Devon

Written on Monday April 26th 2010

The passing of Devon has slowly moved from disbelief and total shock, to a quiet and very heavy feeling in the hearts of myself and all who I come across day to day. The tears have slowed down a bit for most in our tightly knit Abbotsford community, but we can still see behind the eyes of each other, a desperate struggle to accept the reality and the pain of losing such a swell soul. We are being strong, and we are smiling and laughing at the memories and pictures that are coming out of the woodwork. With a glance, we remind ourselves every time we
see one another, how fragile our lives are. Sharing tears and warm hugs, we agree on this fact.

We may talk about music, the local headlines, or the weather, and we may smile, crack jokes and ride bikes around Mill Lake but when our eyes meet however briefly, we share an unspoken understanding of our mutual confusion and pain associated with the loss of our friend. This understanding brings a small amount of comfort to us. This unspoken understanding is part of the core, and definition of what friendship is to us. There are no words for this to do it any kind of justice. I am sure all who knew Devon could relate.

Without each other, this would be insurmountable.

What we are faced with now, is that life outside of us inevitably, goes back to normal. This is devastating, and evokes such a large spectrum of emotions, from sorrow and pain to fear and searching, grief and even to anger, as life as we knew it, will never be what we knew as normal, and will from this point on be different than we had expected. The person next to us on the bus, or the woman ahead of us in line, waiting for a perfectly pulled Americano from our beloved downtown Abbotsford café/deli, is oblivious to the weight that has found its way suddenly into each of our hearts.

We are being strong, though we may not want to be.

I am guilty, as many of us are, of saying that this type of event “Brings it into perspective”. In the many moments as of late where we all have felt at a total loss for words, this has felt like a “correct” thing to say. However, I have concluded that I am by no means, viewing life with a better perspective, rather I think that the lens that I look through has in fact become skewed and out of focus. With such a sudden loss of our young and healthy friend, we are all mutually experiencing confusion more than any kind of newly obtained perspective. We go over the facts. And we consider what these simple pieces of factual science actually mean now to ourselves and Devon’s family and friends. The sum of the equation seems to greatly overshadow the reasoning behind the “What” and the “Why” of this.

We are too tired continue, but we refuse to let each other stop.

We have gathered in each other’s homes, new homes for some, for the sole purpose of being with each other, we have shared time and beverages in the name of our lost friend. We’ve gathered memories in our shirt pockets like a newly found currency to pay our way through the toll booths on the peaks and in the valleys of our emotional week, and we’ve lost out on much needed sleep over the course of a desperately long week all the while going through waves of emotions and bouts of attempted understanding. We find ourselves exhausted, and in fleeting times of rest, we rest while holding each other up.

This is friendship.
This is pain and loss and Love.
This is desperate.
Without each other, this would definitely be, in a word
insurmountable.

Sleep gently Devon R.B. Clifford (1979-2010)