David is gone. The nurse called at 4 this morning and told me he was getting worse. So this morning I went down to North Memorial and asked to have him taken off of life support. Kelly, his sister and Jim, her husband, and Dusty, one of their boys, Sean and Teresa, his children from his first marriage, and my sister, Elaine, were there. Once they took him off of the ventilator, his heart just beat slower and slower, and then it raced, and then it quit.

This man I’ve known for over 30 years, I’ve loved him with all my heart, and at times I’ve despised him just a little bit. He struggled with alcohol, and he lost his fight with it, as did 2 of his sisters. The doctor thinks he had an infection, and his body was too run down to fight it, and he didn’t go to the doctor or say anything about not feeling good. So by the time he got some medical help, it was too late. His organs were already shutting down.

From the beginning, David was my closest friend, but over the years the alcohol was too much competition, and when he started saying hurtful things to me over the past couple of years, I withdrew to protect myself from the pain. Maybe if I hadn’t done that, he would have been more communicative. As my sister says, though, hindsight is always 20-20. All I know is that he’s gone, and I hurt so much, and I don’t know what to do. I’m full of regret and guilt and grief.