The poem I will be posting below was written 17 years ago after I lost someone very special to me. It's been 17 years but I still think of him every day.

Will was my brother's best friend in high school. Since they were close Will spent a lot of time at our house and we became very close. I loved him very much, in a brotherly sort of way. He was my role model. He had a zest for life that was astounding. He made me smile when I was down and talked to me when the rest of my family abandoned me. My very first day of high school when I met him I hated him, with every fiber of my being. Going from a tiny Christian school where I had the same 18 kids in my class from Kindergarten through Eight grade and walking into a public High School where just my Freshman class was 947 was a bit intimidating. Will called my name..."Hey look, there's Goll's little sister" then proceeded to throw a carton of chocolate milk at my head which soaked me.

My brother was the popular one, I stayed in the shadows. Over time, Will made high school livable for me. He took care of me the way a big brother should and I loved him for it. Even when he put a snake in my bed and a giant bull frog on my face while I slept. I still thought the world of him. He would take me out of severe depression and turn me around with one smile. He was my world.

Then fate turned, Will's parents kicked him out of his house, and to this day I don't know why. So he moved in with us. My parents loved him like a son. He lived with us for a year before he was forced to move back home. Two weeks later my mother and brother came to pick me up from work, I was 16 at the time. I thought this was very odd because Shawn (my brother) usually hated being in my presence. I knew immediately once I got into the care that something was wrong. Shawn proceeded to tell me through tears that Willy was dead. He had taken his own life. Shawn wanted to be the one to tell me, for rumors were flying all over the school and our home phone was ringing off the hook.

I couldn't accept it. It wasn't till the funeral when my brother, for the first time ever supported me. He practically carried me up to the casket where I placed a white rose and a poem. It was so very difficult. My pastor took a flower from the arrangement at the graveyard and gave it to me to remember him by. I still have it 17 years later.

I was sad at first and then became so angry. How could he do this? How? I was taught that taking your own life was the greatest sin, there was no way Will would ever make it to heaven. Why? How could someone so full of life and love be so incredibly selfish? How could he leave ME behind? We learned later that every day at two o'clock Willy's grandfather came to their house to get the mail. Will was in his car in the garage. His time of death was 2:10. His grandfather fell asleep and didn't come at two o'clock to get the mail. Perhaps this was a cry for help that went terribly wrong. We will never know. I miss him still after all these years. I wonder daily if I will ever see him again.

Empty memories of you
sadly fill my heart
My friend, my brother
WHY?
Now we are forever apart
these questions over take my brain
WHY WHY WHY
I think of you and cry
Did you know God?
Yes I believe
and one day
we will meet again
in a new world
a new life

In remembrance of Will
10/26/90

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