosse helmets. The same room where I sat and ate a football sized burrito while on the back of a roommate who had joined the army and was showing off how many push ups he could do while I ate said football sized burrito. The same room where we stored every empty pizza box from an entire summer just to be dicks to the new guy who had the room the following semester.
It was just a room, sure, but cool shit happened there.
Like anyone who has memories from college, they're usually random and things you wouldn't necessarily share with your children, but they're still amazing memories. They're complete with smells, tastes, quick snapshots in your head of awesome events, certain phrases that certain friends used to say, specifically disgusting cocktail combinations, movie quotes, nicknames, road trips, spontaneous flights to California for Banyan shows, rushing home from class to play another 8 hours of washers in the backyard, your boss hiding in the basement because he's too coked out of his mind to deal with the police so you get arrested for something that wasn't even on you...
Now whenever I think of that house I think of Fasil first, not the 10 other roommates I had, or the morning of 9/11, or when my future wife was asked by my friend Mike to punch him as hard as she could in the face, or the days following 9/11 when one of our roommates took off for basic training and was heading right into that shit to fight for our country, or the fact that our basement had a creepy closed door that said "Clyde's Room" and rumor had it it was used during the Underground Railroad in addition to housing a physically handicapped child named Clyde who was kept there because deformities weren't socially acceptable...
The people you interact with all throughout your life give you something, regardless of how long you've known them, and it can be as simple as a memory or as important as a consistent source of inspiration.
If you're aware of the fact that every day you give something to someone, anyone, you can either choose to be awesome, or you can be a dick. My friend Fasil was awesome, all the time. A smile you could see clear across campus, a laugh that didn't fit his face, the ability to make anyone comfortable or anyone laugh without trying, the fact that he was the blackest skinned person in the entire 50 mile radius of Western Illinois University in the middle of the corn belt and never once did he act like he didn't fucking belong there just as much as the meathead racist white frat Fucks that attempted to slyly intimidate him, Fasil owned Fasil, and he was, and is, a huge fucking inspiration to me even now.
I'm pissed at him, sure. He fucking killed himself. He fucking left all of his hundreds of friends hanging while he dealt with something by his fucking self.
Fuck you Fasil. When I needed help with something, I fucking asked. I even fucking asked you a few different times, and you fucking helped. You saved one of our friends from killing himself not a year before you decided you had no other choice. You were as angry as I've ever seen you, AND NO ONE HAD EVER SEEN YOU ANGRY, and you let him have it in front of all of us, in fact you almost kicked his ass for even thinking of attempting to do something so fucking dumb.
I don't pretend to understand what went on in your head when you decided it was your only option, I only know it still fucking hurts ten fucking years later. I can't imagine what your brothers or parents feel, but know that you're still my friend even though you fucking pussed out.
So why am I sharing all this shit to people who didn't know Fasil?
You know Fasil.
Somewhere someone you know is going through some shit and you're either aware of it or you're not, or you're intentionally avoiding having to ask a seemingly vague and arbitrary question that might make the fucking difference between that person deciding to kill themselves. I'm fucking telling you right the Fuck now, look, REALLY LOOK, at that person right in the fucking eyes and ask how they are. Use your ability to know when something's bothering someone, and fucking ASK.
There is no harm in asking again. But there's also no harm in asking your parents, teachers, co-workers, boss, or a police officer what they think you should do in a situation. Seeing about a friend you're worried about is just as difficult as seeing about asking a friend because you're dealing with thoughts of suicide.
It's a shitty topic and nobody wants to fucking talk about it.
SO TALK ABOUT IT.
The more you talk about it, the more other people might help you realize how important people are to other people. You can't do ANYTHING alone, regardless of how emo or independent you think you are.
TALK ABOUT SUICIDE.
Fasil shut down and checked out, but I won't let that muthafucker's memory go silent goddamnit.
Ten years ago today I lost a friend of mine that I still care a great deal for, and the part that pisses me off the fucking most is that I wasn't there to knock on the door and ask if he needed anything. Granted I was 212 miles away, but I wish with everything I have that I was there to knock on the door.
YOU PEOPLE.
KNOCK ON THE fucking DOOR.