tribute to a friend

This past weekend I went to the celebration of life for a friend of mine's brother.

I only met him a handful of times, but he stuck out. I hate to get cheesy and philosophical... Okay, just kidding, I LOVE to get cheesy and philosophical, but there are people in your life that end up making an impact on you and in the moment, you don't really know it's happening. But a subconscious part of your brain will create a stronger memory of them for you to look back on.

There are some people in the world that, without even trying, are going to be able to make you feel incredibly seen and understood. People like that are hard to come by, but small, even brief interactions with those types of people will become significant, somehow. He was one of those people.

He was in the comic book community I had been wanting to be a part of since 2013. At that point, I didn't have a comic out. Over the next decade, I would try and fail repeatedly to finish a story. I had so many ideas swirling around in my head. I'd get a few pages out but then ultimately, it would become too daunting, and I would lose motivation.

My problem was that my ideas were far too grand. I needed to start small and give myself a really achievable goal. Nothing too difficult to do, nothing that would take years. I would be doing all the work myself. Writing, drawing, colouring, printing... I knew I could do it, being a graphic designer with decent print-shop experience. It was just a matter of pushing through the gruelling middle part of the work. But all of my story ideas weren't working in a shorter format and I just didn't know how to end them in a satisfying manner.

It wasn't until my first queer breakup in 2021 that I finally had something. A story that was real and easy to tell, because it was true. I spent about 9 months developing the artwork, to varying degrees of motivation, but the idea was solid enough to maintain my drive for it. Not to mention using the process of bringing it to life as a means to deal with what was one of the most painful breakups I'd ever endured.

Before I finished, my friend decided to introduce me to her brother, who she'd said I had a lot in common with. She had a party at her house, and just before the majority of people showed up, he, his wife and I had an incredible conversation. We bonded over graphic novels, being an artist, and how to tell a good story. He had lots of great advice, gave me encouragement, and offered to help me get my project printed. They were both such warm and thoughtful people, I understood right away why my friend wanted us to meet.

I saw him again at a zine festival that I had applied to vend at, but was thankfully rejected because my book STILL wasn't ready. I bought a few of his comics and met his friend and comic book partner. I bought a LOT of stuff there that day, but I'm ashamed to admit, I hadn't actually gotten around to reading any of the comics I bought. I carried them for 3 moves in boxes, knowing that someday I was going to eventually sit and absorb their hard work.

In spring 2023, I finally finished my graphic novel. I got it printed at my marketing job, which conveniently happened to have a giant high-end printer and cutting machine, everything I needed in order to self-publish a double-sided, full colour-printed 24-page, 4x6 inch graphic novel. I made sure to do it all after hours when no one was there. I printed 26 copies.

I sold it at a couple of markets, made some sales of it online from Tiktok, got it into a local book store, and put a preview of it in my online work portfolio. It felt amazing to finally have it done, and physically in my hands. To hold it, open it, smell it, it was special. I proved to myself that I could actually finish a difficult piece, especially if that piece carries some emotional weight for me.

I didn't think it was possible because I had been making myself these promises and then breaking them, my whole life. I found out that I have ADHD only a year prior. It all suddenly made sense why I kept failing. It's always been difficult for me to maintain focus and dedication on difficult tasks, especially when there's no one forcing me, dangling a carrot, or holding a stick. Just the will to follow through or not. It's only ME that I'm disappointing, except that, when you repeatedly disappoint yourself, you end up also hating yourself for it too.

As time went on. The excitement of the book slowly dimmed and I got into other creative projects, like starting a business selling crocheted items, stickers, cross stitches, greeting cards. I fell in love with someone. I was doing a lot. We moved 2 hours away, back to my old hometown. By then, I only had less than 10 copies left. I didn't really want to sell them because I didn't think I would be able to print any more in as good of quality as I did at that job. I would only give them out to friends who really wanted it.

I forgot to let my friend's brother know it was done and ready to read. To be honest, I didn't think I'd ever run into him again anyway.

It wouldn't be until winter of 2025 that I would see him again. But it was under devastating circumstances. My friend's partner had passed away. I drove back to that city for the funeral.

This was the first time someone in my extended friend group had died. Up until this point, all the deaths I'd experienced were that of family members in their 60s or older. This friend was in his 40s, and one of the brightest, most genuine people we'd all ever met. He was another one of those people that made everyone feel seen. Whenever I'd seen him, he was joyful and candid and hilarious. His funeral was packed with people. People who had only met him once showed up. He just had that effect on others, and it's so unfair that the world didn't get to experience more of him. The collective grief was palpable.

