Alex Maskara
Thoughts, Stories, Imagination of Filipino American Alex Maskara
Welcome
~
Right now, I need to recover from the shocking loss of my best friend, Jim.
For the first time, I think I truly understand people who have experienced this kind of loss—the death of a spouse, a family member, a best friend, a mentor, or simply someone whose presence had become woven into the ordinary fabric of daily life. In one sense, I was never dependent on Jim. Financially, I will be fine. Socially and practically, my circumstances will remain mostly the same. I can take care of myself, and I have done so for most of my adult life. But grief has very little to do with financial or practical dependency.
What I lost was presence. For the past six years, I had grown accustomed to knowing that Jim was simply there. He might be in another room of the house, doing his own thing while I did mine. We didn't have to constantly talk or entertain each other. There was comfort simply in knowing that another human being was nearby and available. Now that presence is gone, and that may be what I mourn most—the disappearance of something so ordinary that I barely noticed how important it had become.
I Have Lived Alone Before
The truth is that before Jim, I was accustomed to living alone. I did it for many, many years. There were exceptions. My sister Ruby and I lived together for about ten years. Joey stayed with me for around two years. And then there was Jim, who shared my home and my life for six years. But Jim's departure is different from all the others.
My separation from my sister was mutually understood, and she lived nearby. I could see her whenever I wanted. Joey's departure eventually came as a relief because living together had become difficult. In both cases, separation did not mean disappearance. The people were still somewhere in the world. Death is different.
This is the first time death has separated me from someone who had become part of my everyday home life. There was no gradual moving away, no goodbye at the door, no possibility of calling later or visiting next week. It feels like a sharp-edged knife suddenly cutting the connection between Jim and me. Yesterday he belonged to the world I knew. Today he does not. And that is terrible to comprehend.
The First Night
I was nearly hysterical after learning of Jim's death yesterday. I didn't sleep the entire night. Eventually, sometime in the early morning, exhaustion gave me perhaps two hours of sleep. Even now, I am badly sleep-deprived. I didn't feel like eating. Instead, I searched for things that might ease the pain, even temporarily.
I wrote. I wrote whatever came into my mind—memories, observations, questions, regrets, anger, logic, anything my brain could produce about Jim. Writing gave the grief somewhere to go. One minute I blamed him for his unhealthy lifestyle. The next minute I imagined completely different versions of the past. What if Jim and I had never crossed paths? What if I had not followed my compassionate instincts when our lives intersected? Perhaps I would have been spared this pain.
But that thought contains its own contradiction. To erase today's grief, I would also have to erase six years of companionship. I would have to erase all those ordinary days when simply knowing Jim was nearby gave me comfort. I cannot remove the painful ending without also removing the years that came before it. Perhaps grief is the price we eventually pay for having allowed another person to matter.
Old Ways and Older Wisdom
Last night, I was tempted to return to one of my old coping habits: getting into the car and driving around aimlessly, hoping movement and changing scenery would keep my brain from thinking about Jim. But it was already dark. I was exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed, and I knew that driving under those circumstances wasn't wise. Age, at least, has given me that much wisdom.
When I was younger, I might have searched desperately for someone, somewhere, or something that could distract me from emotional pain. But those old methods no longer fit the person I have become. So I turned to safer and quieter things. I meditated. I read. I listened to an audiobook. I watched videos. I spent more time than usual on social media and even updated some reels I had withheld from posting over the past few days. I spoke with my older sister and brother, and those conversations helped. Eventually, exhaustion took over and I slept for a little while—not much, but enough to get me through the night.
Getting Out Into the World
Today, I felt that I needed to move. Not necessarily to exhaust myself or somehow outrun the sadness, but simply to remind my body that life is still moving. I checked my blood sugar and blood pressure because I know stress can affect both. They were slightly elevated, but nothing alarming. The sky was cloudy when I stepped outside. I checked on my plants before getting into the car and driving to Starbucks. And now I am sitting here writing this journal entry.
Around me are mostly senior citizens absorbed in their conversations. I don't know them, and they don't know what happened to me yesterday. They are simply talking, drinking coffee, laughing, and going about their lives. Strangely, their presence comforts me. Maybe that is something I will do more often now—place myself among people without necessarily needing anything from them. I don't have to talk to anyone. Sometimes it is enough to hear voices, see people moving around, and be reminded that I am still part of the living world.
