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Apr. 24th, 2012 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceWe all pay tribute to Time, in the lives of those who made us. One by one we give them up, and carry that loss in token of who we are.
My friend Jay died on Friday. I only just found out. Time was, I would have heard sooner; time was, I would have been there. I'd have been the man holding his hand as he went. But time passes, and people shift, and oceans intervene.
Thirty-five years ago there was this callow kid who was still in his teens, still called Charles, barely started selling stories; and this callous generous vigorous challenging infective older man (in his thirties, yet!) called Roger (by his aunt) or Jeremy (by his friends) or Jay by his exes. They lived in Oxford.
Thirty years ago, I was living in Newcastle - which was largely his fault - and he was living in Cornwall, which was my fault entirely. I called him Jay. Everyone in Cornwall called him Mark. Everyone on the planet (except my family) called me Chaz.
Until last month, that same situation still obtained. Now I'm here, and he's dead. The only good thing about this, the only bearable thing right now is that we saw him at Christmas, and he got to meet Karen (and phoned me afterwards, to say how much he liked her). That mattered. It still matters. The rest... Yeah. You know. I'll carry the mark of him until the day I die myself: blurred by time, unrecognisable to others, still there.
My friend Jay died on Friday. I only just found out. Time was, I would have heard sooner; time was, I would have been there. I'd have been the man holding his hand as he went. But time passes, and people shift, and oceans intervene.
Thirty-five years ago there was this callow kid who was still in his teens, still called Charles, barely started selling stories; and this callous generous vigorous challenging infective older man (in his thirties, yet!) called Roger (by his aunt) or Jeremy (by his friends) or Jay by his exes. They lived in Oxford.
Thirty years ago, I was living in Newcastle - which was largely his fault - and he was living in Cornwall, which was my fault entirely. I called him Jay. Everyone in Cornwall called him Mark. Everyone on the planet (except my family) called me Chaz.
Until last month, that same situation still obtained. Now I'm here, and he's dead. The only good thing about this, the only bearable thing right now is that we saw him at Christmas, and he got to meet Karen (and phoned me afterwards, to say how much he liked her). That mattered. It still matters. The rest... Yeah. You know. I'll carry the mark of him until the day I die myself: blurred by time, unrecognisable to others, still there.