Always look on the bright side of life

 I woke up early this morning, shaking off a dream I had about one of my best friends in the universe. Someone I have not seen since1998, but is still one of my dearest friends.  I was dreaming we were in his white Skoda, and his cell rang. His ring tone was at that time "Always look on the bright side of life".

I remember one night we were together, and it was raining and we were up all night talking. Just talking.  We were talking about our best days in life, and the worst. I told him about the first time I tried to kill myself- and he couldn't understand that. He just couldn't fathom why someone would want to go that route.

It's not that he wasn't familiar with it. Being in criminal justice, he has seen more than his fair share of suicides and sudden death. He told me about seeing the bodies of children dead, and one suicide victim that stayed with him for years. A young guy, a Uni student,  who was dumped over Spring Break, and hung himself. He wasn't found for several days later, with a note in his jeans pocket. While his partner cut the poor guy down, the body landed on my friend who was holding him. Liquids gushed on him, and for the few seconds it took for the body to be moved off my friend, he lay there staring at dead brown eyes, that haunted him for months afterwards as he slept.

"What girl was worth that?" he said.  I could see. He couldn't.

Maybe it's lucky he couldn't see, because he stepped through life which gave him mostly lemons for a decade. A relationship he wasn't happy in, a career he got bored with, his best friend and partner fell off the wagon after years of sobriety, and attempted suicide, ending up in hospital for several months to recover.  He told me if I was feeling sad, to go see "Toy Story". Watch "South Park" or "The Simpsons". Be a child. Have dessert first.  You never know when you get called to a domestic dispute and find a husband and wife, and one of them murdered their toddler. You never know when you get called into a situation and don't come out of it alive. He was working one day several years ago, when a fellow cop in that district was gunned down and they all heard the 999 call.

And when you get off work, you smell the sky and breathe and realize you are alive.

"Susan, why cannot you just be like that? Why do you have to analyze everything? Why does your brain constantly move too fast, even in the throws of passion you are multitasking!"

I don't know my friend. I don't know. That's the 64,000 dollar question. I just don't know.