He's dead.

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i don't really know if i should be posting this, or why i am, i don't usually post this kind of stuff. but i found out last night that my friend died at the weekend. i don't know how he died yet, i'm scared to know, although i'm sure i'll find out soon enough. i was back in leeds 11 days ago and i was going to call him and go out for a drink, but i had a headache and ended up staying in with my parents, and now it is too late.

i think he may have posted here once or twice, he certainly read ilx from time to time, i don't know. it didn't really hit me until i used the word 'was' instead of 'is'. he was 26.

― gareth, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

oh my god. I'm so sorry. As ever in the situations i don't know what to say but my heart goes out to you

― Ed, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What a shit year this has been. And now you've lost someone close to you too, Gareth.

I don't know how close you were as friends, I don't know the history, so it's awkward for me to find the right words - not that words can be of any use, as I've found out myself this year.

So I'm here for you, as are we all.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm really sorry, I hope you're ok Gareth.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

don't feel guilty that you didn't get to see him that time, whatever you do. there's no way anyone could have seen it coming. oh gareth for what it's worth, i'm so sorry.

― katie, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What Katie said. And do let us know if there's anything we can do, okay?

― suzy, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Like us all, I'm very sorry Gareth. Take very good care.

― Will, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh my god, I'm sorry. Haven't checked IL* for a few days...

Are you OK? Will e and call you...

― kate, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

All my best - I hope you can pull through this.

― Kodanshi, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I never know what to say. My thoughts are with you, and if there's anything we can do, just say.

― Mark C, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm terrible at finding words also but yes, if you want us to do anything, or just use the boards to talk about it, then please do, anytime you want.

― Tom, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dreadful news Gareth, I'm really sorry, + echo what everyone else says.

― stevo, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

fuck gareth. i am so fucking sorry. i wish i could be a font of elqounce but my toungle stumbles. of course there will be a candle at mass.

― anthony, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

alex was 26 too. i was going to call her the morning she left for london, but didn't feel like getting up that early. please don't wallop yrself for that gareth: it's far too easy to pile on extra salt into an already gaping wound.

i knew somehow this thread was going to be painful for someone, before i even opened it. i thought maybe we'd get "lucky", and it would be someone famous. how perfectly crass of me, eh? to think that someone famous doesn't have his or her own gareth's and jess's. oy.

like a good chunk of the people on ilx still, gareth, i don't know you half as well as i should i like, and don't know if i ever will. but if you do need someone to talk to - even just to string a series of expletives into an email window - i'm sitting here. all day probably. and it can - always - only help.

― jess, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry old boy. Don't fret about not seeing him in Leeds, you weren't to know what would happen.

― DG, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi Gareth, I just read your very sad news. My heart goes out to you. I believe The Lord needed another soldier for his army. Your friend is in very good company. Hold him in your heart and he will alway be with you. Hugs my Dear.

― Gale Deslongchamps, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi Gareth, I'm very sorry your friend died. Take care.

― Nancy Drew, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

gareth, I'm very sorry about your friend.

― rosemary, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the funeral is tomorrow. to be honest, it still hasn't really sunk in. i guess tomorrow will feel very final. it is strange, it hit hard the day after i found out, but then it has been as though i am pretending none of it has happened. i am not looking forward to tomorrow.

thank you for your words, (some people i have never even met), and the e-mails sent as well. there are some lovely people in the world.

― gareth, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i always said i'd never go to funerals because i didn't see the point, this one was hard, but i'm glad i went. i didn't expect it to hit me the way it did, halfway through, you realise, it really is real. they said things, and i just imagined him lying in there laughing and going "what the fuck are you all doing? get thee to t'pub".

they played music he produced on the way in and the way out. there won't be any more.

― gareth, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

*hugs* I feel quite lame for not saying something earlier. I think your mention of no more music made it that much more tangible.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hey ned. is ok, i don't expect anyone to say anything really, although it is nice that people do. i only really started this thread because he knew of ilx, even if ilx didn't know him

― gareth, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm really sorry. That's so sad.

― Maria, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

ive been thinking about this a lot, recently

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 12:41 (twenty years ago)

I never know what to say or,if I do say something, the words feel all wrong. Gareth, I am so sorry. I wish I could take away some of the pain. :-(

― stevie nixed (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

Same here. I'm feeling v. guilty about not being able to make it to Nick's funeral up there in Yorkshire, though I've been told that there may be a memorial service down here in London as well.

(I'm presuming that it's Nick's death that's got you thinking about this again, Gareth)

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

Luckily, none of my close ones have died yet, but when it'll eventually happen I have no idea how to deal with it... I'm as pure an atheist as one can be, and I simply cannot accept death in any way; to me it's nothing but wrong, and the fact that we are born here only to die is the biggest injustice of them all, and someone dying in an early age is even worse.

Oh, I'm sorry, that wasn't exactly comforting. Still, you have my sympathies.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

Tuomas (and others) I'd encourage you to try and not think of death as 'unjust' or this horrendous thing waiting at the end of the path, but yeah, when it happens to someone i'm closer to i'll probably struggle to think of it that way too - I lack experience in this department I think, and the numbness feels startlingly comfortable, 'wrong' somehow. hmm. I don't know, I AM terrified about it all but at the same time I'm so fed up (? not sure this is the right/best term) with the general perception of it in our culture(s) too (but there's a difference between death and what's deemed 'untimely death' for sure) - not that I have a clear idea of alternate perceptions (what they should be and why) of the subject really. i think it's the nature of grief, esp. in public, the aftermath, that is troubling me as much as the event itself. this is a theoretical/philosophical position that feels like a luxury as opposed to actual emotional response.

― Alienus Quam Reproba (blueski), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

I feel too desensitised, and this worries me also.

― Alienus Quam Reproba (blueski), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:12 (twenty years ago)

yes, it is partly nicks death, and a number of other things. though its been on my mind, at the back, all the time, it just looms larger sometimes.

the parallels are strong, the abruptness of it for one,

and...leeds

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

I'm going to ask a question which may seem insensitive but it's certainly not meant to be, but did you ever find out how he died? If you'd rather not say, thats okay.

― kate/papa november (papa november), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

For me when someone parts the life after death is remembering them. I don't know if that makes sense. When I was in my teenage years I lost several friends in a short period of time - most of them in car accidents. I still think of them, wondering what would have happened had they not stepped into that car or fell off the balcony. I know how hard it is. The words "time heal" anger me at times but I realize that it's true. Gareth, *hugs*.

― stevie nixed (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

Stevem, when I was younger I could still hold the sort of a philosophical view ("why is death such a horrendous taboo in our culture?") towards death, but the older I get (i.e. the closer my own death gets) the more unhandlable and terrifying just the thought of it becomes. And I'm only 25.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

i've been thinking a lot about this too. nick's death counts as the third time that a friend or a friend of a friend (ie. someone i knew in passing) has died from causes stemming directly or indirectly from drug use. i'm 27 now - one thing i didn't prepare for was that this type of thing would become par for the course as i got older. i guess on some perverse level it makes sense - the late 20s feels like this crossroad where you're either getting married or working towards your career, and if not either of those, what?

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

sorry, i meant to say third time in the last six months.

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

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