David Miller

As most of you know, David Miller was a very close friend of my family. He was family. My mother, brother and I loved him very much. We were all devastated when he committed suicide earlier this month. He was a wonderful friend with a generous spirit and a knack for forgetting where he left his car. For me it is like a dream. He was absent from my life because I was so far away from home, so for him to be absent forever is a difficult concept to grasp. Nothing has changed in my daily routine. My weekend phone calls to my mom will no longer finish with 'Say hi to David for me!', but other than that I cannot perceive a shift. I am preparing myself to truly mourn him only when I return to Asheville this summer, but for now I feel only a numbness and the occasional lump in my throat when I put on the bracelet that he gave me for my birthday last year or when I think about our last chat, pertaining to my relationship with Michael of course, when he said he thought I didn't seem happy. I guess when someone has taken on the role as 'grown-up' in your life it is harder to recognise their weakness and need for help, to recognise their emotional ailments when they are trying to fix yours. It seems that often those people who are so in tune with the feelings of others, empaths, are those who have the spectrum of human emotion crashing around inside their brains, making the feeling of others so lucid, but frustrating their own course to happiness. He will be missed in a purely selfish way, as the person whom I loved and who filled a huge niche in my life and I hope that the endless sleep has brought him peace and happiness. I hope you all will remember him in your thoughts and if you pray, in your prayers also. Thank you.