After my coffee, I may go to the park or the beach, but I don't want one of my strenuous walks today. I don't need to challenge myself physically to counter the heaviness emotionally. A gentle walk will be enough. Later, perhaps I'll visit the library. In the afternoon, I might go to the theater and watch *The Odyssey*. Small destinations, small activities, one hour followed by another. For now, that is enough.
I Don't Have to Perform My Grief
One thing I want to avoid is turning grief into a performance—even for myself. I don't have to prove how much Jim meant to me by suffering as dramatically or as long as possible. Neither do I need to pretend that everything is fine. There must be a middle ground where I can acknowledge the terrible reality of his absence while continuing to live.
One thought has been strangely helpful. Sometimes I imagine that Jim simply moved away, almost like a tenant who decided not to renew his lease. My mind knows that isn't what happened, of course, but emotionally the image makes his empty room a little easier to understand. He is simply no longer here.
There is also some comfort in knowing that his death was apparently quick. There was no prolonged period of suffering like the painful declines I witnessed with people I loved before him. There were no months of watching him slowly disappear. His departure was sudden, shocking, and cruel to those of us left behind, but perhaps mercifully brief for him. I can find some comfort in that.
Grief Has Its Own Schedule
I know from experience that the sharpest emotional pain eventually eases. But I also know I cannot command grief to disappear within a certain number of days. Maybe tomorrow will be easier. Maybe next week will be harder. A photograph, an empty room, a familiar sound, or an ordinary habit might suddenly bring everything back, and I will allow that to happen.
The goal isn't to erase Jim from my thoughts. The goal is to reach the point where remembering him no longer destroys the rest of the day. Eventually, my routines will return. But I don't want to return to the unhealthy coping habits of my youth. I want to rely on the quieter routines I have developed with age—writing, reading, walking, gardening, meditation, prayer, meaningful conversation, and simply allowing time to do what time does.
The daylight helps me. At night, when the house feels different and Jim's absence becomes more obvious, meditation and prayer can become my anchors.
Returning to a Life I Once Knew
Perhaps what is happening now is, in practical terms, a return to my old way of living: living alone. I have done it before. The difference is that six years with Jim changed what "alone" feels like. Before him, solitude was normal. After six years of companionship, solitude has to be learned again. And so I pray that God will become the safe anchor that Jim's physical presence provided in the house.
I also remind myself that I still have options. I have been thinking about visiting my old home, where there is an abundance of family and company. I am capable of making that trip, and I have the resources to do it. But before making major decisions, I need time.
There are practical matters here that eventually need my attention. I have two properties to manage. My condo is already producing rental income, and eventually I will have to decide what to do with the house. Perhaps I could continue an arrangement similar to what I had with Jim and have a paying roommate. Perhaps I could rent the entire house. Those decisions can wait until my mind is clearer.
The house itself will eventually need cleaning. There may be repairs. And then there are Jim's belongings. I tried to enter his room and begin cleaning today. I couldn't do it. The grief came rushing back, and I felt overwhelmed, so I stopped and walked away. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. There is no reason his room has to be emptied today. For now, the room can remain as it is.
For Today
That is where my mind is today. Yesterday, Jim was here. Today, I am learning what the house feels like without him. I don't know exactly how long this adjustment will take, and perhaps I don't need to know. I only need to get through this particular day without demanding too much from myself.
Drink my coffee. Sit among people. Take a gentle walk. Visit the library. Maybe watch a movie. Eat something. Rest when I can. Write when the sadness needs somewhere to go. Pray when words are no longer enough. These are small things, but perhaps small things are enough for today.
And when I return home, I will enter a house that feels painfully different from the house I knew only a few days ago. But it is still my home. My life is still here. Jim's chapter in it has ended in a way I never expected, but the six years he shared with me have not been erased by his death. They have simply become memories now, and that is something my heart has not yet learned how to accept.
Perhaps that is what grieving really is: the slow process of teaching the heart what the mind already knows.
Jim is gone. I am still here.
And for today, being here is enough.
Right now, I need to recover from the shocking loss of my best friend, Jim.
2026-08-07 21:09:38
shortstories
I still cannot sleep.
I checked my blood sugar, and thankfully it was okay. I also took my blood pressure medication on schedule last night because I anticipated my BP might go higher than usual from all this stress. Physically, I seem to be holding up. Emotionally, that is another story. So here I am again, writing. Writing seems to be one of the few things that works for me right now. When my thoughts become unbearable, I put them into words. Somehow, once they become sentences and paragraphs, they seem a little less chaotic.
