Several months ago, June 11th, 2017, My Friend NJ died, I don't know what the cause was 100% but a Fentanyl, amongst other drugs OD is the most likely cause, He also had two or three seizures in the month and a half prior to his death.
NJ was a Husband and a father or four kids, His wife K was my sister and I's piano teacher, the pastor of a church, had a real passion for helping children and the elderly with little if anything asked in return, was always welcoming people into his home for dinner, music and board games, I went on countless seven hour round trip drives to go pick up two of his kids form his ex-wife over the course of a number of years and cars, I had to punch him awake numerous times, for what at the time I thought was just him passing out because he was tired but it was really because he was taking lots of pills.
NJ, K and I went to the same church at one point, NJ being the pastors son, he was an ordained minister and had his own church at one point, as well as being the other fat guy, this was before both of us had gastric-bypass surgery. He was the one who showed me as a young, severely overweight, psoriasis ridden kid that you could be a larger person and have a wife, children, a nice car and dress nicely, not just in track pants. These things meant a lot to me growing up, since everywhere else I was just made fun of and put down, ever by other larger people, NJ never did that, even after he had surgery, lost 250+lbs.
It was NJ and K who came to visit me in the hospital once after I had the worst gall bladder attack of my life and along with my doctor convinced me to have gastric bypass, it took me another four years to do it however, mainly due to college, my grandmothers death and two PsA flares and the subsequent treatments. I had lost touch with NJ for a year or two in there since he was always in and out of drug addiction and I no longer went to church with him.
Fast forward to three years ago, I get in touch with NJ again, at some church function my mom got me to come to, we started hanging out again, NJ, K and I would play card games, talk NJ and K would play the piano and guitar and sing it was nice, that didn't last long however. Due to me having a very painful arthritic condition at the time I was taking painkillers, Hydromorphone, NJ's drug of choice at that time, mine came from my dr, Nj's didnt. And as usual, when getting back in touch with NJ it was right at the beginning of his downward slide, into drug abuse again, He asked me for pills, I gave them to him, and to K to give to him, I didn't know what I was contributing to then, I know now that the part I played was not vary large but still quite significant, I drove him around a lot, to make 10$ or 15$ just so I could afford to drive my crappy Lincoln around, it started with going to get food for his family, then it escalated to him calling me at all hours of the night asking for pills, rides, if I knew anywhere to get any drugs and a lot of silence and incoherent ramblings. He told me that he tried to OD many times and nothing worked, this was later that day while he was passing out in my car after being burnt on a deal for pills.
What really did it for me was when I went and picked up NJ, K and I their 6 month old daughter to take them to the store for some groceries. When we got there K and I went into the store and NJ asked me if I could drive him across town, which I did, I was waiting for him in front of the building where I dropped him off, this is when I was really starting to grasp the magnitude of NJ's addiction issues and the part I was playing in them, I get a phone call from NJ, saying that he is at a different building around the corner and he was having some trouble, I figured I would go get him, I pulled in to the parking lot to see him getting punched in the face about three or four times, by an aggressive looking bald tattooed guy, who ripped NJ off, he went inside, I told NJ to get in the car and we will go, he said one minute, by this time I parked my car in a spot and was waiting for him, when he tries to jump up on the balcony of tattoo guy, as three police cars drive in, they question him, then me, they leave, we leave, I tell him no more rides unless its taking you K and I somewhere, when I got into my car there was a 10$ bill, a can of dr pepper and a note saying sorry. I didn't hear from him for two months after that.
I get a call one day form a privet number, it is NJ asking if I can come pick him up, he was about five minutes away form me, I went to get him. He filled up the trunk of my Lincoln with his stuff that he couldn't trade these people for drugs. I brought him back to my place until I could go into town later in the evening, he was nodding out in the front room, drooling on the table. When we were in the car he casually looks over at me and says I tried to OD earlier, it didn't work, that's why they kicked me out. When we got to his place he begged me to come stay with him for a bit, since K had taken IL and left the house some weeks before due to NJ's drug issues again. I said I would come in and stay for a bit. It was the one and only time that I sat in one chair with my back against the wall because I didn't trust NJ and what he might do since he had livened up quite a bit by then. I watched as he frantically ran around his house cleaning up, there were pop bottles everywhere, a bar of cheese on the floor in front of the fridge, evidence of drug use everywhere, including multiple insulin needles in the washroom I used just before I left, talk about being instantly afraid. He begged me not to go but I had to work the next day so I left, it was three years until I heard form NJ for more than one text or fb message followed by nothing for months.