I wished I'd had more time with him and his partner. I wanted to be a better friend to them, to all of those friends in that group, but it's hard to be present for people from a distance. I struggle with deep insecurity and some trauma around abandonment, so I tend to disappear into myself out of protection. But I try to give myself, and everyone around me more grace, because it's just harder to be there for people in adulthood. This isn't a tv sitcom from the 90s. Real life is busy, and we have other priorities. Friendships are usually the first thing to fall by the wayside, and that's normal.

In the evening, I approached my friend's brother, unsure if he would remember me. He not only did, he remembered my graphic novel. I told him it was finished. He said I'll have to send him one, but I was already a step ahead. I assumed he would be at the funeral, so I packed it in my purse and gave it to him on the spot. He was pleasantly surprised and super thankful. We had a deep chat about the loss, about my friend, about how fucked this whole situation was. I was just really glad that he was there for her.

Only a few short months later, he wouldn't be. He didn't want to be here anymore.

The day I found out my friend's brother died, it was through another friend. I asked which of her brothers had gone, I knew she had two. She didn't know which one, but in my own mind, it couldn't have been the one I had met. They told me that my friend may need some space right now, so to maybe hold off on reaching out. I completely understood, and respected that. I truly cannot imagine the catacalysmic grief her and her family must have been – are – dealing with. I mentally buried it for a while, and ultimately chose to believe that it wasn't the comic book brother. But I would learn to regret that assumption.

Within a few days on Instagram, that's when I found out it was him. The guilt and shame I felt for being wrong, for not digging deeper... I was furious with myself. I went home early from work in tears.

I ran to his website. A digital time capsule. I read through it quickly, trying to see if there's something there that would somehow give me answers to my burning questions, as if the answers would ever be satisfying, or any of my business.

Then I found his friend and comic book partner's website, which he had linked to from his own. I skimmed through it, and found a discord. I don't know what compelled me to join it, but I did.

I just said quickly that I was a friend of his friend's sister, I'd heard the news, and I was devastated. He responded right away and let me know I could talk to him at any time.

I didn't say much else. Here I am, having a huge reaction to his friend's death, someone I probably spent less then 3 hours of my entire life talking to. Now I'm in here, intruding on his discord server, how could I ask for anything else?

I grabbed my drawing tablet and got to drawing again. I wept, and I drew a half alive potted plant in my backyard in the setting sun for hours, in silence, just listening to the quiet of the world. It was really peaceful, despite my heart aching with regret and sadness.

It took me a few days to finish it, but I decided to share the drawing in the discord in the channel called "show off your creations." I had signed it with my Instagram username.

He said he remembered meeting me. At the zine fair. He said he likely shared my story on his showcase stream. That meant that her brother hadn't simply stowed my novel away after I gifted it him, like I had done with his... He'd been sharing it around.

I choked up, I didn't even know what to say. That alone said so much to me about the kind of person he was. He was always championing other artists, he saw the value in helping people get seen, in spreading their stories and messages. I felt awful that I hadn't read his comics yet after what he had done for me.

I would have to find his comics, but I wasn't sure if I still had them, if I had downsized them in the move, if they were in a box in the crawlspace, being swallowed by the stagnant air. I was also afraid for some reason too. Afraid of what I would find after I opened and read them. Truthfully, I didn't even look for them for a few weeks.

When I finally did, it turns out that I had shelved them in my living room next to all my other unread comics. I had not discarded them absent-mindedly, they were right in front of me this entire time.

When I was ready to read them, it was a quiet night after my partner went to bed and I readied myself for the emotions. And I was truly blown away. I understood on a deeper level why he and I were so alike now, and why this loss hurt so badly, despite my few interactions with the guy. He wrote about the history of Canada, about Indigenous people, residential schools, the foster care system, the immigration system. He didn't write much about himself at all, because he felt there were more important things than himself, that people needed to know what our education system had failed to tell us.

The world is full of violence, war, genocide, white supremacy backed by economic hierarchical dominance, unimaginable suffering and little to no earthly justice for those who are born into it. I'd been struggling to feel a sense of hope and purpose in the world for years now as I try to grapple with this. This sense of hopelessness has been growing heavy in me since the murder of George Floyd, since the bodies of thousands of Indigenous children were unearthed in the unmarked graves of residential schools all across Canada. And since I'd started learning about the genocide of Palestinians that's been ongoing for 75+ years. The crimes of humans over centuries was piling up and it was ugly and horrifying. As a highly priveleged white woman in living on stolen land, I was, am still, waking up.

