From the moment I saw him behind the desk of that used book store, I longed to cradle all six feet of him, hold him like a baby bird, feed him sustenance and self-esteem through an eye-dropper, small sips he’d be able to digest. Trev was the guy who disappeared into the background, the world’s weight hanging off his gangly frame like a drenched cardigan, causing his shoulders to wilt.

“Anything specific you’re looking for?” he asked, dark pools in his eyes that I would later learn could never quite catch the sun.

“Have any books on oil painting?” I asked, flicking my gaze away from his sketchpad splayed on the front desk like a coloring book.

We walked past the children’s section where my daughter and I had once sat on little chairs, reading stories together; turned left before we hit the room that held the fat SAT study books that helped her get into a good college and study abroad.

He led me through a literary maze of bulging shelves, haphazard stacks of Fitzgeralds and Faulkners sprouting from the floor. That dry-desert smell of old pages filled the air, making my nose itch as the small bell, hanging from the glass door, announced a new customer.

“You paint?” he asked.

That’s how it began. Two creative minds striving to get better at their craft. We became Facebook friends. We shared work, riding the ups and downs of acceptance and rejection in the art and writing world while encouraging each other to keep submitting. The darkness beneath his comic art was ever-present, a relentless stalker hell-bent on destruction even in its beauty. I countered with accolades about his talent, hoping to steer his attentions away from the macabre.

So often when I would be mindlessly scrolling Facebook at home, notices from Trev via Messenger would pop up on my screen.

Patti? Are you there?

We had discussed his commitment to never date again after an engagement that had shattered his life. He had once summed up his perspective using song lyrics from Pink Floyd:

“I don’t need no arms around me,
and I don’t need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on The Wall.
Don’t think I need anything at all.
All and all, it’s just another brick in The Wall.
All in all, they’re all just bricks in The Wall.”

I like my walls.

You’re twenty-one! Too young to make that kind of
forever decision, Trev. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!
Never say never!! 😉

I followed up with emojis and exclamation points meant to cheerlead him into a brighter mood.

Pictures of Trev at the park with his five-year-old nephew or Trev with his arm casually draped around his sixteen-year-old cousin showed up on my Facebook feed, all of them smiling. The loves of his life, he texted, stunned that they looked up to him.

It wasn’t hard to read between the lines: How can they look up to me when I can’t bear to look at myself?

The next four years, we texted sporadically about his health, the bipolar disorder that fueled his ulcers, his grandmother’s dementia.

When his second interview for a management position at Barnes & Noble was scheduled, I laid down my eye-dropper, picked up my spoon and increased my efforts to make him aware of the opportunities within his reach.

It wasn’t unusual for days or weeks to pass between texts. We simply picked up where we had left off. Texting was safe for both of us – the kind of communication that allowed an anonymity of sorts, a format that permitted him to say things he might otherwise not. I am ashamed now to say texting also kept my vulnerability conveniently protected. Close but not too close.

Patti? Are you there?

This text began with an apology for the lapse in communication, followed by fractured sentences, telling me about a ledge behind a park on Snipes Boulevard in Orangevale where he had often gone to gain peace and perspective.

I was sitting a few feet from the ledge, which I thought was safe enough . . .
The ground underneath me just crumbled suddenly. I fell 30 feet . . .
full speed . . . head slammed into a tree . . .

We texted back and forth as he described the two hours he’d spent trying to claw back up, unable to gain purchase on the broken tree limbs and rocks. He had passed out twice in the process and had been finally found by a passing couple and their dog.

Are you okay, Trev?

He wrote about the severe inner ear damage, his hearing loss and blurred vision, the short-term memory loss and temporary brain damage that snarled his emotions, leaving him frustrated and in tears most of the time, unable to express complete thoughts.

Don’t beat yourself up. Small steps, Trev. Small steps make big changes.

He went from a bed to a walker to a cane; from pain killers to Tylenol.

Amazing! Pat yourself on the back! You’re doing it Trev!! 😊

As he started to heal, the texts dwindled and eventually, outside of Facebook likes and an occasional crossing of paths at the book store, we lost touch, a divide of nearly five years stretching out between us.

After I began a painting of a young couple holding hands at an art gallery, I felt the urge to touch base with him again. How was his art coming along? Had he started dating after all? How is your health, Trev?

It was as if the long finger of the Grim Reaper himself reached over my shoulder and tapped on the screen, pointing at the Missing You themed messages, the heartbroken emojis on his Facebook page. I feverishly googled his name, scrolling past his Facebook, his Twitter, comments he’d made on Quora until the Dignity Memorial obituary snaked up my screen.

No cause of death listed, but I felt it in my bones. Only one person had signed the Guestbook and the vision of a departed Trev slowly shaking his head and turning away was so vivid in my mind, it made my eyes sting. I scrolled his Facebook page, looking for answers. I had missed his last two posts. The first was his recommendation of some Gigapixel product far beyond my tech-limited intelligence.

The second, however, gutted me. It simply read: Unspeakably depressed.

A mantra of If Onlys ran through my head. If only I had seen this post. If only I had kept in touch. If only I had sought help for him. If only I had not, for even just one minute, been worried about getting tangled in his depression, thinking I would be in over my head, thinking I should keep my distance, allowing that spell of time to be filled with his ever-increasing depression.

The truth is, while Trev thought he was the one drowning, it was me he had been saving as I crafted those mothering, late-night texts of encouragement and concern – a role that had felt, when we met, like a phantom limb.

If only I could rewind time. Stop it from happening. Tell him he mattered.

Trev? Are you there?

If only.

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