December 2016, NJ's brother A is getting married. I went to the wedding, on the two year aniversery of my gastric bypass surgery, where I mostly talked to NJ, my friend M and her parents. I have to leave before the reception gets going, its a church people wedding so no alcohol or dancing, mmmm fun. I tell T how beautiful she is and tell A congratulations T is beautiful, you got a great suit ect, outside I ran into NJ, he was smoking a cigarette and talking with some relative when he comes over to me, we catch up, marvel at the fact that we had both lost 200+lbs after having gastric bypass and taht he has some good business ideas and that in the new year I should come over for a few days, catch up with him and K.
the new year rolls around, I go to visit, the first day is good, NJ tells me that he found a dr, and that he got everything he needed, he went into amounts, what it was and what he did with it, he consigned himself to hopeless addiction and found a dr that would help him along that path. The second day was good as well, the third NJ is really out of it and mumbles I have to go out and hands me his keys and asks if I will drive. I did because there was no way he should have been driving. We went to a gas station, got some gas, smokes and papers. I figured we were heading back to NJ's but we took a detour, the kind that left me sitting in my friends car, on a questionable side street, in a city I don't know, while he tries to collect money form someone who owes him for pills. He told me this after, all the while I was thinking the wheel repeats its self, same thing in a different city. I told him that I wasn't interested in driving him around for that stuff, he became somewhat cold towards me after that. I left two days later as I had a dr's appointment, that was the second to last time I saw NJ alive.
He disappeared a few weeks after that for about three weeks, he messaged me a couple times saying he was in our home town again, I asked if he needed help or wanted to hang out and invited him to come over and stay at my house if he wanted or needed to, he didn't get back to me. This was normal communication from NJ so it wasn't cause for concern. A week later he messages me that he is at home and doing ok, I ask if its ok with him and K if I can come stay at his place for a day or two, that I needed to talk because things at home were to much for me.
It was a lot of stuff that I needed to talk to the other fat kid about, I am not sure anyone will understand that part.
He goes off on me over fb messenger, you were taking advantage of us, eating a lot, leaving a mess, staining a chair he was going to restore, drinking some of their wine after it was offered to me, how ungrateful I am and that I took food from his children by being there and caused him and K to fight about it.
Before I visited I told him that I did have any money, and that I couldn't bring much food with me, and that I eat more now than before I had my surgery, think more frequency than amount. This was all ok beforehand so this all came out of nowhere. Especially since I had always washed my dishes, cleaned and organized a room in the basement and organized the music room so the drum kit and piano were accessible, I am sure there was something I missed cleaning up or didn't notice I did.
I tell him, I don't want to take from your wife and kids, I have money and I will buy everything I ate and bring it to you guys, tonight even if you really need it badly, but I don't have the patience for this, its what my parents did to me sometimes growing up after friends would come over, stay for dinner and once they left it was my fault and blah blah. I followed that by saying, I don't want to cause you any issues with K, I am an adult just tell me while I am there with you, so I can address the issue with you and we can move on, or I could have left earlier, This didn't go well, he went off on so many tangents about so many things, the conversation went on for almost four hours, with significant time between messages sometimes.
He did tell me that he was going to end his life and that had to get a few things in order first, for his wife and kids. Naturally I tell him don't, you are loved, you have friends just don't think of your family, the good part, not the part your family that causes you continuous grief, talk to K, or me or someone, he didn't say anything else about that afterwords. I mentioned this to my mom, she talked to his mom and dad when she went to church, they said they knew and were just waiting for the call.
I still have the conversation in my messenger somewhere, I have read it a few times, its hard to look back on the last interaction you had with a good friend when they call you useless, good for nothing, man-child sucking on his moms tit, and that I was a waste of time as a friend and he never wants to talk to me again, My last message to him was NJ this was mostly a misunderstanding, on both of our parts because I am not in the best place right now either, I still want you to be my friend, if not that's fine, if you K, IL or AL, their newest daughter ever need help or a place to stay all you have to do is ask, thank you for being my friend, blocked.
Two months later my uncle was contracted to redo the ceiling inside the church, I had already stopped attending but said I would help out several months before when I helped organize that fiasco, so I figured I would follow through with it, my uncle and I were in the van when I see NJ go into the building, 15 or so minutes later, I am bracing a piece of scaffolding my uncle is on when the door of the office opens and bangs into the scaffold, NJ sneaks out and says gentleman nods his head, I said see you later NJ, he walked out, the next time I saw him he was in a casket.