What I am grieving tonight isn't only Jim. I am also grieving all the hopes, plans, and assumptions I had built around him. I really thought Jim would remain my best friend until the end of my days. I had already imagined my future. If I eventually decided to spend more time in the Philippines, Jim would remain here in the United States. He would live in my house, watch over it, and help manage things while I was away. I could stay in the Philippines for months and return whenever I felt like it, and Jim would be here. That was simply how I imagined things. Funny how we make plans involving other people without realizing that life has never promised us their continued presence. Now that entire picture of the future has disappeared overnight.
Sometimes I think I am being overly dramatic about his death. If our situations were reversed, would Jim be this devastated over losing me? I don't know. Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn't. But I know myself. I care. Perhaps sometimes I care too much, and maybe that is why this hurts so badly.
Still, I am trying to find something positive in what happened. Jim apparently did not suffer for very long. Whatever happened seems to have happened quickly. There was no prolonged hospitalization, no months or years of terrible disability, no long period of waiting for death. That gives me some comfort. I had actually worried about Jim's future because he was getting older without much financial security. He worked and earned money, but I knew the housing and stability I provided made his life considerably easier. Had he lived into old age, perhaps government assistance would have helped him somehow.
His health concerned me even more. His chain-smoking and periods of heavy beer drinking seemed to worsen as he aged. Sometimes I thought he was completely out of control. I imagined those habits eventually leading to a stroke, heart disease, a major procedure, or some other serious illness. Strangely, I never really imagined death. In my mind, Jim would somehow live approximately as long as I did. Another assumption.
I keep thinking about his chest pain. I told him he should go to the emergency room, and he snapped at me as though I were stupid for suggesting it. That memory bothers me now. Part of me is angry with him. Why didn't you go, Jim? Why couldn't you listen? Why couldn't you stop smoking? Why couldn't you control the drinking? But then I realize these questions no longer have answers. I can argue with him all night inside my head, but he isn't here to argue back. And perhaps I shouldn't pretend that I know exactly what was happening inside him. I don't know whether he understood how serious his symptoms were. I don't know whether he was afraid, stubborn, in denial, or simply thought the problem would pass. I will never know.
Only a few days ago, he was talking about Rocky and what would happen to the dog if something happened to him. That conversation feels eerie now. Rocky is old and severely debilitated himself. I knew I couldn't realistically take care of him. My own limitations and my lack of experience caring for a pit bull made that responsibility too much for me, regardless of how close I had become to him lately. Now Rocky has been taken to animal rescue. I don't even want to think about him right now. Too much has disappeared from this house at once.
And yet here I remain, living inside the same space Jim and I shared for more than six years. How am I supposed to stop thinking about him when practically everything around me reminds me that he was here? It hasn't even been twenty-four hours. Interestingly, I am not crying very much. I don't know why. Perhaps I am still in shock.
My sister's death last year was completely different. Her illness gave me time to prepare. I knew where things were going. I had time to process the possibility of losing her before she finally passed peacefully in hospice. Jim gave me none of that preparation. His death simply arrived. It punched me in the gut. With my sister, there was a long preparation before death. With Jim, death came first. Now comes the long process of teaching my heart what has already happened.
I keep reminding myself tonight that this is not the time to make major decisions. I shouldn't suddenly change my life because I am hurting. I shouldn't make impulsive choices simply because I desperately want to feel something other than grief. I know those old tendencies. Years ago, when my sister was suddenly hospitalized because of diabetes complications and we later learned about her cancer, I didn't know what to do with myself. I remember walking back and forth through the park at night. I wanted to see somebody, talk to somebody, find somebody—anything to keep my brain occupied.
For a moment tonight, that old instinct returned. I got into the car and drove around briefly. I wasn't really looking for anything. I simply wanted movement. I wanted different scenery. I wanted my brain to forget Jim for a few minutes. It didn't work. So I came home. I called my sister back home. Then I wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more.
Eventually, I had to lie down because my back needed rest. Between walking, gardening, sitting for long periods, and carrying all this emotional tension, my body had already done enough for one day. I tried watching The Lord of the Rings while lying in bed, but I couldn't concentrate. My eyes were watching the screen while my mind was somewhere else, so I returned to writing.
Thankfully, writing is something I can do almost indefinitely. Maybe I'll return to computer programming too. Programming forces my brain to concentrate on logic and problem-solving. That might be useful during the coming days. And, of course, there is social media.
