Monday Mourning

Someone who was once a very close friend chose to end his life very recently. I hadn’t seen or talked to him in some years, but his impact in my life has been profound.

Very early in our first year of secondary school, at an appalling school, notorious to this day for its severe bullying problems, Ian made it clear that he was a friend worth having.

There was a kid in our class known as Stinky Pete. (Adolescents are cruel and relentless and have no understanding of boundaries, but they aren’t always creative.)

Before our first day was done it was clear that Pete had been chosen as fair game to be the butt of all the jokes, but not by Ian.

The class filed into an art lesson in disorderly fashion, picking seats in groups of besties. I found myself next to Pete by sheer chance and Ian found himself on the other side of Pete by intent. Plain and simple, Ian did not give a fuck about whether someone was popular or cool or whatever else, he cared about one thing. He cared if he liked you. Pete had made him laugh, so Pete was alright. Ian paid a price for that kindness, he became fair game by association.

I was already fair game myself because I was an angry ginger with anxiety issues. Over the course of that year Ian and I became good friends and I learned that he was someone who would always have your back as long as you were a decent human being.

Fast forward a few years to the summer of 2005, almost 16 and craving every available chance to irritate a beige adult or just have a day out without any adults to pester us.

Ian had made a bunch of new friends and discovered the local “emo scene” where everyone had a fringe over one eye and some dodgy makeup. Everyone you met was either in a band or had something to do with a band, which is basically how Ian persuaded me to meet his new friends.

When he introduced me he bragged about my guitar playing to some other guitar playing people, something at that point I’d been pretty shy about, being a beginner. Had he not inflated my ego I probably wouldn’t have kept it up and developed my ongoing addiction to making music, and had he not dragged me into that social circle I would never have begun developing my own (admittedly still very lacking) social skills and started my ongoing journey of overcoming my anxiety issues.

During that summer Ian and I shared what is to this day one of my fondest teenage memories. Catching a bus from Whitehill to Aldershot to get our lips pierced in true emo style.

We arrived at the piercing place to meet the smell of a sterile room and me shaking like a shitting canine at the sight of the needle.

I sat in the chair and was told to open wide. I complied and my mouth filled with a cold, alcohol thin liquid that tasted of rancid banana and promptly went numb.

A dribble went down my throat before the large man with dreadlocks advised me not to swallow any. Then a small pop and a tiny pinch and the job was done, my face was now metal as fuck. Ian was up next for the same, and we were done. Ian did it without any terrified shaking. Though he did have to wait a moment to stop laughing at me and my anaesthetised slurring.

Against advice, we immediately headed to Maccy D’s for a very dribbly lunch that we couldn’t taste, before catching the bus home. During the return trip, to Ians immense glee, I turned a pale shade of green as I desperately sucked up air trying my hardest not to yack all over the bus.

As soon as we reentered Whitehill Ian was calling up every number he had to show off the new facial decor, which resulted in a monumental party on monument hill.

Inside of an hour I was introduced to a fellow named James who had the cure for my nausea.

Ian had arranged my first few tokes of a spliff, and to this day I thank the pair of them, though I have little recollection of the rest of the evening aside from hearing Coheed & Cambria for the first time and a lot of giggling.

It’s easy to overlook such a simple day of carefree joy after hearing of a suicide, but we shouldn’t. Nor should we call it cowardly, or put it down to the “illness” of depression.

Ian was a man who lived life on his own terms and wouldn’t compromise on that. Living on ones own terms is no small feat and requires a strength of will that very few possess, but it also comes with a price. The price of not simply following the rules, the price of not assuming that something is right just because an “authority” said so and the price of not fitting in.

The death of Ian is a testament to a man strong enough to live without compromise. The final act of his life was to decide for himself that he was finished, as sad as that may seem it requires an absolute will. He also gave one final gift.

Estranged friends, separated for years. People who never got on and even people with enmity gathered in his memory.

Given so many people gathered in that place I’m sure there are thousands of stories of him to tell, and countless ways he made the people around him better, even when they sometimes didn’t want to be. The human race are a slightly better thing because of him.

It’s sad to say goodbye, but sometimes the greatest people aren’t supposed to stay.