ZACK FINCH

A few years ago my friend Zack Finch died in a car accident. I met him in English class my Freshman year of high school. I thought he looked really cool, as Freshman quasi-punks often do towards older dudes that they think share their anti-establishment views. Zack wasn't a punk per say, more of a skater? It was the 90's, did anyone have a solid personality? He always argued this point, but in group activities we would pair up and I would write the papers. I would joke that he MADE me, but really it was that I wanted to and he didn't care. He always treated me with that cool detachment that upperclassmen use when they're friends with younger kids that they don't consider obnoxious pricks, I know I used it in the coming years.
The point of all this being that today is his birthday, and I've been thinking a lot about him lately. Death in general too, but when you think about death you can't help but think about the people close to you who've died. For me, my dad, my grandma and Zack were the hardest hitting and most significant losses. My dad died of a heart attack, or heart failure (I never really found out, it was a strange time) in November of '99, it wasn't a shock as he'd been reminding me he wasn't going to live very long ever since I can remember. He was an alcoholic Vietnam War vet with PTSD who smoked constantly, it was more shocking that he made it as long as he did, really. My grandma had to spend the last few years of her life in nursing homes and hospitals due to Cervical Cancer and a tendency to break a bone every month of so. I remember once she tripped over a turned up carpet and broke something, a hip or ankle maybe, and when the paramedics arrived one of them said "I've fallen and I can't get up!" Can you believe that? 100% true. And as I said Zack died in a car accident, I remember my friend Sean calling me on my cell phone at work to let me know. I was putting away magazines and then I had to just go back and make drinks for people for hours with that news just sitting in my head...maybe I could have left work but for some reason I feel like I'm burdening people if I tell them things like that, that's my own issue I guess.
What I've been thinking about mostly is what happens (and what doesn't happen) after you die...but also what happens in your mind prior. In the case of my dad and grandma, they had a lot of time to reconcile the fact that they didn't have a lot of time left. But as for Zack, that must have been a split second, no time at all. I'm not a religious person, and I certainly don't believe in the classic "God", as in Adam and Eve and the Ark and all of that...but we had to come from somewhere and I think there has to be something after. I've always liked the idea of reincarnation, I guess it's just as illogical as any other notion, but it's much more poetic and decent, at least in my rudimentary understanding of it. It's a terrible reference, but I think of Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump (stop laughing) and the part where he swims and makes his peace with God, obviously he didn't do this before he died, but I wonder if my dad and grandma experienced anything like that.
I kind of can't even believe I'm writing any of this, it's such a bummer and I think I've been depressed enough lately. I can't help it I guess.
I remember right after Zack's viewing (horrible term if you ask me) me and my then-girlfriend stopped at Wawa to get something to drink. In the parking lot I stopped to say hi to another friend who just happened to be there. Out of nowhere some guy walks out of some store in the strip mall and starts ragging on me and my girlfriend because we look goth. "Hey! It's not Halloween! What are you guys supposed to be, The Osbournes!" All that. I was just looking at this guy, completely shocked that someone who was actually wearing black because someone they knew and loved had died was being mistaken for a goth kid. I could have leveled this guy, for real, I could have made this guy feel like garbage for years. "Actually my friend just died! Got any jokes about that!" But I didn't say anything, I just looked at him and eventually he said, "Hey man I'm just kidding around, okay?" It was a really profound moment, it was about having to make a choice, I certainly wasn't thinking 'What Would Jesus Do', but I was thinking about suffering and guilt and karma, as little as I knew about any of it.
I had surgery for the first time ever this year and I wasn't scared of dying right until they wheeled me into the operating room. I thought, 'Oh my god, this could be the last room I see, and I can't really even move, all I see is lights' and then they gave me the gas and I was out. When I woke up hours later I was in an unfamiliar, gigantic white room, and I literally thought I was in Heaven. Please feel free to laugh. It's not even a joke, for a few moments I thought I was in Heaven, some kind of heavenly waiting room, I arrived in my gown, how embarrassing. Then I looked down and there was a nurse doing a crossword or something and it hit me that I WAS in some kind of waiting room, but it was on Earth.
I don't know what that story had to do with anything, maybe just a laugh to lighten the mood a bit. Kind of grim topics, but sometimes that's what's on yr mind. I guess all I really wanna say is that I hope Zack, where ever he is and whatever form he is in, is enjoying his birthday. He was one of the sweetest and kindest people I've ever known and I miss him everyday.

"LIVE FAST, DIE AWESOME" -ZF