This one goes out to everyone who's ever lost someone close.

"Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh" (andymcbradleigh)
08/10/2015 at 11:39 • Filed to: None

I lost a dear friend two days ago.. barely 40 years old.. I’m sorry if this isn’t really appropriate.

Laugh a minute was only beginning, Jørgen, this one’s for you.

DISCUSSION (15)

Nibby > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 11:41

:( Sorry about your loss.

HammerheadFistpunch > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 11:45

Sorry man, I’ve been there, I think we all have. never easy.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > HammerheadFistpunch
08/10/2015 at 11:46

Thanks mate. It’s never easy. Not the first time, and sadly it won’t be the last time. That’s the way of life I guess, but it still sucks.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > Nibby
08/10/2015 at 11:47

Thanks mate, I’ll manage.. it just sucks to see someone young pass away.

HammerheadFistpunch > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 11:53

Just in past 6 years I’ve had a 2 year old nephew and a 58 year old dad go and both are gut wrenching. Oddly enough I also had my grandmother go in that time and although we miss her, her passing was such a relief as it celebrated her life, but to have someone go with so much life left is doubly tragic. find strength in friends and not solitude, is my advice.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > HammerheadFistpunch
08/10/2015 at 11:56

I lost my grandmother on my fathers side this christmas, but she was 90 years old.. so.. yeah it was sad, but not like this.

We’re a bunch of friends that’ll be meeting up having a final toast for our mate today, I guess it’ll be both laughter and tears.

Horkin' Up Dangle Hams > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 11:56

Nah, man, this is one of the functions of Oppo. Life isn’t all burnouts and blowoff whoosh, we know that here. Sucks to lose a friend at any age, but I hope that having this community helps, even if it’s just a little bit.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > Horkin' Up Dangle Hams
08/10/2015 at 11:57

It helps mate, it does.

desertdog5051 > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 12:02

It always sucks when somone close leaves. My condolences to you and his family.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 12:43

I'm sorry.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/10/2015 at 12:57

Don’t be, not your fault mate. He had a bad heart, looks like the pace maker did not help.

X37.9XXS > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 13:13

This passage by John D. MacDonald has helped me

I looked out of the jet at December

gray, at cloud towers reaching up toward us. Tush was gone, and too

many others were gone, and I sought chill comfort in an analogy of

death that has been with me for years. It doesn’t explain or justify.

It just seems to remind me how things are.

Picture a very swift torrent, a river rushing down between rocky

walls. There is a long, shallow bar of sand and gravel that runs

right down the middle of the river. It is under water. You are born

and you have to sand on that narrow, submerged bar, where everyone

stands. The ones born before you, the ones older than you, are

upriver from you. The younger ones stand braced on the bar

downriver. And the whole long bar is slowly moving down that river of

time, washing away at the upstream end and building up downstream.

Your time, the time of all your contemporaries, schoolmates, your

loves and your adversaries, is that part of the shifting bar on which

you stand. And it is crowded at first. You can see the way it thins

out, upstream from you. The old ones are washed away and their bodies

go swiftly by, like logs in the current. Downstream where the younger

ones stand thick, you can see them flounder, lose footing, wash away.

Always there is more room where you stand, but always the swift water

grows deeper, and you feel the shift of the sand and the gravel under

your feet as the river wears it away. Someone looking for a safer

place can nudge you off balance, and you are gone. Someone who has

stood beside you for a long time gives a forlorn cry and you reach to

catch their hand, but the fingertips slide away and they are gone.

There are the sounds in the rocky gorge, the roar of the water, the

shifting, gritty sound of sand and gravel underfoot, the forlorn cries

of despair as the nearby ones, and the ones upstream, are taken by

the current. Some old ones who stand on a good place, well braced,

understanding currents and balance, last a long time. A Churchill,

fat cigar atilt, sourly amused at his own endurance and, in the end,

indifferent to rivers and the rage of waters. Far downstream from you

are the thin, startled cries of the ones who never got planted, never

got set, never quite understood the message of the torrent.

Tush was gone, and our part of the bar was emptier

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > X37.9XXS
08/10/2015 at 13:21

Thanks mate. It made me cry, but yeah, it helps.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
08/10/2015 at 13:29

I know it’s not, but it’s terribly sad, and I feel for you and his family.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/10/2015 at 13:32

Thanks. :)