Set Boundaries With Love

A heartbreaking loss & a reminder of early lessons in loving someone else.

This one hurts.

Many years ago, on his 21st birthday, my friend Harry Martin decided to drink himself to death. Well, he tried. He called me halfway through a handle of vodka so I arrived while he was still alive (but still drinking), I stuck my finger down his throat and got us both covered in his vomit to prevent him from alcohol poisoning.

I spent all night holding him as he threw up, washing him up, giving him Gatorade, and then watching him sleep to make sure he stayed alive.

On that night I wrote a draft of his eulogy, because a part of him died that night.

But he was still here.

I first met him when I was 10 or so. He was already a haunted boy. His mother had recently committed suicide, and he was the oldest 12 year old I'd ever met.

We bonded over Magic: The Gathering and Star Wars. We had heated debates about the Star Wars universe. The Special Editions had just been released. We compared them to the originals in embarrassing levels of detail. We went and saw the prequels together.

He was, I think, my first age-appropriate real life crush (setting aside my brothers’ friends and Jeff Goldblum). He was nerdy and cute and loved so many things I loved. He was almost a boyfriend, but even as we drove around New England, two teenagers fantasizing about buying spooky homes and fostering children, we knew it was just pretend. He gave me a ring and we joked it was an engagement ring. It didn’t fit, we weren’t serious, we just liked to try on roles between us for size. Sometimes I think we practiced love on one another. Those times were fun.

Throughout our teens and twenties, I don’t know exactly how many times he landed on my couch when he got kicked out of his house after a fight with his father. Later, he turned up after breakups with partners. My mother would hear that something happened with him and give me a pile of pillows and blankets for Harry to stay on the couch or in my room. I own about 9 seasons of The Simpsons on DVD because every time he moved back in, we would walk to Blockbuster and purchase a season or two to watch together. We bonded more, over poetry and writing. We both loved to write. He put so much into his writing.

When he stayed over, Mum always reminded him there was food and beverages and as she went to bed she’d always say “remember there’s ice cream and sorbet in the freezer”, which became a common refrain for the two of us for nearly 20 years - we’d wrap up short conversations AND long LSD-induced chats with “okay, I’ll talk to you later, lots of love - and remember there’s ice cream and sorbet in the freezer”.

Sometimes I call Harry one of my adopted brothers, for all those years my mother took him in. He later paid the favors forward in various ways - one of which was when I had an Australian friend crashing on my couch for a month and my roommate got very tired of the company - I delivered Patrick to Harry’s house with Tom, where they hosted him for I don’t even remember how long. Harry would give the shirt off his back to help someone else. I do still think of Harry almost as a brother - but my relationships with my blood brothers are healthy and fulfilling, and my relationship with Harry was a hard mix of joy and pain, silliness and pretentious self-harm (on his part), and I struggled over the years with it.

I don’t know how many times we drove out to Newport together late at night, so he could try to communicate with his mother’s ghost. I’ve never been one for spirits or ghosts, but he had a knack for attracting the creepy. This cat followed us around town. He was obsessed with creepy places - hunting for communication from beyond, for answers, for something to make his hurt mean something.

He had so much empathy. It was sometimes a bowl he couldn’t swim out of - and sometimes he dragged others down with him, caught in all his feelings, but that being said, when we were down there, he was pretty powerful company in the dark.

I’ll never forget when I got fired from my job at Spencer’s (which was hell) and I called him and drove to his work and he walked out of his job without a second thought or notice (I’ll bet he got in trouble, but he didn’t care), and held me while I cried in my car. I remember he offered me a bottle of Gatorade (that he’d carried out of work) that was half vodka. He told me it would make me feel better. I said no, but it still makes me laugh that he handed me the only thing he had in his hands to try to make me feel better, and of course, it was booze.

He loved my best friend, broke their heart, and destroyed a lot of trust. I was furious at him. Years before that he and I explored our relationship in ways that weren’t always healthy and in retrospect had a lot of confusion and potential violations of consent (frankly more on my part, I’m not proud, I was the comparatively sober one). His codependency, substance abuse, self-sabotage and likely bi-polar disorder didn’t make for healthy relationships at the time. We were just kids, but that didn’t make the hurt any less real.

There was a lot of pain in his life. There were a lot of suicides - his mother, a cousin, an ex. He was heavy on the details of his feelings and light on the details of the practical variety, so I knew he felt overwhelmed by death, but he obfuscated enough that I don’t know many specifics. I still don’t know who died exactly when, in some circumstances, but I knew it was all very tragic.

He used to call me sometimes to tell me about his latest self-harm or self-sabotage. Things would be on an upswing, and then he’d make a decision to blow up his living situation or work or otherwise. He’d tell me he was homeless now, or had lost everything he had. I would beg him to stop, to try to reconcile his situations, he’d tell me it was irreversible. I was so frustrated.

I sometimes felt like he reported to me to tell me when he was “bad” but I didn’t know what he wanted from me - did he want help? Did he want to be punished or told it was all okay? I struggled to give him what would actually help. I lent him money over the years (sometimes he paid me back). I gave him advice. I tried and tried and tried.