I often laugh at my cousin because he seems capable of posting himself on Facebook throughout the entire day. But tonight I find myself thinking about him differently. His life isn't easy. He has financial limitations. His children have struggles of their own. He continues working even at 66. He has experienced a mild stroke. And last year, he lost his only son to a massive heart attack. Yet there he is—still working, still posting, still smiling, still living.
Obviously, I don't know what happens when the camera is turned off. Social media never tells the entire story. He may have private moments of grief that nobody sees. But he keeps going. Tonight, that gives me hope. Human beings somehow survive things they once believed they could never survive. I hope that will also be true for me.
Then my mind starts bargaining again. What if six years ago I had refused to help Jim after he was kicked out of his temporary apartment? Maybe he would have gone to Arizona. Maybe I would never have heard from him again. Then I wouldn't be sitting here tonight grieving him. Or I can go even farther back. What if I had never approached him in the park around 2011? What if I had simply walked past him? No Jim. No friendship. No six years together. No grief tonight.
But that isn't really a fair bargain, because if I remove tonight's pain, I also have to remove those six years. Would I really choose that? Probably not.
Thinking about Jim makes me remember the other people I met more than fifteen years ago. Some were young men who later died. I heard about overdoses. One died from cirrhosis. Others simply disappeared. I don't even know where Joey is now, or James. I hope they survived homelessness, addiction, COVID, and everything else life threw at them.
But Jim was different. Jim stayed. That may be the simplest explanation for why his death hurts so much: he stayed. For more than six years, we shared a house and gradually developed a real friendship.
Yes, Jim benefited from my help. I gave him stable housing and allowed his dog to stay here. There were periods when months passed without him being able to pay his share of the household expenses. Eventually, I stopped making a big issue out of it. Somewhere along the way, I realized that Jim was giving me something too: presence, companionship, another human being in the house. Someone I could talk to when I wanted to talk, but who didn't require constant conversation. Sometimes we barely spoke, yet there was comfort simply in knowing he was somewhere in the house.
Perhaps financially the arrangement favored Jim more than it favored me. I didn't mind, because, strangely enough, Jim taught me something I had rarely experienced before. He taught me what friendship could feel like. For six years, I managed to live under the same roof with another man without sex being part of the relationship. That sounds so simple when I write it down, but for me, it represents an important lesson.
Jim and I didn't even have much in common. We had different personalities, different habits, different interests, and different ways of looking at life. Yet we learned how to live together. More importantly, I learned how to respect him simply as another human being.
When I think about some of my younger years—the driving around, wandering through parks, meeting strangers and homeless men, looking for company—I can now recognize that loneliness, attraction, companionship, and sexual desire sometimes became tangled together in my mind. Jim helped me untangle them. He taught me that I don't have to possess someone in order to care about him. I don't have to turn another person into an object of desire before deciding that he is worth knowing. Men, just like women, want dignity and respect. Sometimes a friend can simply be a friend. Nothing more.
Maybe that is one of the greatest things Jim left me. Not money, not property, not some grand inheritance. A lesson.
For six years, I experienced ordinary companionship with another human being. We lived together. We disagreed. We irritated each other. We helped each other. Sometimes we talked, and sometimes we didn't. But every night, I knew Jim was somewhere nearby. And now I realize how precious something so ordinary can become.
Tonight the house is quiet. Jim's room is still there. His belongings are still there. Everything looks almost exactly as it did before. Only Jim is missing. Perhaps that is why my mind cannot completely understand what happened yet. The physical world hasn't caught up with the reality of his death. His things remain where he left them, almost as though he might walk through the door again. But he won't.
I don't know when I will be able to enter his room comfortably. I don't know when I will stop expecting to hear him somewhere in the house. I don't know when remembering him will stop hurting this much. And tonight, maybe I don't need those answers. I only need to get through tonight.
Jim wasn't merely someone I helped. In his own imperfect way, he helped me too. I gave him stability. He gave me companionship. And perhaps most importantly, he taught me that genuine friendship can exist without possession, romance, similarity, or shared interests. Sometimes friendship is simply two people learning to respect each other and remaining present in each other's lives.
Jim remained present in mine for six years. Now I have to learn how to carry that friendship as a memory.
The house is quiet, but my mind isn't. So I will keep writing until eventually exhaustion wins and sleep comes. Maybe tomorrow will be a little easier.
For tonight, this is enough.
