Fare Ye Well

I’ve been skitting around this all week – knowing that I would have to write something but unsure how to start; being stupid and jovial seemed easier.

When someone decides to stop living those left behind can do little but question.

“Why?” is perhaps foremost, but “what if?” is pretty close behind.

What if I had said this, offered that, been there or done ANYTHING different – would it have helped?

I last saw Tim a few weeks ago in the local market; he was with friends, his lover and maybe he even saw one of his three daughters that day.

I stopped, surprised to see him there - he isn’t usually in this part of the forest; after his divorce he moved out and across a couple of valleys, his daughters usually visited him over there – and we talked about the place where we worked together which was driving us both crazy.

He told me that his crazy had been a bit more clinical, but he seemed well and spoke of resolution for the months ahead.

I said, “See you soon” and went of to buy tomatoes.

I’m not going to beat myself up about that, but I’ve asked myself a lot this week if I could have done more.

And the answer is, probably not.

Which leaves me feeling pretty lost at the enormity of what exactly it means when someone disappears, leaving goodbye notes for people he loved and leaving a computer turned on connected to a site to which he had turned to for help in ending it all.

When I came home midweek and found my own daughter in tears and listened to the graphic details that her best friend, Tim’s eldest, had provided I was stunned.

Nothing about the circumstances offered any joy, yet the police who have searched the river where his bag was found have been unable to find him.

Is it wrong to hope when nothing is proven?

How can anyone grieve without that final knowledge?

I know that people do sometimes wander away, start a new life and never look back (I think), but this time it doesn’t look like that.

But maybe?

Maybe my friend and colleague, the man who gave me my first job here in France and with whom I have worked these last 11 years, simply walked into a sunset somewhere else.

That would be nice.