After the most painful night of grief I’ve ever felt, the sun still came up the next morning.
It peeked up over a building behind me as I was walking and wrapped it’s arms around my shoulders and neck.
“You always bring the sunshine, Zan.” You’ve said that to me many times, and wrote it on a birthday card I still have from you.
When I got the news that you died, I felt like this endless, deep, dark hole was pulling me down and I wasn’t ever gonna get up. I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes I saw you… frantic, in dark water in the night, trapped under a boat. The hard bottom of the boat above you in every direction. A drunken, disoriented mind trying to hold your breath longer and longer, until you couldn’t hold it any longer.
That’s when I flip out and start bawling.
Right now.
Love is reflected in love. You were MY sunshine. You broke through the darkness during times when I was sad and brought me laughter and that smirky smile where your eyeballs disappear and your eyes just turn into upside down crescent moon slits, the big, goofy smile… the many smiles that made up your arsenal of disarming lovable expressions.
You used to call me in the middle of the night. (Somehow when you were drunk, time lost it’s meaning and time zones didn’t matter.) Countless times I woke up at 2 or 3am to a Skype call from you - having a beer and watching the sun go down. We loved to share sunsets.
YOU brought the sunshine, Birdie. You just saw it reflected in me.
So where are you now? You’re infinite now. I know that. The intangible feelings, thoughts, love, joy, dreams… the things that made you you… they are somewhere. Maybe redistributed into the atmosphere. Maybe swirling together as potential energy in the ocean, ready to convert to kinetic energy as a wave and barrel the friends and family who love you and miss you, and need to be surrounded by you. You have no body left to snuggle us with, so maybe you are just in the waves, in the sun… The energies in nature that surround us and hold us and embrace us. Maybe that’s where you are.
When people die, they are glorified and it pisses me off. Everyone has to qualify how close they were to the deceased and talk about what a legend they were and how awesome they were. Nobody ever says, “Ya. but he was kind of a douchebag. I remember when he did all these bad things. I kind of hated him.” I always wish that people would talk truth about people when they died.
The thing is… with you… my sweet Birdie…
There isn’t anything bad to say. The truth is exactly what hundreds of people are spreading across social media…
You were their sunshine.
You were such a good man.
Albiet kind of selfish sometimes - i mean, you fucking buried our pet bird without me. You didn’t even let me get out all my hippy sage, and magical stones, and tibetan singing bowl to do a proper ceremony.
But aside from that - you truly were a fucking legend. You were.
I loved you so much.
In the last three years I went through so many short lived stupid relationships with dudes that you were always there to lend some advice about. Usually always to get rid of him and move on to someone who appreciated me… and then I found him. We were supposed to go to Burning man next year. WTF? How can I ever go to that festival again, without you?
Every time i questioned my path, you brought me back. Reminded me that I had to be a doctor so I could support you when you were older.
WTF?
I just can’t take it.
I can’t fucking believe you’re gone.
I”m borderline mad at you right now. And I know that’s crazy. Is anger one of the stages of grief?
Here’s been my stages: 1. Hysteria 2. Hysteria 3. Choking, sick, profusely sweating, fevering, hysteria 4. Full blown denial. (I actually went through a whole delusion where you were making this shit up. playing the dickest practical joke ever) 5. Xanax coma for about 24 hours. 6. Now I’m out of bed and kind of pissed. You had SO much more to give the world.
SO much.
How could you do this?
You were NOT a lifer out there. We talked about it all the time.
ALWAYS talking about wanting to get home and settle down, but then also have freedom to travel. You weren’t supposed to die at 31 in the water.
In that water that you and I swam in a hundred times. The water you threw me in to see the phosphorescence. The water we tried to swim across the channel, hammered at 4am and then I swam over a sea urchin and flopped myself into a canoe of a local fisherman and smashed his eskie. (we'll leave out the rest of that story)... the same water. THAT was your deathbed? No. No fucking way.
Shit. I’m headed back to 7. Hysteria.
Everything hurts. I ache for you. I ache for your sweet mom and dad who let me use their washing machine in Aus and dye everything I had pink. I ache for your gorgeous sister who I never got to meet but knew so much about. I ache for your adorable, hilarious, hospitable Crescent Head besties who put me up and showed me the greatest time ever.
I ache for John and Ainz and Joey and Tom and Sas and the rest of the Mentawai family who cherished you and loved you and honored you and adored you. They brought us together. I can't imagine what my life would look like without you... and now I have to.
I ache for my own heart and this emptiness inside of it right now.
I’m gonna go sit in the sunshine to try and feel you.
I love you forever.
RIP Adam Dube
July 4, 1984 - Sept 1, 2015
