As I spooned the remainder of my Thai meal into the to-go boxes, I was reminded of the ritual Zach and I underwent after our regular dinners at the LA Times' restaurant critic Jonathan Gold lauded Indian restaurant, Mayura, in Culver City.
We'd inevitably over order and while greedily eating hearty proportions from copious dishes, there was usually leftovers. The waiter would bring the takeout boxes and Zach and I would proceed to fill them as I had done at the Thai restaurant. And yet at the Thai restaurant I was performing the custom alone - without Zach - because there is no more Zach. He self-eradicated himself from this earthly existence.
In my memory he looms large. He's the last person I think of before lights out and the first on my mind as I wake. Zach and my mother. My mother has always been a daily thought, however the regularity of thinking about her throughout the day, has been ever amplified now that Zach is dead. Because of course, she is dead too. And now these two great loves of mine are together in the ether, out of reach, and yet still very much top of mind.
As the days, weeks and months since Zach's passing move along, I begin to feel there was never going to be another way. And yet terrible guilt persists that I could have done more. Guilt around a loved one's suicide is a common theme, in fact I would say, guilt is a non-negotiable by product for those left behind.
Zach expressed his overwhelm concerning his life situation. In the final weeks he would say and text, "doom, doom, doom" and lament about times gone by, happier times that he was convinced could not be repeated due to his filial responsibilities. Alternatively, some days he would enter my room and declare (paraphrasing), "Today I see light at the end of the tunnel, I don't see it all as doom. There might just be a chance I'll get through this."
His negativity befuddled me. Sure I saw real factors for his woes (most readers know he lost his dad to Parkinson's complications in 2022 and thereafter filled the shoes as primary care taker for his mother, also with Parkinson's, and dementia), but I mostly put the extremity of his distress down to the final months of having a mis-medicated mental illness. He had definitive life stressors, but during this particularly troubling period, he saw mountains in issues and problems where I saw molehills.
On one hand he fessed up to having suicidal thoughts, something I only really learned in February (he died in March) and on the other hand he said, "I've come to realize, suicide is not an option," which gave me hope that we would both be spared that grisly outcome.
However, towards the end, he was spiraling so fast into paranoias that were devastating and profound, it had us all spinning. He'd dug himself deep in a ditch. I shared in his fear that he might not be able to turn his life around especially as he was reluctant to take drastic intervention towards recovery.
We know the final outcome. I've lost my lover and best friend. So how do I get through this slump?
--
To quote W. H. Auden, an author Zach admired and had on his bookshelf, and people of my generation will be familiar with these words as the poem Funeral Blues was read in the '90s film, Four Weddings and a Funeral:
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.
