Death is my Friend

As we grow older, we learn friendships don't always last.
Friends move, friends drift apart, friendships and friends die.
We learn to accept this as time goes on.
But we all have one friend in common. 

We all have that one friend we know pretty well, yet barely talk to.
That one friend we meet in passing every now and again.
Be it in the hallways of school, or within a store in our town.
Everyone has that friend they know, but barely see.

My friend is different from that norm, not that there is a norm when it comes to friends.
He is one I see constantly, but not frequently.
He visits, but never stays.
He is different.

My friend is different in many ways.
I know him well, and I have seen him often through the years.
He has scared me before but not anymore.
Now we are friends. Yet years ago, we were enemies.

He has no real name, my friend.
His own friends are few.
I suppose this is due to his reason for being.
You see, most avoid him when possible.

I first met him when he arrived one afternoon at my elementary school.
He followed our beloved principal home.
The next day he lingered by his coffin in our church.
I watched him, at 6 years old, as he stared around at his next victims.

A few months later, our paths crossed again.
I watched as he forced the cancer in my mothers friend to consume her brain.
He recognized me.
We did not acknowledge each other as he took her away.

My enemy of these times remained distant for a few years after that.
He made his presence known once more as he rushed blood into the heart of my grandfather just as he had done to my principal.
It was my thanksgiving vacation. I was 10.
As an enemy, he stood by me during the funeral; my family cried around me, I merely stared at the ground.

He claimed the life of two more in the next two years.
My half-sister, I had never heard of, taken from her kids at age 30 after being murdered.
And another friend of mine, taken from a noose he hung himself on during a webcam chat.
I wasn't allowed at either funeral, but I could feel my enemy watching me carefully.

And then, he took the last family member I loved at 14.
He took my uncle;my godfather, by giving him the same cancer that killed my mother's friend.
My enemy followed me, as everyone cried around me.
He put his hand on my shoulder, and forced tears down my face as the marine trumpet sounded my godfathers burial.

I kept my enemy close, and greeted him in the following months.
I stabbed my head.
I electrocuted myself.
I nearly hung myself.

But he would not take me.
I shot myself.
I cut myself.
I begged for him to kill me.

My enemy did no such thing.
And finally I asked him.
I asked him why did he take all others around me who wanted to live, but not I who want nothing more than to die.
His reply, was a lesson.

A lesson of pain, of suffering, of enduring through strife.
His reply was 5 years of agonizing misery.
5 years of more death and spiraling depression until I hit rock bottom and had nowhere else to go.
Then I saw, at the end of the shithole that was my life: a small light.

I found the most simplest reason to be happy, and I embraced it.
I let it overshadow all worry, pain and sadness.
With it, I overcame my dark thoughts.
With it, I ended a lifetime of misery.

His answer...his gift, has brought me a feeling of uncertainty but also clarity.
I know no other way of living, devoid of depression and misery.
Though I am still coping, I am appreciative.
For this was truly the gift of a new life.

I am starting over, with my new friend Death by my side.
Why keep him there you ask? Well why not?
Death is my friend, who taught me of the natural order in life.
Death is my friend, whom I have learned to accept.

He stands by my side, waiting for my time.
And when it is my time to go, I will not greet him with scared eyes as most would.
I will greet him as an equal.
A great friend who will escort me to my next great adventure.