2026-08-07 20:49:53
shortstories
GRIEF: Learning to Live With Jim’s Absence
Right now, I need to recover from the shocking loss of my best friend, Jim.
For the first time, I think I truly understand people who have experienced this kind of loss—the death of a spouse, a family member, a best friend, a mentor, or simply someone whose presence had become woven into the ordinary fabric of daily life. In one sense, I was never dependent on Jim. Financially, I will be fine. Socially and practically, my circumstances will remain mostly the same. I can take care of myself, and I have done so for most of my adult life. But grief has very little to do with financial or practical dependency.
What I lost was presence. For the past six years, I had grown accustomed to knowing that Jim was simply there. He might be in another room of the house, doing his own thing while I did mine. We didn't have to constantly talk or entertain each other. There was comfort simply in knowing that another human being was nearby and available. Now that presence is gone, and that may be what I mourn most—the disappearance of something so ordinary that I barely noticed how important it had become.
I Have Lived Alone Before
The truth is that before Jim, I was accustomed to living alone. I did it for many, many years. There were exceptions. My sister Ruby and I lived together for about ten years. Joey stayed with me for around two years. And then there was Jim, who shared my home and my life for six years. But Jim's departure is different from all the others.
My separation from my sister was mutually understood, and she lived nearby. I could see her whenever I wanted. Joey's departure eventually came as a relief because living together had become difficult. In both cases, separation did not mean disappearance. The people were still somewhere in the world. Death is different.
This is the first time death has separated me from someone who had become part of my everyday home life. There was no gradual moving away, no goodbye at the door, no possibility of calling later or visiting next week. It feels like a sharp-edged knife suddenly cutting the connection between Jim and me. Yesterday he belonged to the world I knew. Today he does not. And that is terrible to comprehend.
The First Night
I was nearly hysterical after learning of Jim's death yesterday. I didn't sleep the entire night. Eventually, sometime in the early morning, exhaustion gave me perhaps two hours of sleep. Even now, I am badly sleep-deprived. I didn't feel like eating. Instead, I searched for things that might ease the pain, even temporarily.
I wrote. I wrote whatever came into my mind—memories, observations, questions, regrets, anger, logic, anything my brain could produce about Jim. Writing gave the grief somewhere to go. One minute I blamed him for his unhealthy lifestyle. The next minute I imagined completely different versions of the past. What if Jim and I had never crossed paths? What if I had not followed my compassionate instincts when our lives intersected? Perhaps I would have been spared this pain.
But that thought contains its own contradiction. To erase today's grief, I would also have to erase six years of companionship. I would have to erase all those ordinary days when simply knowing Jim was nearby gave me comfort. I cannot remove the painful ending without also removing the years that came before it. Perhaps grief is the price we eventually pay for having allowed another person to matter.
Old Ways and Older Wisdom
Last night, I was tempted to return to one of my old coping habits: getting into the car and driving around aimlessly, hoping movement and changing scenery would keep my brain from thinking about Jim. But it was already dark. I was exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed, and I knew that driving under those circumstances wasn't wise. Age, at least, has given me that much wisdom.
When I was younger, I might have searched desperately for someone, somewhere, or something that could distract me from emotional pain. But those old methods no longer fit the person I have become. So I turned to safer and quieter things. I meditated. I read. I listened to an audiobook. I watched videos. I spent more time than usual on social media and even updated some reels I had withheld from posting over the past few days. I spoke with my older sister and brother, and those conversations helped. Eventually, exhaustion took over and I slept for a little while—not much, but enough to get me through the night.
Getting Out Into the World
Today, I felt that I needed to move. Not necessarily to exhaust myself or somehow outrun the sadness, but simply to remind my body that life is still moving. I checked my blood sugar and blood pressure because I know stress can affect both. They were slightly elevated, but nothing alarming. The sky was cloudy when I stepped outside. I checked on my plants before getting into the car and driving to Starbucks. And now I am sitting here writing this journal entry.
Around me are mostly senior citizens absorbed in their conversations. I don't know them, and they don't know what happened to me yesterday. They are simply talking, drinking coffee, laughing, and going about their lives. Strangely, their presence comforts me. Maybe that is something I will do more often now—place myself among people without necessarily needing anything from them. I don't have to talk to anyone. Sometimes it is enough to hear voices, see people moving around, and be reminded that I am still part of the living world.
