My friend Rick committed suicide this past week. I heard about this on Saturday.

I’d known Rick for at least 12 years that I could reckon and maybe longer. He was the kind of friend I’d cross the street to talk to, in fact I saw him around — at the library, on the bus — quite a lot because he only lived a few blocks away. Despite which I didn’t really know him all that well beyond sort of the facts of his life. I didn’t know his internal life and so on. That’s kind of a theme that's emerging. He lost his longtime job a few years ago and went back to school for electrical engineering. He was in a band ... he was always in a band. He was an audiophile and music lover, and had beautiful guitars that he always put to good use.

I last saw him at a party about 3 wks ago, he had just quit the band to concentrate on school full time. School was really hard on him, we talked about how much harder it is to learn new subjects in your 30s compared to your 20s. Anyway he got all As last term. I can’t imagine what was in his mind the last weeks or months. He may have seen his life as something failed or difficult but I envied lots of things about it, things I didn’t have any more or never had to begin with. He was single/childless and had lots of freedom. He was funny and everyone liked him. He was a talented musician and good at math. I especially envied that, having never been very good at math and even worse at music. I wish I'd have told him this, but like I said he kind of held most people at arm's length.

He had a few very good friends and lots of casual ones, and I was in the second group. I’m not feeling too sad yet in a way like “I miss Rick” but I feel really bad for those people who were very close to him. Those people are in my thoughts now.