Final goodbye to a Friend

I had to make a trip back to Jacksonville to say my final goodbye to a Brother from another Mother, Cary Martin.  It was a quick trip in and out and it was filled with seeing a few friends, watching a couple of sunrises and pondering the insanity that surrounds my friends death.  For me, it started with a  text from a mutual friend that came in at 1:03 on Saturday May 16 in the afternoon that said “Carey Martin in critical condition after being shot by the police.  Don’t know the whole story but heard he was suicidal”.  I was not prepared for that text, I suppose no one is ever prepared for that sort of text but this was a serious shock! Cary was just a normal guy with a normal job.  Well….. as normal of job as a person can have when they are the director of Technology at a television station.

News started trickling in from other friends in the following days and I reached out to a bunch of people.  Being on the left coast it was hard to get a feel for what was actually going on.   There was a lot of speculation, a lot of bewilderment and just plain old confusion.  Come to find out, he was shooting at the police (8 shots I heard) when they returned fire with 34 shots, seventeen of which put bullet holes in him.  AMAZINGLY he did not die right away.  He was taken to ICU at Shands, which was probably the best place for him to be.  He lived for 5 more days, or I should probably say they kept him alive for 5 days because what he doing was not living.  Many surgeries and removal of key components of his body later and he mercifully passed away.

Those are the facts as I understand them.  I say understand but that is bullshit because I don’t understand and I will never understand because my friend is not here to explain it to me.  Without that, what are we left with…… more questions, more unknowns and more anger!  There were conversations about him missing his wife, conversations about how he got angry and mean when he was drinking – none of which I ever witnessed and never thought or heard about him before.  Throughout the many conversations, they all eventually end up at “suicide by cop”.  That is us, with our own bullshit trying to apply logic and reason to an illogical and unreasonable situation in a vein attempt to make ourselves feel better about it or think we understand.  We attempt to rationalize the completely fucking irrational in order to make it make sense in our heads.

Some things will NEVER make sense and we should not beat ourselves up over it!  It is an unhealthy exercise!  So how and what do we do?   I wish knew!  I just am mad, I am pissed that my friend did the most selfish thing a person can do.  I am not mad the cops gunned him down, you shot at cops and you are going to lose – that is a fact!  I am not mad at God, I do not believe in God.  “It was God’s will” someone told me – ya know what, FUCK YOU!  God’s will……. If I were a believer, things like this would make me question my belief system.

I am angry at my friend, I am mad as hell!  Mad that he left so many people with so many questions.  Every little detail of his life being scrutinized by friends and family in their attempts to understand something that can’t be understood.  Mad that I have seen his daughters and saw the agony and confusion in their eyes!  I am just glad that his wife Marie was not around to see it happen, she passed three years ago from Cancer.  I have seen the looks of children whose father committed suicide before, my friend Grady Foy kids several years ago, it was agony and devastation and that is a horrible selfish thing to put your loved ones through.

I was mad at Grady for a long time as well.  With him it was a little different, I had spoken to him for an hour the day before he blew his brains out.  I struggled with that for quite a while.  It was the day before thanksgiving, around 3pm in the afternoon.  We talked about some work stuff and then about what our plans were over the thanksgiving weekend.  I played that conversation over in my head 1000 times, looking for clues or something I should have caught.  That was me attempting to rationalize some irrational thing.  That was me attempting to gain answers to questions that had no answers.

Cary’s service was nice, it was well attended by friends and family and there was a lot of small talk.  The small talk was different than the small talk heard at a funeral in which the deceased had passed from an accident or cancer or some other medical or age related reasons.  It was awkward for me and I felt it was awkward for many.  No one asking the questions that could not be asked, no one saying what they wanted to say and everyone seemingly in shock over the whole affair.  I am so glad I was not asked to speak at that funeral, I don’t think I could have done it.  The preacher did an admiral job at the service, sensitive to the situation but kind and caring.  He asked us each to not think about any of the recent Cary memories but reach back and remember a good memory.  That was good to do, he was a funny guy and I had lots of funny things to remember.

 I hate that there are so many unanswered questions for so many people.  I hate that speculation now drives much of the conversation and I hate that this is what my friend will be remembered for.  Not that he was a loving and good husband to his high school sweetheart for 31 plus years.  Not that he was a good father to his three daughters.  Not that he was successful in a career in broadcast television engineering during a time when broadcast television went through a lot of changes.  Not that he was a great friend to a lot of people, myself included.  Although maybe not out loud, people will remember him for the one split second, selfish decision that he made that resulted in his own horrific death.  That make me mad as hell!  I know I will eventually get over this anger, right now it is just part of my process for dealing with losing my friend.  I miss ya Cary!