In the two years since Nate has gone, I've gone through three jobs, moved twice, got engaged....things are different. October is also different. Without even trying...Nate comes around without any effort. Without even thinking about Nate....I started trying a pompadour hairstyle. Then I look in the mirror all combed up and remember how Nate would wear his hair like that. Today at work, listening to my iPod I heard Rancid's version of "If the Kids Are United." It was only released on Give 'Em The Boot II and I remember Nate had already figured out the opening bass riff and was playing it when I went to see him. "It's not that hard," he said "Matt Freeman isn't really that great of a bass player. He just uses blues riffs." Kinda cocky. Kinda brilliant. Totally Nate. Love it!
I say love it because Nate is still very real for me in a lot of ways. I remember when Robert set up this blog and I had told him about the idea I had. It was to collect memories. I had so few memories of Nate that I started hunting for more. Writing them down. Asking other people who knew him for ANYTHING they could remember. And then I hit a road block. I ran out of memories. I was truly horrified and racing through my own brain trying to get Nate back in another way. I told a friend who had never met Nate about running out of memories. I was sobbing and his words were the wrong ones. Even if they were the right ones I doubt they would have consoled me. I mean....you can't remember anything else about your friend who is gone forever and you won't have a chance to make anymore memories of him? There aren't good words or right words. There are barely right things to do.
Today was oddly consoling because I'd forgotten about Nate playing that Rancid bassline. Two years later and I found a new memory.
I was listening to a Columbia University professor of physics talk about how we alter time through movement. How just by walking to the bus stop you are altering the very fabric of space. It's amazing. Robert and I usually talk or text around this time of year too. Robert mentioned how Nate had dented October. I think this might be literally true. If a person walking to a bus stop can alter space, then a person's total absence....especially someone as big as Nate (not just physically...but....physically too I guess) would absolutely dent space and time. However, this dent....it's not empty for me. Not completely anyway. The odd occurrences. Nate resurfacing in my memory with no effort on my part.....that sure is something magical. I walk around with small parts of him. Anyone who knows him did. Odd flits here and there. A thought. A look. A word. All the good things Nate was....he still is through people who knew him. It can't ever compare to him being alive and with us. It's still a good thing though. Am I calling it Heaven? Immortality? I dunno about all that stuff, but I know a good thing when I see it. A Nate dent? A dent left in the universe that was unique in all the ways Nate was unique? I think it's real.....and I'm glad it's here. I'd rather have Nate, but I'm grateful he left a dent for us.
1 comment:
That incredible, unreal day, when we sat in a pew together and held hands and couldn't stop the tears. It seems like it was only yesterday, not two years ago. I can still picture Nate standing in my den with Robert and Bradley. Nate towered over them as they played their music that made them the heroes at Milton High School. In my heart, Nate is still there. He is still going to lean down and hug me when he comes in the door and when he leaves. His yellow, fluffy suit is still in my upstairs closet and I don't want it to ever leave.
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