He was someone who was feeling that too. But he was actually trying to do something about it with his art. Realistically, a lot of artists know we are needed in times like these, but we don't always have the exact skillset, or the power to make huge changes in the world. It would be nice to have power and influence like the superheroes of more conventional comic books. Telling the truth in art form, or creating new visions of our reality through fiction are powerful ways of fighting back against the oppression we, and others face. We'd really like to believe our stories can have a positive effect in the world because, well, if it doesn't, what's the whole fucking point?

Maybe that's why people like us are drawn to graphic novels as a medium. They aren't just little doodles by overly-sensitive, obsessive introverts. Stories have weight, if you're willing to sit and hold them for a while. And when an artist puts this time and care into telling stories, they are not just doing it for themselves, despite what some artists might tell you. It's a language we're speaking to the rest of the world, in the way we know how. These comics were his way of crying out, of saying we need to fucking talk about this.

I wished we could have talked about it, because I needed that. I'm angry with myself because, it's too late now.

As a non-religious person, the concept of death is VERY heavy. I don't have a comforting post-death belief system. I don't believe in heaven or hell, and I've never been able to be convinced that ghosts are real either. I can play pretend that there's some sort of cosmic recycling, that maybe we get reincarnated or that we get to come back in some other form. I just don't know. Death totally terrifies me.

We all have been given a chance to experience life for a little while. Some of us see this world and try to destroy it. Some of us stand in awe of it's beauty and try to preserve it. Most of us do a little bit of both. Artists have to do both. In order to make something new, we have to destroy something.

That balance between creation and destruction can be hard to juggle. Some of us swing between the two extremes. Deep feelers don't just feel all of the good things, they feel all of the bad things. And the bad things can feel like too big of problems to tackle. That's what a lot of powerful people would like to have us believe. That our art and good deeds doesn't make a difference, that our dreams for a better future can easily be squashed. Deep feelers are going to be very susceptible to the darkness.

I don't know exactly what happened for him. All I know is that he did make a difference, for me. His life left behind some absolutely beautiful, priceless treasures, things that need to be held, and shared.

At the celebration of life, I was able to meet more of his friends and family, and see how much he'd mattered to them. They had funny stories about him, how inspired and deep he was, how impulsive he was about ideas, and how he pushed them all to do things that they likely wouldn't have done otherwise. It had seemed that he poured a lot into other people's cups.

I also got a glimpse at more of his private drawings. Some of them were hilarious. Some of them were completely devastating. He didn't publish much of the work he drew, particularly some about himself, and his mental health struggles. But it was truly incredible, I was flabberghasted at the storytelling and detail of his drawings, it was gorgeous and incredibly moving.

I wish I had the chance to tell him about my new story idea. It came to me after talking to him at the friend's funeral. It's memoir merged with music analysis for one of my favourite bands. A band that just so happened to end when the lead singer died by suicide. Their music, 7 years later, still brings me hope about the future, about discovering your own concept of the meaning of life, and made me want to leave the world better than I found it, as they did.

I wish I could tell him that he left me better than he found me. I wish I could tell a lot of people that, but it's hard to. How do you even approach the topic of gratitude with your friends, mentors and heroes? How do you get those words out without embarrassing yourself AND the other person? I don't think I'm as good as I'd like to be in letting people know that they really mattered to me. That I'm thankful that they existed.

So I'm going to do that with this story. I've conquered the short story. Time for the big one.

To anyone else struggling with your mental health who might be reading this, don't be afraid to reach out to your friends, family, a therapist, maybe even a stranger online, about what's going on for you. The silence and aloneness will swallow you. Go watch Lord of the Rings. Only a fellowship can save Middle Earth. You know, I'm SUCH a fucking Frodo. I need a Samwise Gamgee to get by. Relying on others is not weakness, it was actually one of Frodo's biggest strengths, the understanding that he was going to just have to trust others to carry him while he fought his internal battle.

And... if you need a reason to stay here on this planet for a bit longer, a good reason is, you make a HUGE difference in someone's life. Yes, you. Things you do in your life have the ability to save other people, an animal, an ecosystem, a far-flung future that you might never actually get to see. The effects your actions leave on the world are invisible to you, but they are real. There's always still time to make changes that will ripple out into the universe forever, even long after you're gone. You don't know what you are capable of, and perhaps, you're not supposed to know. There's a quote that I keep coming back to, that makes these sorts of devastating events feel less tragic, and more magical, actually.

Nothing is permanent, not even the terrible things. Thank fuck.

Love, Fanny