I have very much kept this to myself but for 9 days now TLOTF has been dealing with the death of his most very best friend in a tragic motorbike accident.
My most nearest and dearest have been keeping an eye on me as well for a while I blamed myself.
Why you ask.
I was not even in the same county when the accident occurred.
Link Here
The reason for the blame.............it was me who got Calum into bikes, me who trained him, me who went with him when the first bike was bought, me who used to ride with him on Sunday afternoons.
If I had kept my fat mouth shut and not encouraged him then it would not have happened.
I have wanted to blog about this.
No not because of some morose love of misery............but because this has really bothered me.
Everyone has said you are not to blame.........and I know that.
But I can not stop thinking of this.
I can not stop the blame.
My blog has been quiet and I have toyed with the idea.
I have started many posts and deleted them.
However yesterday I drove to the spot and placed a wee flower on the area.
It was an odd feeling...........no not sad and I don't know why.
But I was absolutely raging as I found many pieces of blue faring not cleaned up.
So I did clean them up.
I cant explain why I am writing this post............I just have to.
I have lost close family members and indeed have a sister so chronically disabled that it is doctors that keep her going..........but for some reason they have not affected me like this.
I want to batter 12 shades out of tractor driver however the Police have not released a final report so I do not know the full facts.
But right now I suspect a tractor driver is feeling a lot worse than I am.
Tomorrow Calum will be laid to rest........and it wont be a good day. However dignity and respect will be shown but maybe a wee tear in the privacy of my house at the end of the day.
Please do not judge me for my post. These pages have indeed seen some hot rants, some vicious attacks and out pouring of rage.
But right now I don't really care.
Our new coalition government, the outgoing NuLabour movement..........seems but something in the background.
An odd post and I apologise to all...............I just had to write something.
Normal service will resume shortly.
Hi, I followed this link from Ollie Cromwell. I hope that sharing your feelings about your friend's death has helped. I think I can understand why you're tempted to blame yourself but please don't. Try & remember that you actually helped your friend to enjoy his life more - sure, without biking he may have still been alive but he would never have known the pleasure of biking, the wind whistling past his helmet, the countryside whizzing past. Also, death comes to us all, and in many different guises - he died doing something he loved - if we have to go - surely that's not a bad way? Take care.
ReplyDeleteChin up and make sure you give him a damn good send off.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you both.
It is very clear that you were not in any way to blame for what happened. You know this to be true, and yet you FEEL responsible. We have words which describe our feelings which overlap each other in meaning - guilt, remorse, blame, fault........
ReplyDeleteIf I may say so, I think that you are suffering from such a surfeit of REGRET at the loss of your friend that the emotion 'tips over' into feelings of guilt. I suspect that you would still have these feelings if the accident had involved driving a car or riding a bicycle or swimming. We have all been in these situations. We would not be human if we had not.
You will never lose 'the regret' at the loss of your friend, but time will slowly diminish 'the guilt'.
This too shall pass.....
ReplyDeleteMy condolences to you, in 6 months everything will be different again...
CD
One thing that is true of all bikers I know - we make our own choices and we accept responsibility for what we do. If things go wrong, so be it. You are not to blame for your buddy's death any more than you would be if you introduced him to skiing and he later died in an avalanche. I carry a letter in my leathers addressed to my wife. If the worst happens to me, she will find it there. It tells her not to feel any regrets about "letting me" ride my bike, and that if the worst thing happened, I went doing something I loved.
ReplyDeleteI also feel guilt in my life for things I have done, and which logically I don't need to feel guilty about. Telling yourself not to feel guilt doesn't work, but you need to tell yourself anyway. You have nothing to feel guilty about. You introduced a friend to a fantastic thing, motorcycling, and then it was out of your hands. Time will heal to some extent, but it will never go away. Our history is what makes us, and this is part of yours. You just have to accept it, I think.
All things must pass, though it's better to pass them on a motorbike.
ReplyDeleteHere's something I wrote last year when I didn't think I was going to be here much longer...
http://mypseudepigrapha.blogspot.com/2009/04/old-mortality.html
Sorry for your loss, and for everyone else who knew your friend.
ReplyDeleteSorry, too, to be offering an opinion in a situation where I have no knowledge of the events or participants. Hope it causes no offense, as none is intended.
There should be no blame to consider. Encouraging someone to ride is not like encouraging them to play Russian roulette: bikes have none of the inevitable consequences of bullets. It sounds as though he had experience and that you had taken the time to prepare and assist him for the road. That is commendable, not blameworthy.
I also sounds as if both of you loved biking. Would you have chosen to take that away from him? Could you even have stopped him following in your footsteps, had you wanted to? And even if you had, would he have lived forever as a result?
Your anger is understandable, but possibly misplaced. Whoever left the fairing bits behind couldn't have known how special your friend was to you. Nor could the other driver, who - whether at fault or not - will have to live with the consequences of what happened for the rest of his own life.
It will get better with time, cliched though that may be. I hope that you can get to that point of remembering and celebrating your friend's life rather than feeling guilt over his death. It is not callous for that to happen sooner rather than later. And it isn't wrong to ask yourself whether he'd have thanked you for sharing the good times with him rather than blaming you for the end of them.
To all commentors,
ReplyDeleteMy very great thanks to you all for your words.
Conan a fab piece and thanks for the link.
Yesterday went as well as it could.
I apologised to him and I believe he heard me.....but it was hard.
endemoniada_88, RM, Richard, CD, GOT, Junican again my thanks to each and every one of you.
Now to let time do its thing.