One morning my I heard my mom gasp from the other room and then yell to me, did you hear about NJ, its on facebook, he is dead. I didn't believe it at first, but it wasn't a shock in any way, it was still kind of hard to grasp the entirety a friend dying, close or not.
I called K and she told me that, One June 11th, 2017, around 12:30am, after being in his bathroom with the shower running for three hours, K noticed he hadn't finished yet so she went in and checked on him, she found him dead on the floor. He either seized out or OD'd on fentanyl accidentally as he frequently did, I suspect he took his own life.
I guess what I am trying to get to, other than memorializing someone who I was friends with, like everyone else here, is that sometimes you have to cut someone loose, we all know this, but you have to be prepared that when you cut them loose they might fall all the way down to the bottom.
Hindsight being what it is I would have done many things differently, chiefly of which was not driving him around, or giving him pills when K called begging me to help him because he was going into withdrawal and she hadn't seen him this bad before, I would have waited until a week later, after I got payed to go visit so I could have brought food with me, I wouldn't have eaten some chocolates from the cupboard since that was a big point of contention throughout our last conversation.
I wouldn't have angrily referred to NJ as patchboy, in reference to his fentanyl usage, to my friends when finally spilled all this crap to them.
To finish this rant as others do, kind of.
NJ thank you for being a friend and role model to me, in life and death. You showed me that there was hope for success for a fat kid that was told you are a failure and wont get anywhere by all the kids at school, in romance, career success, having children, dressing nicely and having a nice car were possible, even though we were as big as we were you helped me realize I had the hope for a real future, you and K came and talked to me about having gastric bypass, that was a hard conversation, it had to be said and you were the one to say it, having already had surgery and lost 250+lbs, I wish I had never given you any pills at you or K's insistence, though part of me still thinks its better they were form me than the people I saw you get them from, such a flawed thought process, I made the whole room, including YOUR SON, laugh while I was speaking at your funeral service, twice, that wasn't my intention but so many people thanked me for it, I also have to apologize for being at your funeral after taking painkillers, it was that or use a cane that day, I couldn't use it, you know how hard that is for me. I wish our last conversation went better, but that cant be changed, I still talk to K every now and again, Shes dealing with this day by day, just went back to work recently, I and A are almost able to come to terms with daddy's gone and he wont be back, A and C are dealing with things about as well as can be expected for teenagers who lost one of their parents, K is still trying to accomplish what you spent the last 15 years doing, get A and C to come live with her, IL and L, they all miss you a lot. I wish I could have helped your mom who has never been anything but kind and welcoming to me in some way through this, your dad who you had so many issues with in life, I think everyone has with him, is a confused sad old man in your death and wants nothing more than for you to still be here and to do things differently, your brothers both miss you and were struggling to come to terms with your passing, I have never seen your sister that emotional about anything as I did at your funeral, they all love you and care deeply for you. Your brother J, His wife and four of his kids sang at your funeral, so did K, IL, A, C and L whom K was holding, it was very emotional. The most important thing that you were an example to me for was showing me how to have infinite patience for working with kids and the elderly as well as to always give and help while expecting nothing in return, those lessons helped change who I was as a teenager and from what I know now kept me from a lot of bad stuff due to pressures of my home and school life, which I shared with you. I also have to say that I did cry for you but it was long before your death, I had to mourn the loss of our friendship before I actually mourned the loss of you, as bad as this sounds it made things a whole lot easier, but when it sinks in, boy is it a shocker, your actually gone and we will never be able to repair the damage from that conversation, as I hoped we would eventually be able to do.
You said that shortly after you had your gastric bypass surgery that you knew your days were numbered, had you not had the surgery 498lbs would have taken you far before drugs would have, just the same way my 439lbs would have taken me before anything else, to explain what its like for the always been fat guys to being the skinny guys is nearly impossible.
Its nothing like the death of a friend, no matter what terms you were on, to put many aspects of life into perspective and re affirm that the course you are on is the right one, because they took the wrong one and you played a part. Always help, don't give up on people too soon and if you have to, think long and hard because sometimes that will be the last interaction you have with them.
Thank for reading my novel about my last experiences with a hopelessly addicted friend, sadly those were his words about himself.
I miss you NJ and will check in on your family every now and again to make sure they are doing ok, though I don't know what I can do to help beyond that.
M
I wish the same peace, happiness and freedom for you. I do experience those all. Sadness is not burdensome to me. It is one more thread in the fabric of my days--one out of many; one I actually guard now, and find comfortable.
recently as we always did stuff together as a family. 