Someone said that “Sympathy and offering condolences is what people do to cross the indifferent chasm of not giving one rats ass about someone being dead.”

And though I understand why the person said that and where it comes from, I disagree with that statement. Sympathy and offering condolences is what people do when they feel that there is nothing else that they can do. Offering sympathy for me is not an attempt to pretend to know how you feel, nor is it me thinking I can help you feel better in any way. My words are not “nothing.” Others’ words may be, but mine are sincere.

It sucks that your friend died, and I feel badly for you because it must absolutely suck to lose your oldest friend. I tell you I’m sorry because I am. I care about you, your feelings, and your well-being. You are one of my dearest friends, and I love you very much, and I am honestly sorry that your friend died and there is nothing that anyone can do. I won't feel bad for 15 minutes and put it on you. You are already a person who I think about almost daily....I know that you have emotions and that they are different and ugly and messed up, but that doesn’t mean that words of sympathy and condolences offered mean nothing to the people they are coming from.

I am not going to tell you about how I hated him. I didn’t know him well. I liked him. I liked his cocky attitude and opinions. I liked his conspiracy theories and unique sense of humor. I liked that he spoke his mind, even when everyone else in the room disagreed. I like that he didn’t give a damn. To say that he didn’t leave anything meaningful is bullshit. The fact that you have things to write about him show that he left behind something meaningful, however minute it may be.

We will all die with things left to be done, and things we wanted to do. Even the ones who do everything will die with things left undone, sights left unseen. Death is never on someone’s calendar. Death is never in the plans or in the works. Even death expected is shocking. It’s all part of the conspiracy theory of life.

We may be irrelevant in the big picture, but we are not irrelevant to each other. People forget people who are still alive..what’s the difference in forgetting the dead? The difference is that the dead are not forgotten as easily because of the realization that there is no chance of ever being in contact with them ever again.

He would have called us idiots, because that was his way. It doesn’t mean we are.