Survivor’s Guilt

A childhood friendship lost to time

I remember growing up I had a best friend who I thought was the coolest kid ever. We loved the same things: karate, star wars, TIP vs TI, and making comic books.

We wanted to be the next Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. We challenged each other to draw ✍️ we forgotten all about our homework and got in trouble trying to crunch math problems right before class started. To make it worse we were both chronically late—more like I was more late than he was.

We met around 3rd grade and right around 7th-8th grade everything changed. Sure we got older, we used to spar in the hallways after class, we would quote Naruto lines and I’d pretend to be Neji because for some reason I had really good balance to spin and pull up that 64 Palms technique. He would frequently head to my house over the weekend and because he was slightly older and looked older than 15 we would bike to EB Games and convince one of the employees to sell us Ninja Gaiden Black.

We were obsessed. Like we would go turn to G4 on the tv, wait for Cinematech and watch all the trailers until we got to that one. Like unhealthily obsessed. So when it dropped we hustled our ass off to get it. We got denied. I looked like I was 9 and my little brother looked even younger there was absolutely no way we would get it.

This is when you wish black did crack just a lil so you can buy an M rated game so bloody if your parents saw it they would be turned away and would return it before you got home from school the next day. But we convinced my dad and he was an action movie guy so it wasn’t a hard sell.

And we played that thing until the wheels fell off. We would go outside and try to simulate the moves. He could flip, I damn sure couldn’t but I was nice with the weapons! I remember feeling like I could do anything we shared a vision of the future and how we wanted to break out into the world.

That was the good.

One day he calls me and asks me to talk to my dad because he’s in trouble and needs help. It turns out that he had infractions from missing too many days or not getting his homework done. He had already been suspended for these things three times before. Shit, I got suspended too.

To me that’s not the worst types of offenses and shouldn’t be grounds for expulsion but there he was unprotected by a community that promised they would look after us. He had one advocate in there, my dad who had taken a board seat at our school in the hopes that he could help steer this very conservatively black committee into a more empathetic, empowering space where we can rehabilitate, support, protect, and nurture our youth even if they seem troubled.

And it wasn’t enough.

He was removed from the school.

My dad picked me up and told me. I wept for days. I didn’t want to go to school. They ripped my friend away from me and a six year deafening silence took shape.

I remember him reemerging right as I was celebrating coming home from my first winter break from university. And everything about him was different. In hindsight I was too. I grew into myself a bit. We were similar in height now. Our voices got lower, we found our own style of dress (we wore uniforms in school), and our tastes in music varied. But that didn’t matter. I wanted to know if he still was an artist and making work.

He told me he left it behind.

I was devastated. I lost my best friend and the world took away his passion. I felt like I got robbed twice. We weren’t even in the same place anymore and it broke me.

We talked about life and he told me what he was going through and everything that happened within that blip—far too personal for me to share and not my story but it added another pang in my chest.

How did I luck out with amazing parents and a comfortable life where they let me explore and discover who I was versus my friend who had a shitty stack of cards and was fighting for his place in the world. It was and has always felt unfair.

When he left I wept again. I realized that was the last time I’d ever see him. I was 17.

At 31 I am realizing what I am carrying and how these moments in my life have truly been weights that have eaten at my soul. I realize the survivor’s guilt of having a real shot at life and still meandering through it blew back on me like it was an affront to our friendship and the promise we made to always reach our dreams.

I know now that these moments meant way more to me than I realized and never took the time to resolve them.

But today I will.

I wrote this so that I no longer hold that misplaced guilt aside. I have mourned the loss of a pure friendship and I apologize to my youth for hardening my heart and never reaching my full potential because of the self-imposed prison of feeling unworthy of my own life.

To my friend. I miss you with all my heart and I hope you are living life on your terms no matter what that looks like. I love you and our bond showed me that you have to live like every day is your last because you never know when those days are over.

So while I still have agency, I’m going to take it. Face my fears and reach for the stars.

May the force be with you.