Since the "anniversary" of 9/11, I have been flashing back to this one central chunk of memory:
The day after the towers fell, I went to visit my best friend, Mikel, who was in hospice care after fighting the "good fight" with HIV and AIDS. There were so many times that we all thought we were going to lose him over the years that we had so much trouble (I know I did) accepting the fact that this time he was really going to die.
Anyways, when I came into his room, he had the small television (that I guess came with each room) turned onto the news (just like everyone did those first few days), and the light from that small box mixed with the afternoon light that escaped through the half-pulled drapes to give his skin an ashy glow.
He had lost so much weight by then. His six foot-five inch fame just couldn't fill out the hundred some pounds making him look like the proverbial skeleton-man
As I walked in, he turned his head to greet me.
"Have you been watching this, Brian?" he asked.
"Sure," I answered. I even told him that I had been watching the BBC news (on the BBC America channel) to see what the rest of the world was saying about this. He nodded, an then looked at me hard,
"Crazy times, " he mumbled, and then he gave me a look of pity, as if he was glad to be passing away now before anything else happened, and at the same time, I could feel his sorrow that I would still be here to experience it all.
That look he shot me haunts me sometimes. I remember his eyes, and the few short weeks he stayed with us, until passing that Halloween morning.
So every 9/11 I think about him, and that afternoon in his hospice room. And I wonder if he is still glad that he left before things "got worse."
