Bottom

Photo credit: Photo by davidteter on Flickr

When I was a little girl, I had a best friend named Vickie. Together we played detective and watched Wonder Woman and chased the boys away from our favorite haunts on the elementary school playground and teased our pesky little brothers. Her little brother, Frank, was my brother Rob's best friend and like a second brother to me; only Frankie was better, because he didn't live with me and so was less annoying. Way back then, Rob and Frankie shared a mutual love of their respective security blankets and would roam the neighborhood like two real life Linuses, with the blankets serving as everything from forts to superhero capes. I'd watch them -- two heads of sandy hair zooming down the street on their Big Wheels -- laughing in the sun.

Vickie's family moved away, but we kept in touch and stayed close in a way we wouldn't have if we had been together. Like many childhood friends, our interests diverged as we grew older, and in the same school and the same town, we might have drifted apart, but as pen pals, we remained connected.

My brother didn't keep in touch with Frank, they were too little to write when Vickie's family moved, but I'd hear about him through her. Frank changed as he grew older. He "fell in with the wrong crowd." He started to lie more and more, and steal. Eventually, he left home and cut all contact with his family and a pregnant girlfriend. Occasionally, the family would hear of him, but never from him. He wandered around the country, served a time on drug charges, couldn't hold onto a job or a marriage (there were several -- his last wife couldn't be sure how many). He was sometimes violent, but he was also extremely charming. He'd weave grandiose tales: tales in which he performed brave and frightening deeds, tales that were based on some half-truth from the past, tales that built a new myth of himself. They say he could make you believe almost anything.

A few weeks ago, Frank's most recent wife kicked him out and filed for divorce. And Frank hit bottom. There are only two ways things can play out when someone hits bottom: healing or death. And when Frank hit, he didn't find healing in the hands of a mental health professional or in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous or in a power greater than himself. He found relief from his pain in the only other place he could: death.

Frank committed suicide a few days ago. That sandy haired, teddy bear of a boy grew into a man who couldn't see another way out. The boy who believed he could grow up to become a superhero, and the man who could make anyone believe his stories, didn't believe there was hope, didn't believe in himself, didn't believe in anything beyond himself.

I cry tears for the boy, and tears for the man, and tears for the ragged, empty hole he didn't know he'd leave in our lives. I wish he had found another way. If God is in choices, then life's greatest tragedies lie in perceiving there are none. I love you, Frankie. Rest in peace, little brother.