I'm still sort of processing this. The whole campus is, it seems. I didn't know the victims, although I'm Facebook friends with one. It's all very surreal.
Another member of this program I'm in, who I happen to dislike and be disliked by, sent a message to the whole program saying "If anyone needs anything, remember we have a counseling center and you have a friend in me." And my first reaction was, "Well I don't think that's true." How fucked up is that?
It's strange and surreal and heartening to see how immediately and fully the campus came together. It's reminded me that the professors, the upperclassmen, the football players, the heavy drinkers are all human too.
So today we mourn.
Not that fucked up. A best friend of mine of 10 years took his life three days ago. His brother has said that he doesn't want anyone to know on Facebook or the like. Nobody in our high school gave a shit about him when he was alive. The last thing he wants is for a bunch of them to pretend to care now that he's dead. I'm not saying that people are inherently selfish or whatever. I'm not making a statement of any sort since I'm still processing what happened, on top of the three projects and midterm I have this week. But I think it's natural to assume that people don't really care until it's too late and we're reminded that everything is fragile, everything is possible."If anyone needs anything, remember we have a counseling center and you have a friend in me." And my first reaction was, "Well I don't think that's true." How fucked up is that?
One of my former suite mates died a few years ago. We lived together sophomore year, he passed my senior year. Didn't really know him well at all, but said hi him to once in awhile when I saw him. The day before he passed I saw him out at a bar; he was sitting with all his friends, and they were laughing and joking together. Seemed like he was having a great time. The next day he playing video games with a friend when he passed out, and that was it. Heart defect, at the age of 21. The list goes on. My friends' friend died at 18, hit by a car when he was walking home from the bar. He left his car at the bar, didn't want to put anybody at risk. My brother's friend just died at 21, from cancer. He graduated from high school, was all excited to hit college. Then he got the diagnosis, and it was just a long slow decline from there. I'm sure this happens to everybody. You start experiencing the passing of those around you, and you have to figure out how to process it. I don't have an answer. I've been relatively blessed so far, in that no one near and dear to me personally has been unlucky so far. But it will happen, and I honestly don't know how I'll deal with it. All I've taken from these deaths is that life is short and it can end anytime. So I try not to sweat the small stuff and enjoy each day as much as possible.
Sorry to kind of redirect your post OP, but is it odd for me to not really be effected by news like this? Recently, someone I "knew" at high school, a kid who sat next near the group I was always with at the lunch tables, someone I spoke to/sat next to in class, ended up being found dead in the bottom of a lake, from what I believe to be suicide. It's never really gotten to me. Hearing the news didn't leave me shocked, didn't leave me awed, didn't really effect me much at all. I knew the person, and now he died. When my mom mentioned it to me, I think she expected a bigger reaction, and I kind of had to come up with something to say on the spot to make it sound more like It effected me in some profound ways. Maybe I'm exaggerating my lack of emotion, but when seeing stories like this, of people mourning after death like this, I can't see myself doing the same. Maybe I just didn't know the person as well as I thought I did, despite the person being "closer" to me than more than 90% of the people I know. I've always felt like I should be more profoundly effected.