For you, Trevor, and for all of us that knew you.
My friend, Trevor Spencer, is dead.
I write “friend,” but when he was alive, I would have perhaps thought that was too strong a word. He was not, I might have pointed out, “really” a friend. Instead he was someone I admired, talked to around town, kissed from time to time, and whose smile I thought about.
As I write this, I don’t know how he died. This morning, I got a text message telling me it happened. Not a call. Nobody would think I knew him well enough to call me, and that’s exactly right. I didn’t.
Even though we’re meant to revere it in all cases, Death gives us different meanings.
If the person that dies is close to us or (please protect me) very close, we might walk around in a haze, not wondering what’s “next.” There isn’t a “next” because life no longer has a succession. Part of our present and our past has been severed. We’re no longer who we were, but something else in a world that has changed entirely.
When my friend Sigrid died years ago, I laughed at first. She was hit by a train and it seemed so absurd that someone could be hit by a train. I hadn’t seen her in years. I walked around for a few hours, seemingly unaffected, and then I fell down, suddenly, and started crying. I called my friend Jim, who used to be her boyfriend.
“I heard,” he said. “But she was a really terrible person. I’m not happy she’s dead, but I’m not really upset either.”
I didn’t know what he was referring to or what she’d done to him. I don’t know who she became in those years between my goodbye to her and her death. She’d driven me home after I got too high and was almost catatonic at an all-night diner; she sang to me on the way to my apartment to calm my nerves. I never saw her after that, except in a black-and-white photo in the Morning Call; black ink dots on gray newspaper.
She was twenty, I think. Or younger, maybe.
I don’t know how old Trevor was when he died. Yesterday. Last night. The last time I saw him, he looked youthful.
Does it make a difference? Does age or expectation of death calm us? My grandfather (mother’s side) and my grandmother (father’s side) died and I felt almost nothing. I breathed slowly. I thought about it for a bit. I went about my day. I didn’t write about it, I didn’t tell anyone about it, and I didn’t cry.
When my mother died, we knew it was coming. We were waiting for it for over a year. A line of cars surrounded the cemetery in procession. They blocked traffic. People stood around the rectangle of open ground, the polished wood, and the family. Me. My sister, my brother. For a year, I had a strange heavy head. I’d turn to the left or right and it felt like water was shifting from one side of my skull to the other. I was absent from life. I inherited money and spent it all in a year on nothing. I drank a lot. I slept in the afternoon.
Look around you.
Everyone in the room will die and if you know them, you’ll hear about it. And still, we’re amnesiacs about it. Death is like the seasons: they come each year, but we’re constantly surprised by their chill or heat. They’re a rhythmic surprise, a pattern we never get used to.
Everyone we know will die and we’ll see it happen, or we will die, and they’ll watch us go.
This includes not only those we’re desperately afraid for – our families, our partners, our children, our friends – but also our facebook friends, our acquaintances, the bartender, our hookups.
When I had a boyfriend, Trevor asked me out, three different times. He always forgot I had a boyfriend. I laughed each time and said no and gave him a big hug. I wonder, now, if I was unlucky or lucky to have said no. Because I said no, he never came into full focus. I might have been spared some of the pain of his passing, but I missed out on the joy of knowing him better.
I have no idea how I’ll feel when any of you die. We’re not prepared for the deaths of the people we know well. But we’re equally unprepared for the deaths of the faces we merely recognize – of those we wanted to or should have known, the people we just missed.
On Trevor’s facebook wall, people have written loving comments. This isn’t new or surprising, as far as he’s concerned – he was always bringing loving words out of us. The comments are addressed to him – “I can’t believe you’re gone,” they say. “I love you Trevor,” they say.
They’re difficult to read without wondering about yourself and how people will react. Depending on what you believe or know, Trevor will or will not experience this outpouring of love. The words may only be for us, as we embrace each other through his life and death; or maybe they’re for him too, their sentiment carried, somehow, to whatever and wherever he is now.
Death is a door or a question or an unwinnable argument or the beginning of nothing. It’s not for you and I to find out. Not for now. Until it is, we’ll give it different lives.
There’s just one photo of Trevor and I together. It’s on Castro Street and he’s holding me up, though you can’t tell he’s holding me. He’s smiling, as usual. The sun is beaming from behind him, as usual. It looks like the sky has opened up for him, or like a halo. That might seem to be only a coincidence for you, and if you didn’t know him that’s understandable. For you, that’s the right answer. For me, that light has taken meaning.
The photo might save someone from disappearing, but only when we look at it. Memory is the same way; because we only remember when we try to, and at my mother’s funeral, I implored people not to forget her.
I quoted Paul Auster: “It was. It will never be again. Remember.”
