My friend passed away earlier this evening. He was 22.
He had been struck by a vehicle 10 days ago. It was pretty bad. He had a broken leg and a head injury. He was taken to a local hospital, put in the ICU, and put into a medical coma (I'm not sure if that's the right term) in order to let the swelling in his brain go down. Or something like that. I'm not good with details even when I have my wits about me. The plan was to keep him under and monitor his brain. The doctors reported that he was stable and everything seemed to be going well. The swelling went down over the course of the week, and they attempted to bring him out of his coma. There were some complications, so they put him back under. Then yesterday (from what little I've been able to gather) his pupils stopped responding to light (again, or something like that), so they ran some more tests and declared him brain-dead. Being that he was an organ donor, they made plans to harvest his organs.
It had never even occurred to me that this wouldn't end well. His family was in good spirits. I imagined the future-physical therapy, pain, some difficulty-but he was going to be okay. I hadn't braced myself for this at all. Like so many of my reactions so far, it seems like a horrible, immature cliche, but a loss like this seemed to me like something that happened to other people. This wasn't going to happen to my friend. He was going to be okay.
I haven't spoken with his parents. I have no clue what I'm going to say to them. I spoke briefly with his sister, but had to excuse myself because I began dry-heaving in the middle of the conversation with her. I promised to call her back, but I haven't been able to. Everything I tried to say struck me as hollow and cliche. I'm wondering about his parents. I'm afraid to call them. Had they braced themselves for this? How DO you brace yourself for this? His father is a religious man; maybe that will get him through. I have no clue what I'm going to say to them.
I feel taken aback by my reactions to this. I haven't had anyone close to me die before today. I had tried to imagine how I would react. I knew, without ACTUALLY knowing, that it would be difficult, of course. But I thought my reaction would at least be consistent. Instead I've been all over the map. I started crying at one point, but then inexplicably stopped. I stood retching in front of my apartment for a few minutes. An anxiety attack came on, which I haven't really had for years, but I managed to talk myself through it. Now I just feel sort of numb. It really doesn't seem real, as horribly cliche as that sounds. I tried going to his Facebook page, but that was still too uncomfortable.
I don't know why I'm posting on here. I really don't have anything profound or insightful to say about any of it; I just need to vent. Or maybe just distract myself instead of just sitting and staring. My roommate is passed out on the couch, so I can't talk to him, and all my family members are asleep for the night. I'll probably be up all night in varying degrees of anxiety.