A Loss You Can Never Recover

I almost forgot who am.  I almost forgot what I do.  I almost forgot what it feels to live, to feel.  How do you prepare for tragedy?  You can’t.  How do you force yourself to feel better?  You can’t.  How do you find meaning in life?  You can, it’s just not that simple because most of the time we’re all sleeping.

Then one day, life gives you a wake up call.

For me, it was a phone call.  I remember it clearly.  I was sick with a cold, about to take a hot shower after coming home from a dinner so I can catch up with the guys.  I really wasn’t in the mood though.  We planned a poker game that Thursday night because everyone had Friday off.  We’re all so busy now, so these games give us a rare chance to catch up with everyone.  My cellphone rings.  It’s my best friend…

“Hey Gio, did you hear?”

“No.”

“We have one less player tonight.  Mel is not coming.”  ..click.  He hangs me up.

… what the heck was that?  Mel was his brother, maybe he pissed him off. They always fight, and I always bring them together.  Great, our game is ruined.  Let me call this idiot back and talk some sense into him.  I get another phone call, this time it’s my mother.  “I’ve got bad news.  Mel drowned.”  I punch the mirror.  Grab my keys and drive out.

I come home a day later.  Everyone is calling me, telling me sorry. Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry.  I tell them thanks, but in my head I’m thinking shut up, leave me alone.  That wasn’t him.  That couldn’t be him.  No way that was him.  I’ll see him next week… we’re going to go fishing on Saturday, then we’re going to play poker later at night.  He’s going to go “all-in” just before I can see the rivercard, like he always does.  And I don’t care, I’m going to call him, and this time he’s not going to get the flush.  Not this time.

Just one more game, that’s all I ask.  I wish I could play one more hand with him.  He’s so alive in my head.  The last time I saw him he was so full of life.  There wasn’t one moment where we didn’t laugh together.  When we talked, he would talk my ears off, and now its so strange because there aren’t any words left.  Why did he have to be so generous?  Why did he have to be the best fisherman I’ve ever known?  The waves were 7 feet on the rocks.  Unheard off.  What the hell were you thinking Mel?  Why’d you have to go?

I still blame myself.  If I didn’t tell him I was coming over to his house with the guys, he wouldn’t have gone fishing by himself.  Once he found out we were playing at his house I know he felt he had to go out and catch fish for us.  He always does that.  He always gives me a cooler full to pass out to everyone.  He was a damn good fishermen.  Why’d he have to be so good?  We shouldn’t have planned to play that night.  I was sick already, I should have cancelled.

I know it’s not my fault, but those thoughts haunt me almost every night.

You can probably count the days since I lost my friend.  I haven’t done a post ever since.  I took it really bad.  Really really bad.  I tell you, nothing mattered to me.  I didn’t care about anything.  I didn’t care about money, basketball, people, and especially myself.  Everything just dropped.  The world stopped spinning.  I closed my trading books and just disappeared.  I told my clients I need a break… if they needed financial advice I told them I was in no sane position to give them.  Which was good since I wanted to short everything in the world in revenge.   I haven’t even touched a keyboard for over 2 weeks.  I didn’t blog, tweet, chat, I didn’t even get on the internet.  I didn’t care.  I told you, I took it bad.  The only thing that really saved me was being there for Mel’s family.  He has two kids, and a wife.  My goodness, when she cries it just breaks me down.  That must be the most painful thing that could ever happen to someone.  To lose your spouse…  If I feel like crap, it must stab her a thousand times more.  I really don’t like to see people suffer.  I really don’t.  I still feel empty a little, sad, still have little desire and energy in me, and oddly enough that makes me feel good inside…  This is for you Mel.  See, I won’t feel good with you gone.  That’s proof of how much I care for you buddy.  I am cut.

I can’t keep punishing myself this way.  If I could, I would give everything I have to go back in time and rearrange some of those events, change some things, make sure it never happened.  But I can’t.  Youth makes me feel invincible, losing a loved one makes me feel so vulnerable.  The best thing for me to do is to keep busy.  When it’s quiet, I feel sad.  That pretty much sums up why I’ve suddenly disappeared from the world.  Sorry, but, that’s how I am.  I’ve lost some friends to death before, but never someone this close, this sudden, and this tragic.  I still don’t know what to think.  I just tell myself to man up and get back to trading, but it’s not easy.  Believe me it’s not easy.  I don’t even know what stocks I want to trade, and I kind of wonder which stock I’m going to buy first.  AAPL?  GOOG?  You tell me, please.  Wow, I haven’t typed four letters in all caps in a long time.  Feels like forever since I traded.

Trading.  What a simple yet complicated thing to do.  Friends, don’t ever trade what’s important to you for something that cannot bring you happiness.  I’ve come to learn that life is not worth living unless you share it with someone.  How many chances do you get?  You never know, you just never know when you say good bye to someone, if that’s the last time you’ll ever see them.  Man it hurts just saying that.

…Let me ask you a question.  Do you know who the best traders and investors are?  They’re not the ones that pump out triple digit returns year after year.  They’re the ones you never notice… they’re the ones usually with small returns, yet come home every night never forgetting what’s important to them.  It’s the ones that never make that one trade they regret later when they realized it’s too late.  They never trade their time that should be spent with their loved ones for the sake of material things.  While walking through the valley of the shadow, I try to see some light.  Coping with the loss of a loved one has taught me more so that money and possessions are not important.  I always knew that, but now I understand that.  You can break something and easily buy it back.  You can make a bad trade, but as long as you’re breathing you can make it back.  But once you lose someone in death, that’s it.  All the money in the world is not going to bring him back.

Tomorrow, when you see your boss, thank him for letting you keep your job so you can put food on the table.  When you see your friends, compliment them instead of competing with them just this once.  When you see an enemy, forgive them.  Then tonight, before you go to sleep, give your kids a hug, tell your wife or husband you love them even though you don’t deserve them.  When you see yourself in the mirror, smile, laugh, and thank God for the little things in life.  Promise me you’ll do that, the I’ll feel better.  Don’t let the unexpected things in life be your alarm clock.  Wake up.

Mel was a good man.  He did all that, and for that I admire him.  I hope the best of him lives on in me.  Love yah buddy.  I’ll see you again, I’ll bring the cards.

-gio-

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