After my coffee, I may go to the park or the beach, but I don't want one of my strenuous walks today. I don't need to challenge myself physically to counter the heaviness emotionally. A gentle walk will be enough. Later, perhaps I'll visit the library. In the afternoon, I might go to the theater and watch *The Odyssey*. Small destinations, small activities, one hour followed by another. For now, that is enough.
I Don't Have to Perform My Grief
One thing I want to avoid is turning grief into a performance—even for myself. I don't have to prove how much Jim meant to me by suffering as dramatically or as long as possible. Neither do I need to pretend that everything is fine. There must be a middle ground where I can acknowledge the terrible reality of his absence while continuing to live.
One thought has been strangely helpful. Sometimes I imagine that Jim simply moved away, almost like a tenant who decided not to renew his lease. My mind knows that isn't what happened, of course, but emotionally the image makes his empty room a little easier to understand. He is simply no longer here.
There is also some comfort in knowing that his death was apparently quick. There was no prolonged period of suffering like the painful declines I witnessed with people I loved before him. There were no months of watching him slowly disappear. His departure was sudden, shocking, and cruel to those of us left behind, but perhaps mercifully brief for him. I can find some comfort in that.
Grief Has Its Own Schedule
I know from experience that the sharpest emotional pain eventually eases. But I also know I cannot command grief to disappear within a certain number of days. Maybe tomorrow will be easier. Maybe next week will be harder. A photograph, an empty room, a familiar sound, or an ordinary habit might suddenly bring everything back, and I will allow that to happen.
The goal isn't to erase Jim from my thoughts. The goal is to reach the point where remembering him no longer destroys the rest of the day. Eventually, my routines will return. But I don't want to return to the unhealthy coping habits of my youth. I want to rely on the quieter routines I have developed with age—writing, reading, walking, gardening, meditation, prayer, meaningful conversation, and simply allowing time to do what time does.
The daylight helps me. At night, when the house feels different and Jim's absence becomes more obvious, meditation and prayer can become my anchors.
Returning to a Life I Once Knew
Perhaps what is happening now is, in practical terms, a return to my old way of living: living alone. I have done it before. The difference is that six years with Jim changed what "alone" feels like. Before him, solitude was normal. After six years of companionship, solitude has to be learned again. And so I pray that God will become the safe anchor that Jim's physical presence provided in the house.
I also remind myself that I still have options. I have been thinking about visiting my old home, where there is an abundance of family and company. I am capable of making that trip, and I have the resources to do it. But before making major decisions, I need time.
There are practical matters here that eventually need my attention. I have two properties to manage. My condo is already producing rental income, and eventually I will have to decide what to do with the house. Perhaps I could continue an arrangement similar to what I had with Jim and have a paying roommate. Perhaps I could rent the entire house. Those decisions can wait until my mind is clearer.
The house itself will eventually need cleaning. There may be repairs. And then there are Jim's belongings. I tried to enter his room and begin cleaning today. I couldn't do it. The grief came rushing back, and I felt overwhelmed, so I stopped and walked away. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. There is no reason his room has to be emptied today. For now, the room can remain as it is.
For Today
That is where my mind is today. Yesterday, Jim was here. Today, I am learning what the house feels like without him. I don't know exactly how long this adjustment will take, and perhaps I don't need to know. I only need to get through this particular day without demanding too much from myself.
Drink my coffee. Sit among people. Take a gentle walk. Visit the library. Maybe watch a movie. Eat something. Rest when I can. Write when the sadness needs somewhere to go. Pray when words are no longer enough. These are small things, but perhaps small things are enough for today.
And when I return home, I will enter a house that feels painfully different from the house I knew only a few days ago. But it is still my home. My life is still here. Jim's chapter in it has ended in a way I never expected, but the six years he shared with me have not been erased by his death. They have simply become memories now, and that is something my heart has not yet learned how to accept.
Perhaps that is what grieving really is: the slow process of teaching the heart what the mind already knows.
Jim is gone. I am still here.
And for today, being here is enough.
Right now, I need to recover from the shocking loss of my best friend, Jim.
2026-08-07 21:09:38
shortstories
Bereavement
I still cannot sleep.
I checked my blood sugar, and thankfully it was okay. I also took my blood pressure medication on schedule last night because I anticipated my BP might go higher than usual from all this stress. Physically, I seem to be holding up. Emotionally, that is another story. So here I am again, writing. Writing seems to be one of the few things that works for me right now. When my thoughts become unbearable, I put them into words. Somehow, once they become sentences and paragraphs, they seem a little less chaotic.
