“You may be laughing on the outside. But inside, you’re crying.”
Harry wrote that line in a card he gave to me. I somehow remember it was a Christmas card. Or was it a birthday card? Doesn’t matter now, really. The year was probably 1985. We were in sixth grade, and back then every so often, us friends would hand out cards to one another just because. And since I received that card, I never forgot that line. And though I could not remember exactly what occasion the card was for, ever since I read it, that line meant the world to me.
I was going through a rough patch at the time. It was some two years after that one quiet night, when we suddenly realized we were driving my mom to the airport, then only to be heard from again very very sporadically for the next six to seven years. I still remember Barry Manilow crooning “Memory” on the radio, while we were being driven back home from the airport. I also remember the car window with streaming scenes of empty late night streets lined with warmly lit lampposts inter-changing with the image of my mom’s eyeliner running down her cheeks, while she handed me a bit of money for my upcoming birthday and saying goodbye. The realities and details about her life away from us were a hazy, indistinct impressionist painting probably done by a drunken Monet. They still are.
While in school, sometime between episodes of playing the class clown, there was at least one incident when out of nowhere, and for no apparent reason or trigger, my then twelve or thirteen year-old self had my face in my knees shaking in tears.
When Harry sent me that card, I knew at least that someone saw. That someone knew. Someone understood, and was not coy about letting me know. Harry had always been a friend for laughs and games. But at that tender age, that card, that line, told me he was going to be a proverbial shoulder I would always know I could lean on.
And i did so on and off for almost four decades.
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So this is how it feels to lose an old friend.
I had seen many people in the generation prior to mine losing friends. My dad in particular lost his best friend last 2007. But that guy my dad met much much later in his life compared to mine. My dad was probably in his very late thirties by then. But Harry, Dick, me, and the rest of the guys met when we were all of ten to eleven years old. At a time when the world was a simpler, kinder, and more innocent place. At a time when we didn’t know better. But we knew the rules to cops and robbers, other games, TV shows, and that was enough.
One time, while walking through a mall, Harry, Dick, and I saw three old men animatedly chattering over a fastfood table. Dick pointed at them and half-jokingly said: "Guys, i see our future..."
"If we're lucky," I laughingly said. "And that would not be a bad way to grow old"
I guess now we will be imagining that future with one less old man animatedly chattering away.
I am wondering now how our friendly gatherings will feel, knowing that there is an absence that will never again be filled, a place at the table that will ever remain vacant, one glass that will no longer be raised in a toast. One less chuckle at a bad old joke, one less playful push when we slap each other from laughter, one less smile in our photographs. We will let the void remain in his honor. At our age now, friends like Harry will never be found again.
But those imaginary gatherings will have to wait. These circumstances now are so sad and different. We could not get together to properly send Harry off, to celebrate his life. We are now left trading shallow jokes and old stories about Harry in a cold impersonal internet chat room to comfort ourselves, and somehow honor him in our own irreverent way.
His devoted wife, Cynthia is currently in quarantine, and Harry himself is still frozen in the hospital morgue while waiting his turn in what seems to be an endless line to the crematory.
Damn this virus.
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Harry will
always be to me the sensible guy. Funny, but practical. Always had an eye out
for a better deal. He had to grow up before the rest of us did. And maybe because
of certain circumstances in his younger life, he seemed to be on edge, but not
snappy. At least never to us his friends, his brothers.
If Boss Kit, as we had come to affectionately call him these past few years, felt like giving serious advice, it always made sense because he always thought things through. And if you really listened, you will see that he was right.
He always kept on about wanting to leave more behind for his family. Only now do I realize that those friendly rants and laments of his now seem morbidly, sadly, and almost eerily prescient. But Harry and Cynthia raised two amazing kids. We practically saw them grow up right before our eyes, and one of them even worked with me. Now grown-up kids who have taken good care of themselves, and have always revered their parents. I have always told him that the ultimate sign of success of a person, of a parent, is measured by their children. And by that measure, he was a champion. And while he never felt that he would leave enough for his children, the children he did leave behind is an inheritance and legacy to the world with a value that will only grow as time goes on.
He also left behind a loving wife, who is thankfully stronger than people give her credit for. Wherever Harry is now, we know that he has nothing to worry about at all. Ultimately, he left more than enough.
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“You may be laughing on the outside. But inside, you’re crying.”
Boss Kit, those words above which you sent almost four decades ago rang so true then. And now, with you leaving us all so prematurely, permanently, they ring true once more. So should the guys get together again hopefully sooner than later, we will properly celebrate you, our friendship, our brotherhood. We will share old jokes, and even older stories of you. And we will laugh and cheer in your memory.
And as we remember you, we will be laughing on the outside, but inside, every so often, we will also be crying.
You will be missed, brother. Godspeed.
Harry Kit
January 6, 1973 ~ April 7, 2021