Every few years since our teens I found myself needing to intervene in attempted overdoses or other types of self-harm. I moved far away 12 years ago, so instead of in-person help I’d be on the phone asking him where he was and should I call an ambulance. A few of us who were regularly in touch with him began comparing messages we got from him - the stories, the claims, the details. He obfuscated those too. We’d struggle to help.

Every time he'd tell me he'd almost died, he’d swallowed some pills or drank himself to hospitalization, I would draft more of his eulogy, as more pieces of him died.

About five years ago, while I was in the middle of a stressful day of work, he called me to ask me to sing one of his favorite of my karaoke songs (Black Velvet) because he'd just taken more pills and he was going to die. I gave him some lecture about if there’s more from the world that you want, you have to live in order to get it. But I wouldn’t give it to him on his way out. He could live and get better and maybe I’d sing it for him again.

Then I told him if he was going to keep trying to die, I was just going to assume he really wanted to, and would stop working to prevent it. I wished him luck on his suicide. It was harsh. I was harsh.

He was angry at me, said some cruel things, blocked me on Facebook after blaming me for his death. I added more to his eulogy.

Months later (still alive!) he messaged me to apologize.

That was a turning point. For both of us.

I gave up trying to help. He… appeared to start getting better.

Since then, he's been in a better space as far as I can see. My view has been limited since then, I think he stopped sharing so much with me after I put up that boundary, but I refused to be on the rollercoaster anymore, and what I’ve gotten from him since seemed healthy and thoughtful and invested in the future. Maybe I should’ve set that boundary years earlier. Maybe it didn’t matter.

Maybe I’m optimistic and maybe I don’t know the gritty stuff that has happened since, but the last several years he got into a serious relationship (and was engaged and talking about marriage), and was helping her raise an exceptional little boy.

His posts and comments and messages have been oriented towards his little family, and I’ve been so proud of him. I loved seeing his messages about progress in life, instead of his attempts to end his own existence.

He was living for the future, dealing with the present, and not bogged down in the past.

I last saw him on a New England visit in 2019. I got one of my standard headshots of him. I’m so glad to have it, to have a more recent memory that fits in with the present day, not just the past.

We hadn’t talked a lot lately except in passing comments on Facebook, and a song recommendation back in March. It finally started to feel like the remaining pieces of him wanted to stay. Wanted to build. Wanted to be.

Yesterday his fiancèe posted that she found his body. He’s dead. All of him, this time. No more pieces.

We don't know anything. Substance use or abuse, his body giving out, other health conditions, accidental or intentional or medical - I don't know anything. We're waiting for news.

It doesn't feel real yet. I keep thinking of all those almosts. I was so used to *almost* losing him.

Many years ago, Harry told me his father died, and my heart broke for him. I stayed up with him talking, going over the hurt he was feeling over being an orphan now. Years later, he asked me for money to get down to Florida because his father was dying. I was confused - hadn't he died years ago? No - I learned Harry had told me that because his father was "dead to him" back then, but now he needed to see him, as he was really dying. It hurt me so much to know he had lied. He needed help, but I was wounded, and the trust was broken.

I thought of that when I got the news. I’m ashamed to say I thought of it first. Could this be a manipulative game? Maybe he’s still alive. Please still be alive. No, she confirmed it. It’s real.

I feel like he's been saying goodbye for well over a decade, as pieces of him died and left us. I know I’m not the only one who struggled with him.

I also know so many who loved him so much, and got the better parts of him over the years. There’s a reason we all loved him. He was charming and handsome and gracious and sweet and talented and when you learned of the tragedy of his past you wanted to make it all better for him. We all did.

I feel like he's been preparing me and the people who knew him through some of his most difficult years - preparing us for saying goodbye, by getting us used to him leaving, lying, breaking things. Getting used to the almosts. It hurt so much to care about him.

So many drafted eulogies. So many goodbyes. So many almosts. So many pieces of him already gone.

The pieces that were left seemed ready to be a husband and father.

The pieces that were left seemed hopeful and willing to stick with life.

I was hopeful about those pieces. I’m so sad now about those pieces.

Harry was one of the most empathetic, helpful, kind people I’d ever met. He was desperate for meaning in everything. He felt so much. He gave so much.

Harry was also constantly haunted and hurt by things from his past he had no control over. He was also haunted and hurt by things he chose. His demons were many. They were not kind.

There's a relief in imagining those hauntings and demons silenced.

There's a pain in realizing he'd been working to overcome those demons, to have faith in his future, and lost the fight to keep living.

Most of my friends didn’t know him. Our mutuals are all pouring out their hearts on Facebook, because he meant a lot to many of us, and I wish my heart could focus on the poetry and movie marathons and less on needing to share the pain of loving him. It was hard, he was hard. He was also one of my best friends for many years. It was such a complicated relationship. He felt so much. He made everyone feel so much. He taught me a lot - including teaching me how to love someone while building boundaries, and not overextending myself.

I feel very much like a Speaker for the Dead* on this one. I have to speak our truth.

I’m going to miss him so much. But I’ve already missed him for a long time. I’ve mourned him for a long time. It’s just heavier this time. I can only hope that now, finally, he is at peace.

...

I love you, Harry.

Your birdie girl

(I’ll do Black Velvet for you next time I’m at karaoke)

(also remember, there's ice cream & sorbet in the freezer)

*Speaker for the Dead: A reference he’d appreciate