What I am grieving tonight isn't only Jim. I am also grieving all the hopes, plans, and assumptions I had built around him. I really thought Jim would remain my best friend until the end of my days. I had already imagined my future. If I eventually decided to spend more time in the Philippines, Jim would remain here in the United States. He would live in my house, watch over it, and help manage things while I was away. I could stay in the Philippines for months and return whenever I felt like it, and Jim would be here. That was simply how I imagined things. Funny how we make plans involving other people without realizing that life has never promised us their continued presence. Now that entire picture of the future has disappeared overnight.
Sometimes I think I am being overly dramatic about his death. If our situations were reversed, would Jim be this devastated over losing me? I don't know. Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn't. But I know myself. I care. Perhaps sometimes I care too much, and maybe that is why this hurts so badly.
Still, I am trying to find something positive in what happened. Jim apparently did not suffer for very long. Whatever happened seems to have happened quickly. There was no prolonged hospitalization, no months or years of terrible disability, no long period of waiting for death. That gives me some comfort. I had actually worried about Jim's future because he was getting older without much financial security. He worked and earned money, but I knew the housing and stability I provided made his life considerably easier. Had he lived into old age, perhaps government assistance would have helped him somehow.
His health concerned me even more. His chain-smoking and periods of heavy beer drinking seemed to worsen as he aged. Sometimes I thought he was completely out of control. I imagined those habits eventually leading to a stroke, heart disease, a major procedure, or some other serious illness. Strangely, I never really imagined death. In my mind, Jim would somehow live approximately as long as I did. Another assumption.
I keep thinking about his chest pain. I told him he should go to the emergency room, and he snapped at me as though I were stupid for suggesting it. That memory bothers me now. Part of me is angry with him. Why didn't you go, Jim? Why couldn't you listen? Why couldn't you stop smoking? Why couldn't you control the drinking? But then I realize these questions no longer have answers. I can argue with him all night inside my head, but he isn't here to argue back. And perhaps I shouldn't pretend that I know exactly what was happening inside him. I don't know whether he understood how serious his symptoms were. I don't know whether he was afraid, stubborn, in denial, or simply thought the problem would pass. I will never know.
Only a few days ago, he was talking about Rocky and what would happen to the dog if something happened to him. That conversation feels eerie now. Rocky is old and severely debilitated himself. I knew I couldn't realistically take care of him. My own limitations and my lack of experience caring for a pit bull made that responsibility too much for me, regardless of how close I had become to him lately. Now Rocky has been taken to animal rescue. I don't even want to think about him right now. Too much has disappeared from this house at once.
And yet here I remain, living inside the same space Jim and I shared for more than six years. How am I supposed to stop thinking about him when practically everything around me reminds me that he was here? It hasn't even been twenty-four hours. Interestingly, I am not crying very much. I don't know why. Perhaps I am still in shock.
My sister's death last year was completely different. Her illness gave me time to prepare. I knew where things were going. I had time to process the possibility of losing her before she finally passed peacefully in hospice. Jim gave me none of that preparation. His death simply arrived. It punched me in the gut. With my sister, there was a long preparation before death. With Jim, death came first. Now comes the long process of teaching my heart what has already happened.
I keep reminding myself tonight that this is not the time to make major decisions. I shouldn't suddenly change my life because I am hurting. I shouldn't make impulsive choices simply because I desperately want to feel something other than grief. I know those old tendencies. Years ago, when my sister was suddenly hospitalized because of diabetes complications and we later learned about her cancer, I didn't know what to do with myself. I remember walking back and forth through the park at night. I wanted to see somebody, talk to somebody, find somebody—anything to keep my brain occupied.
For a moment tonight, that old instinct returned. I got into the car and drove around briefly. I wasn't really looking for anything. I simply wanted movement. I wanted different scenery. I wanted my brain to forget Jim for a few minutes. It didn't work. So I came home. I called my sister back home. Then I wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more.
Eventually, I had to lie down because my back needed rest. Between walking, gardening, sitting for long periods, and carrying all this emotional tension, my body had already done enough for one day. I tried watching The Lord of the Rings while lying in bed, but I couldn't concentrate. My eyes were watching the screen while my mind was somewhere else, so I returned to writing.
Thankfully, writing is something I can do almost indefinitely. Maybe I'll return to computer programming too. Programming forces my brain to concentrate on logic and problem-solving. That might be useful during the coming days. And, of course, there is social media.
