I miss you, Nate
February 21st, 2007
I wondered if we were ever going to see winter again. This is Minnesota, after all. For a snow-lover like me, this simply wouldn’t do. Where were the snowfalls from childhood where I would spend hours outside carving forts out of the front lawn? I had a little snow brick mold I would use to make walled igloos. One couldn’t even fill up the mold with all of the snow in the yard now.
And I was only wearing a simple, light jacket. What was this? Oh. I’m avoiding the issue again.
Whatever, I’m entitled to that right. I can avoid anything my mind desires to avoid, OK?
Maybe if I had just been there, things would have ended up different. I could have stopped it. The counselor at school says there wasn’t anything anyone could do, but she just says that to everyone to make them feel better. I could have done something. I could have made sure he didn’t do it.
Did I just run that red light? I think I did. Who cares, I didn’t get in an accident and I don’t see a cop. I’m going to be late to work anyway.
I could have just been with him, even if I couldn’t have stopped it. That might have helped. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. We were friends. We understood each other. Our families were equally dysfunctional. We were both going to school near Chicago next year. It was going to be a blast. And now none of that will happen.
Dammit, whore cut me off. We’ll see about that. Ooh, do you think you’re so strong? So cool? You drive a truck, and I’m smokin’ you in a little four-banger. Bitch.
On the night of Feb. 20, 2003, my friend Nate committed suicide. He said in his note he couldn’t go on living a lie about who he was, that it was easier being dead than being gay. I never talked to my parents about this. My high school refused to put a memorial in the yearbook or newspaper, because it wasn’t “appropriate.” Gay and lesbian youth are more than four times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts. Do something. Visit the Trevor Project for ways to get involved. Talk with the youth in your life. Be a person of affirmation. If you have/are expecting children, raise them in a house of love and acceptance. Persecution at school is one thing, and society is another. Don’t let it continue personally.
