73| UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN
On Monday I got the terrible news that my brother’s best friend passed away.
I won’t go into details on his death. But I’ll say that our friend/brother deserved much, much, better. It truly breaks my heart. I cry whenever I think about it…
I met Melvin when I was about 6 years old. He was the first friend that my brother Francisco brought over to our apt when we’d first moved to the USA. My father had just bought my brothers the Super Nintendo and Melvin came over to play it. He was 14 years old. Melvin and his family quickly became a part of our family. And my mother and father loved Melvin like their own. We all did. He never crossed any boundaries with me. He gave me the nickname of “Oliva”, after Olive Oil from Poyeye. I was very thin as a child. It was cute lol. Only he could ever call me that.
When my family moved into our own house back in 1996, Melvin and his father shortly moved into one of the rooms in our basement apartment. Where they lived with us for 6 years. During this time AOL was released and Melvin had just bought a PC. He would let me go downstairs and play games on AOL, and to listen to music.
This next part is hard for me to write… this entire post has been me taking breaks to shed tears.
You don’t have to know me personally to see that I have an eclectic taste in music. In my playlist you will find music from a lot of different genres. I give Melvin the credit for introducing me to artists like Fiona Apple, Sublime, 311, Pearl Jam, Matchbox20, No Doubt— who’s album I borrowed for weeks at a time, The Goo Goo Dolls and many many others. He was also the first person close to me that I observed battle with mental health. It later helped me to identify what was going on with me when I had my own battles.
He moved out and relocated to Florida in 2002 and that was the very last time that many of us were able to see him. Again I won’t go into details but I tell him how much I loved and will always love him. How thankful I am that I have these core memories with him. And how much I’m sorry that things went the way they did for him. It’s just heartbreaking. But I know his soul will grow and learn from this and that’s why we come here to have this human experience. So it wasn’t all for nothing. He left a beautiful legacy within all of whom his light touched while he was Earth side.
I drove to NY on Friday night after work and the following day a group of us ventured to go pay our respects to the family and to bury his body. The service was beautiful.
I was able to see my brother spend time with his group of friends and break bread with them and hear their stories lol. My brothers were more knuckle headed than I knew! Hahaha! I really hope they’re able to reunite more often under happier circumstances.
As for me? This will probably my last time visiting New York for a very, very, very, long time. If ever.
Thank you for reading just a little bit about what our (because I can speak for my brothers and myself) brother Melvin will always mean to us.
Love, light, the shadow too—- Cin.
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