30 days and change: Day 18
DAY EIGHTEEN: How do you define loss? Tell about a time you experienced loss in any form.
Word Count: 857
Obadiyah Ezekiel Irving, February 4, 1992- July 25, 2020
It’s a sunny day outside; I am sitting on the balcony writing this, and as I think about loss, what a dichotomized experience, enjoying the nice day and preparing to pour out my thoughts around this topic. I think I’ve experienced loss in my life many times. Loss of a loved one from physical, loss of a beloved friend, loss of a beloved lover, and more. However, the loss that sticks out to me most is losing a close friend in 2020.
I always choose to write about Obadiyah, my college roommate and a very close friend, when I need to discuss the loss. I am never really sure if it's because I have a tattoo on my forearm in memory of him or that he is always talking to me beyond the veil, keeping him fresh in my mind’s eye. Obe, or “flyah” as we affectionately called him was a bit of a dweeb, a band kid from Richmond, VA. Oddly enough, I don’t think he intentionally turned out to be a band kind, but it ended up being a band kid during our time in undergrad. He was such an easy-going, odd, chunky little man, robbed of a life well before he could even see 30. He was one of those people who reminded you of your own family or a specific family member, and Obe was the little brother to us all. We told him what to do (well, I mostly did, and he didn’t pay any attention to me), teased him like a little brother, but more importantly, loved him like one.
One weekend in July, my now husband and I were at the house with our roommate Joann. Obe, Joann, and Jimmy had been long-time friends since their freshman year, which is why I was lucky to meet him. Over the course of undergrad, we’d had all grown so close that Obe ended up becoming my roommate for two years of undergrad. Continuing to keep in touch after graduation, Obe became a permanent fixture in our lives, finding permanent residence in Greensboro, which is only a stone’s throw away from Charlotte. Years later, Obe, enthralled in an ongoing relationship, was excited to bring her newly cemented fiance to meet Jimmy and me for the first time. Joann and Obe, having a very close relationship, had already met his fiance but was excited for the rest of the crew to meet her. In the upcoming hours before their visit, Joann had planned with Obe’s girlfriend when they’d head from Greensboro to Charlotte and when to expect them. His girlfriend, having been working from home at the time with the early onset of COVID emerging, had updated Joann that they’d be headed out as soon as she finished work. Well, after some point, we never heard from the new couple, and things went a bit quiet. Typical, as Obe was always late or a no-show cause he either forgot or was high. But who could blame him? With that, we carried on about our afternoon and night as usual, and the next morning, our lives changed.
My husband and our friend were driving to Dick’s Sporting Goods to grab a pickup order. Casually scrolling Facebook in the passenger seat, I saw the RIPs come rolling down the feed. The feed moved endlessly as I scrolled a tag to Obadiyah’s page. Countless pictures of him from our undergraduate years, his time in the band, and one-off videos captured him looking crazy. It was at that very moment that I experienced the loss of a friend, and it would shift my life forever. Loss at that moment felt like robbery; it felt like I was being choked, felt like I was being pranked, and punished all at the same time. A young man with so much life ahead of him, taken way too soon, sent me into a spiral to find the meaning of life, why life was so fleeting, and how god or whoever the big force up there was would allow something to happen to Obe, of all people? I questioned the reality; I questioned myself. I replayed the many times that Obe predicted the marriage that I am now in. I replayed the love and support he showed me and Jimmy as we continued developing our relationship. To cry over the many conversations we shared over a blunt about our kids, our future jobs, and what we’d be doing as adults experiencing life together didn’t feel like enough. Over the next two years, I turned towards my spirituality in an attempt to grasp this loss. I found comfort in being able to know Obadiyah Ezekiel Irving, born February 4, 1992 in the physical. Every now and again, I stare off into the vastness of the sky and wonder where he is, what he’s thinking, and if he can hear and see all the things his friends and I have accomplished and experienced. I feel like this prompt and my response in written form feel incomplete and all over the place, but it makes for a perfect description of the loss I experienced… miss you flyah.