I only talk to one of my mother’s friends now. They all used to watch me when I was a child. They took me to violin lessons or played games with me or cut my hair. They were hilarious and smart women. I don’t talk to many people in my mom’s family. I don’t talk to my stepfather at all. But I remember them. I’m not sure if this is the “correct” way to live. I’m not sure if this is the “right thing.”
Sooner or later, Trevor’s facebook page will be taken down. The words will be gone.
Is that like dying? Are we like words? We’re spoken; we move; we make a sound and have meaning; but our true selves are never solid or graspable. Once the breath is finished and the word is issued, we’re gone.
The last time I saw Trevor, he kissed me in front of the vitamin shop. He was walking one way, I was walking the other. We stopped and kissed, happily, like funny, overly-eager boys do, on the sidewalk. We exchanged a few words and said our goodbyes.
We knew we’d see each other again.
When someone dies, people will ask you, “were you two close?” If such a consideration matters, and it might, I still can’t figure out why or how it does. If we don’t know how to say goodbye to our parents or grandparents, how will we say goodbye to those people we were expecting to be more alive and more real to us one day?
Those people who show up half-formed as friends, not completely developed as lovers, but not quite acquaintances, how should we say goodbye to them?
Trevor, I miss you, I love you. You were never really here in my life, and you will never really be gone.
Conner Habib 
Thanks for sharing this. I’m glad to have read it.
Amen.. Everything is gonna to be fine.
I really love this and completely agree that death never really signifies the end of a person because they’ve impacted everyone they’ve come across in life to varying degrees.
I have to say that I’m truly inspired by your candor. It’s gotten me to become a more open, honest person in my life. Thanks for that.
That was very nice Conner. Thank you.
Thanks Conner for expressing the feelings I have a hard time expressing. Trevor and I were never really close, but every time we saw each other, it felt like we were on the verge of being best of friends one day. In fact, I remember on my birthday last year I remember telling him that I decided he would be my friend for the coming year and that would be that. He just laughed and said Okay. That’s the kind of guy he was, unassuming and gorgeous, and I knew that even though we took our declaration of friendship lightly, I felt that he was someone that I could count on if needed someone to be there for me. He was a rarity and will be missed. I do not want to think of him as not in this world anymore.
You were so special Trevor.
xxoooxxoo Barry
This has a lot of us reflecting. I was an admirer with my nose pressed up against the glass but the few times we spoke he was always so kind. I guess I had a crush.
For me its important to appreciate the ones we love– right now… we never know when we’ll be separated.
I believe the best part of us lives on, the memories and how he touched many of our friends lives will live on for as long as we do. I also believe a spirit can live on guiding us from other places. I’ve seen it in my own life, with friends who’ve past- I’ve felt their guidance and influence over the years.
Well written.
Thank you, everyone, for responding, whether you knew Trevor or not. I’m glad to have posted something that’s meaningful for others. Love and peace. CH
This made me cry. You have such a way of expressing what I’m thinking. “Death is like the seasons: they come each year, but we’re constantly surprised by their chill or heat. They’re a rhythmic surprise, a pattern we never get used to.”
Just a simple thank you.
You have put very difficult feelings and thoughts into words of comfort,and I think of hope.
Thank you for sharing this.
thanks for posting this.
R.I.P. Trevor.
We share the same opinions about death and I think that life is too short for us to supress what he think and want to do. I wish you and Trevor’s family and friends be well during this hard moment.
And how do we cope with this everyday surprise guest? Do accept her as we accept the fly that sneaks in through the crack in the sliding door? Aggravated and angry with her? Or do we see her as an invitation to the present moment? An invitation to swat her away or let her buzz through the house, landing on the walls, mirrors, even our heads?
Tell me please, Conner.
Sis
This is artfully expressed Conner. I like the comparison of death to the passing of seasons in a fresh way. It is always tragic when one so young dies unexpectedly and I grieve for those who knew Trevor well. But I think the message for the rest of us is to value our lives and health and every day we have. What a beautiful mind you have!
Sue
That was beautiful Conner.
I can somewhat sympathize. I met a guy online thru Twitter first, then friends on Facebook. He was a cutie, partnered, and 1500 miles away. We exchanged a few dirty pictures via text and such. His job had the possibility of bringing him fairly close but it never happened. I remember when I found out he died. I thought, “oh, how sad” and went about my day. A couple days later, it was as though my best friend had died. I was in a funk for a couple weeks, breaking down and crying at the slightest thing. I still don’t know why the death of basically a perfect stranger affected me like it did. Still does sometimes, and it’ll be a year this July. I got a tattoo in his honor. Every time I think of him, I pat my tattoo. It helps. 😉
Death is a part of life. At some point we all experience
losing someone, whether close or someone we know of.
An impact is made,