Today is not a good day for me. Or for my husband. Or for some of our friends back in Ohio. Today is the funeral of one of my husband’s best friends.
I met Joe the same night that I met my husband. He, Joe, another male friend of theirs named Mike, Joe’s then girlfriend, and her sister were all hanging out at the same place I was hanging with a bunch of my friends. My hubby and I exchanges glances all night until he finally got the courage (probably beer inspired) to come talk to me. During our dating phase, we hung out with Joe and his girlfriend-then wife-then ex-wife often. We went to their wedding, their Halloween parties, and once went to an amusement park together. Joe was an amazing guitar player, could play a song after hearing it once. We used to go watch him play with the various bands he was in. When my hubby recently decided to finally learn to play guitar, he texted and Skyped with Joe to talk chords. We hadn’t seen him since we moved to Texas but there were plenty of texts and phone calls.
We got the news late last week that he killed himself. I can’t even type that without my heart breaking. He apparently thought he had contracted rabies through the bite of a bat. Supposedly he was on the treatment for the virus and I don’t know the specifics – maybe he thought it wasn’t working, maybe he was too far along for it to work – I don’t know. I do know that his father found him in his garage with both cars running and he had shot himself. I didn’t even know he had a gun.
I managed to find a really good last-minute deal for my husband to fly back for the wake and funeral. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the same for me to go along. Obviously, my hubby needs to be there more than I do. But I’m really sad to not have the chance to say goodbye and to hug all of us that are left wondering what the hell happened and how we could have lost a friend this way.
RIP Joe…