For Greg.

i am attempting to avoid writing my paper basically debating the human condition in the Holocaust. Five pages of tip toeing through the tulips so as not to offend anyone and to hopefully, eventually and effectively come up with an idea as to whether or not I think that people are born or made corrupt...Thus far I have not come up with any conclusion other than humans are terrible people and when they aren't destroying others' and their own lives, they are thinking of what their karma induced comeuppance will be and attempting to avoid it by ignoring their own self identification in desperation to justify their actions.

I did some of my own ignoring of myself over the past couple of weeks. I do this thing that my mom does where I try to take everyone's problems as my own and try to fix them or I worry incessantly about them and I get so stressed I can barely breathe. It's not the best feeling in the world. I've been trying to distance myself from people for the last month or so. I'm starting to get those phone calls, you know the ones..."I feel like i haven't seen you in ten years..." blah blah business. When Greg died I got inclusive and didn't go anywhere for about a week. I've been avoiding talking about Greg just because I feel like there are too many things to say. At first I wanted to write like crazy, but then I decided to let things sift out and let my emotions take their own course rather than documenting the way that I feel at one moment, deciding those feelings were far too rash, and in turn attempt to justify them and make amends (is it starting to sound repetitive yet?) The point is that Greg was everything that people strive to be, only it came to him naturally. I didn't want to write something that I didn't like about someone that was important to me for many very odd reasons, and I mean odd in a good way.

First off, Greg and I were not the best of friends. In fact we had never even met face to face. Two summers ago Greg went on a biking trip, and an epic one at that, where he traveled across the country with his friends. About half way though Greg was hit by a mini-van when he was trying to fix his bike chain on a busy road. He was airlifted to a hospital where he remained in a coma for quite some time. This was where I first met Greg, his mother was a coworker and best friend of my mother's. She knew we had similar music tastes so Kay asked me to make Greg CDs that were to be played for him. I made four different mixes with pictures on them of places that I thought I would embark upon if I were to be dreaming for the amount of time that he was going to be. When he woke up, he was almost completely paralyzed. The height of Greg's dexterity before he died was being able to operate his computer on his own and could say few words and that was after almost a year and a half of rehab away from home.
When he entered his rehab program Greg sent me a message on Facebook thanking me for the CD's. I was so excited to hear from him, Greg was someone that my mom updated me on weekly and I was eager to start a relationship with him. Greg and I sent each other messages on a weekly basis. I ended up discovering someone that I realized would be one of the most unforgettable and extraordinary human beings I would ever meet. Greg was hilarious even in light of his situation, he was a listener and never tried to make you feel bad for him. Despite everything that Greg had been though he was completely immersed and interested in his friends' lives, he was the least selfish person I will ever know and he is the best person I will ever know.
Greg died on a Monday morning, I remember because I was sleeping on the couch with Krista after a sleepover between the two of us. My mom had sent me a text message about it. I was devastated. I didn't move from the couch for the entirety of the day. I didn't answer my phone, I didn't check my messages, I didn't eat. What was weird was that it wasn't like what happens to me when someone close to me dies. When my grandpa died I was devastated because just about everything reminded me of him, but in this situation I was more sad because the world had lost Greg. I had lost Greg. Everyone had lost him.
I attended his funeral a week later and noticed the difference that Greg had made on others' lives including mine. I can only imagine what Greg meant to his best friends, his brother, his parents.
Greg was one week away from going home when he died. I was one week from visiting him. It makes me sad that we missed each other, and it makes me sad that the rest of the world will miss him now too.

So back to my thoughts on the human condition. Perhaps I was too harsh, Greg was nothing like the people in my mind. Greg was someone that contradicted many ideas I previously had about people, and I wasn't upset to change those views when he came along which is what makes him so important. Which is what makes him so special to me and to everyone else.