It happened as gently as it could
He fell asleep, and just didn’t wake up again
No traumatic exit
No pain, just release from this world he didn’t understand,
that didn’t understand him.
I found him in the morning,
long after those final breaths
Not in the dead of night
When the family and friends who gathered around us
Never could have done so.
We had a full night’s sleep,
and a full day to process what we could before
everyone left us, in this house far too quiet.
*
He was gone before life could spiral out of control again
When he left, everyone still loved him
He was our sweet, brilliant, lovable Christofer
Roostafee, gladiator, protector, goofball.
It was hard to love the person he became
when the demons gnawed their way out from that place he tethered them.
When the thoughts and thoughts and thoughts just wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
When turning off completely was the only way to get some relief.
(He blamed the leg, but it was so much more than that.)
He died at home, the place he loved the most
Not somewhere full of strangers who would run before they helped.
He didn’t slowly sink to the worst gates of hell
but skipped to the brighter oblivion
What I want to believe has little bearing on whatever truth exists.
Whether there is something more or no such thing at all,
He’s free.
**
He died the best version of himself.
He left behind love, and people shocked
to learn he fought so hard to be that best version of himself
to be the man they knew.
The scientist. The inventor. The gym bro.
The guy who bought groceries for the old lady
who couldn’t get out herself. The brilliant mind.
Such a gift. One that came with
sharp barbs and snagging hooks.
***
He didn’t mean to go, but he didn’t want to stay.
Carrying infinity around inside was just too big a job
for a single body, a single mind, the limitations of both.
The pain without was just a tiny echo of the one within that bounced
ear to ear,
all the time.
****
There is no what if, this happened, and
it did so as gently as it could.
It left us best able to cope and I can’t help believing
He orchestrated it somehow.
Because something inside him always knew
We’d say goodbye to him before he had to say goodbye to us.
(It was the only pain he believed he couldn’t face.)
And if we’re some form of energy that thinks and knows and has been here before
He thought and he knew and he planned it the best way he could.
Modesty Is For Suckers 