The Death of my Best Friend, 2006, by Margo Dahlk

From MemoryArchive

Who: Margo Dahlk
What: The Death of my Best Friend
When: May 9th, 2006
Where: Madison, Wisconsin

Some obstacles that I am facing are getting over the death of my best friend of 7 years. He died on May 9th, 2006. It was probably one of the most graphic and horrible things that I’ve been through in my entire life.

Kevin was one of my best friends. We used to be neighbors. We became very close that way and stayed in touch even after he moved up north. Our friendship got even stronger when he moved to Madison to go to the UW back in 2004.

Things were going great. Until his girlfriend of like forever confessed to cheating on him and then broke up with him the day he was going to propose to her. He was absolutely devastated. He spun downwards into depression and tried to commit suicide very early on. He only tried once though. He was on suicide watch for almost 4 months. His mom wouldn't take him to get professional help because she was convinced that he was going to be ok and that she could help him better than anyone else. So his parents would watch him during the day and then I would get picked up and watch him at night and then the next morning come back to Mt. Horeb and go to school. I actually thought he was getting better and getting over her.

Well on the morning of May 9th I woke up at quarter to 6am. Now I normally don’t get up until 6am anyways so I decided I was going to get 15 more minutes of sleep. I turned over to see if Kevin was still sleeping and it looked like he was. So I started to fall back asleep. I can remember myself dreaming. I felt someone grab my hand and then I heard a gunshot. But nothing registered. I thought I was just dreaming. I didn’t think anything of it. I woke up to one of my guy friends shaking me to get out of bed. I thought I was late for school. He was screaming and crying and I couldn’t figure out why he was so upset. I got out of bed, still half asleep, and realized that my entire left side of my body was covered in blood. I looked at the bed and the sheets were soaked in blood. And then I saw Kevin. I remember collapsing to the ground crying and screaming. It was awful. It’s one thing to hear about someone committing suicide but it’s another thing to be right next to them.

I blamed myself for a while. I mean how could I hear that gunshot and not wake up? I’m trying to get over that part. Now I just need to get over the mental images and the flashbacks. This is the 4th friend I’ve had to bury along with my boyfriend that died a year ago. It’s awful, the death of a friend. It’s been hard trying to get over this last one.