My cousin Chris killed himself last Thursday. When I heard the news, an image instantly popped into my head. It was an image of myself, about four years ago. I was living in my parent's basement. I didn't have a job. I was taking one class at the University of Minnesota, and I spent the rest of the time drunk or trying to get drunk. I made an idiot of myself on a number of occassions, and the seriousness of those incidents seemed to be getting worse and worse. My interests were dwindling, being pared away to fit around my increasingly demanding drinking schedule. I didn't like myself very much. I pretended I did - on the surface, I'm certain I appeared to be as self-confident as I always had been, even more so. Belligerently self-confident. I even had myself convinced I was not suffering from a fairly extreme depression that was made a thousand times worse by my drinking problem.

When I stopped drinking, it immediately became clear to me the hazardous life I was living, and how close to the edge I really was. I was incredibly good at hiding the severity of my situation from others, and after a while, I began hiding it from myself as well. I was not living life - I was simply trying to amble down a dim path towards something, and it was getting darker and darker, and more difficult to see where I was going, let alone navigate myself to some particular life-state. By the time I came-to in a hospital, having emptied several bottles of wine after cashing the keg at a party, I'd had enough. Though I'd been in similar situations before, I had never been as disgusted with myself as I was that morning. I called up my mother for a ride, and that was it. I was done drinking.

When my father related to me the fateful news of Chris' demise, all of those memories flooded my mind. I saw an alternate reality, where I had not quit drinking, where I had further alienated myself from my life, to the point where the continual self-destruction had worn away my soul completely until I was nothing but a shell. I saw myself taking that final, last-ditch step towards peace. I saw myself being unable to comprehend that there were other options. I saw myself pulling that trigger, only to have my poor mother discover her eldest son in the basement when she came home from work.

I felt both sadness and joy at the same time. Sadness at the fact that Chris had failed to see that there is no profit in giving up. Sadness that he had not learned to better combat his illness. Sadness that the years I had spent intending to hang out with Chris and get to know him better were wasted. And then, happiness. Joy that I myself hadn't gone down that road, that I had altered the course of my life just enough to avoid the terrible fate that had taken my cousin from me. Both of these emotions moved me to tears as I walked back to my house to tell Amy. And after that, there were no more tears. Just memories.

Memories of Chris, the eldest cousin, who we all adored for that very reason. Funny Chris, who made me laugh like no other when he was around. Chris who could draw better than anyone I knew, which inspired me to draw and draw some more, in a vain attempt to become as good as he was. Chris who showed me my first porno mag, and drew dirty pictures and told dirty jokes, and as perverted as it might have been, I adored him for that, too. Chris who could lead me and Scott and Katie around the yard, and keep us all occupied for hours at a time. I always wanted him around more than he was, but I was just a little kid to him, and eventually he got a little too old to hang around with little kids.