No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends

I don't actually know how to start this post. I don't think I even know how to say what it's about. I guess that on the most basic level this is about a friend of mine who's recently passed away, and the fact that I'm not sure how to deal with my grief. Or maybe this is how I'm dealing with it. I'm just going to write, and see what happens.

For starters, his name was Quinn, and he was fantastic. I mean that all around. He was a fantastic person, actor, and friend. He almost always wore a bright smile on his face, and he never wanted to keep it to himself. He was absolutely in love with theater; acting, reading plays, going to see Broadway shows- you name it, he did it. In fact, he was majoring in Theater and English, which I never thought very practical, but I admired his love of the subjects and was secretly jealous that he had the courage to go for his dreams like that. In fact, it was theater that was responsible for making Quinn and me close friends. Our junior year in high school, we worked on my school's performance of The Sound of Music, he as Max Detweiler and I as the Assistant Stage Manager.

We met in middle school, mostly because of a (future) mutual friend who'd noticed me sitting on the floor in a corner of a dance for the schools in the area. They'd come over to see if I was okay, and ask if I wanted company. I didn't particularly, but they were nice, so we head banged to Fall Out Boy's "Sugar We're Going Down" and went our separate ways. I thought it strange that these two kids would approach me, anti-social as I was, and want to be friendly to me, but I learned who they were when we got to high school.

As I mentioned earlier, we were in the same musical at my school during the Fall of our junior year, and that was how we became close. What I didn't know then is that those few months and the few that followed would end up being the most significant in our relationship. The summer before that year, I had been sexually assaulted (you can read about that here), and I had no idea how to deal with it. As Quinn and I got to know each other in earnest during those eight weeks, my mind was taken off of what had happened. Without realizing it, I developed a crush on him, and we talked almost every day after the show ended. I told him how I felt on New Year's Eve, and at midnight he told me he felt the same way. A few weeks later he told me that he really only liked me as a friend, and I was quite upset. However, we continued being friends, and I even took him to my junior prom. 

He was the only one wearing a black tux at our table, for which I will be eternally grateful to him.

We became closer again during our senior year, when I began dating one of his friends after we all worked on an independent theater project that January. For about seven months we ran in the same circle of friends, and a whole huge group of us spent a lot of time together doing all sorts of fun and crazy things. We drifted apart because we went to colleges that weren't near each other, he in Chicago and I in Washington. The one time I would have gotten to see him ended up being snowed out. 

Then, just before finals this past semester, I got an ominous email from a mutual friend saying that Quinn, who had had inoperable tumors for some years had taken a turn for the worse, and nobody knew how much time he had left. His friends were encouraged to call his cell phone and leave him messages, which his mother would play for him to hear. I immediately left him a message, and when I hung up, I collapsed in tears. I went through finals week nearly catatonic, just praying that God's will be done in the situation. I contacted Quinn's younger brother that week to see how they were both doing, and he told me that Quinn was doing better, which relieved me tremendously.

Friday I ended up thinking of him when I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother that focused on death and the importance a person's last words can have for their loved ones. I couldn't recall what Quinn's last words to me were, but I knew that the last thing I said on my message to him was "I love you, buddy." I made plans with a friend of ours to go see him when she got home from taking classes abroad, and felt a little better about the situation. Unfortunately, when I woke up yesterday morning, I discovered that Quinn had passed during the night.

I'm not reacting the same as I was during finals, but the sadness is just as confusing and intense. I've been thinking of what he meant to me and replaying various moments during our friendship, and today I hit upon something I'd never considered before, but for which I will always be grateful to Quinn and to God for sending Quinn to me. After my assault four years ago, I was desperate to feel like someone, anyone loved me. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but that was what Quinn did for me during my junior year; he restored my hope that I could be loved, and that it would happen again someday. In the darkest time of my life, the good Lord sent me a kind smile, a good friend, and a warm heart in this wonderful boy. I've heard that friends are God's way of taking care of us, and especially in this case, I believe it wholeheartedly.

Quinn was so many things: a friend, brother, son, actor, inspiration, and light, among others. He had faith when others did not, smiled when others could not, and was an unfailingly kind and optimistic person. Words will never be enough to describe him, and I could never pay fitting homage to him in a blog post. I am blessed to have known him, and I will thank God now and in the future for sending Quinn into my life. Godspeed, Quinn. I hope to see you again one day in heaven. Until then, I love you, and you're in my prayers.