I often laugh at my cousin because he seems capable of posting himself on Facebook throughout the entire day. But tonight I find myself thinking about him differently. His life isn't easy. He has financial limitations. His children have struggles of their own. He continues working even at 66. He has experienced a mild stroke. And last year, he lost his only son to a massive heart attack. Yet there he is—still working, still posting, still smiling, still living.
Obviously, I don't know what happens when the camera is turned off. Social media never tells the entire story. He may have private moments of grief that nobody sees. But he keeps going. Tonight, that gives me hope. Human beings somehow survive things they once believed they could never survive. I hope that will also be true for me.
Then my mind starts bargaining again. What if six years ago I had refused to help Jim after he was kicked out of his temporary apartment? Maybe he would have gone to Arizona. Maybe I would never have heard from him again. Then I wouldn't be sitting here tonight grieving him. Or I can go even farther back. What if I had never approached him in the park around 2011? What if I had simply walked past him? No Jim. No friendship. No six years together. No grief tonight.
But that isn't really a fair bargain, because if I remove tonight's pain, I also have to remove those six years. Would I really choose that? Probably not.
Thinking about Jim makes me remember the other people I met more than fifteen years ago. Some were young men who later died. I heard about overdoses. One died from cirrhosis. Others simply disappeared. I don't even know where Joey is now, or James. I hope they survived homelessness, addiction, COVID, and everything else life threw at them.
But Jim was different. Jim stayed. That may be the simplest explanation for why his death hurts so much: he stayed. For more than six years, we shared a house and gradually developed a real friendship.
Yes, Jim benefited from my help. I gave him stable housing and allowed his dog to stay here. There were periods when months passed without him being able to pay his share of the household expenses. Eventually, I stopped making a big issue out of it. Somewhere along the way, I realized that Jim was giving me something too: presence, companionship, another human being in the house. Someone I could talk to when I wanted to talk, but who didn't require constant conversation. Sometimes we barely spoke, yet there was comfort simply in knowing he was somewhere in the house.
Perhaps financially the arrangement favored Jim more than it favored me. I didn't mind, because, strangely enough, Jim taught me something I had rarely experienced before. He taught me what friendship could feel like. For six years, I managed to live under the same roof with another man without sex being part of the relationship. That sounds so simple when I write it down, but for me, it represents an important lesson.
Jim and I didn't even have much in common. We had different personalities, different habits, different interests, and different ways of looking at life. Yet we learned how to live together. More importantly, I learned how to respect him simply as another human being.
When I think about some of my younger years—the driving around, wandering through parks, meeting strangers and homeless men, looking for company—I can now recognize that loneliness, attraction, companionship, and sexual desire sometimes became tangled together in my mind. Jim helped me untangle them. He taught me that I don't have to possess someone in order to care about him. I don't have to turn another person into an object of desire before deciding that he is worth knowing. Men, just like women, want dignity and respect. Sometimes a friend can simply be a friend. Nothing more.
Maybe that is one of the greatest things Jim left me. Not money, not property, not some grand inheritance. A lesson.
For six years, I experienced ordinary companionship with another human being. We lived together. We disagreed. We irritated each other. We helped each other. Sometimes we talked, and sometimes we didn't. But every night, I knew Jim was somewhere nearby. And now I realize how precious something so ordinary can become.
Tonight the house is quiet. Jim's room is still there. His belongings are still there. Everything looks almost exactly as it did before. Only Jim is missing. Perhaps that is why my mind cannot completely understand what happened yet. The physical world hasn't caught up with the reality of his death. His things remain where he left them, almost as though he might walk through the door again. But he won't.
I don't know when I will be able to enter his room comfortably. I don't know when I will stop expecting to hear him somewhere in the house. I don't know when remembering him will stop hurting this much. And tonight, maybe I don't need those answers. I only need to get through tonight.
Jim wasn't merely someone I helped. In his own imperfect way, he helped me too. I gave him stability. He gave me companionship. And perhaps most importantly, he taught me that genuine friendship can exist without possession, romance, similarity, or shared interests. Sometimes friendship is simply two people learning to respect each other and remaining present in each other's lives.
Jim remained present in mine for six years. Now I have to learn how to carry that friendship as a memory.
The house is quiet, but my mind isn't. So I will keep writing until eventually exhaustion wins and sleep comes. Maybe tomorrow will be a little easier.
For tonight, this is enough.
2026-08-07 20:49:53
shortstories