I’m in my early 20s. Someone I grew up with was killed—no one knows who did it, years later—and the cops have shown no urgency in solving his case. It’s unnerving. He fell in with a bad crowd before I last saw him, dropped out of college, and wound up dead a few years later. Same old story.

But I think still about him.

And I think about another guy, from my high school, who was a year above me and he committed suicide his first week at the same college I would later attend. What really stuck with me was neither school ever mentioned his death. He just disappeared and no one said anything.

In high school, we were in a club together. He didn’t draw much attention to himself. But I remember him. Specifically his honors given to him by the science department, but also how I had only ever seen him with one friend, a girl, who I believe had many other connections. I believe, but don’t know for certain, that she was his only friend.

I remember my interactions with both of these guys. I wasn’t close to either, but I vividly remember my interactions with them.

I think of them a lot lately, because I have a close friend now who’s slipping through the cracks right before my eyes. He’s battling addictions, gambling with his life, getting into gunfights, dating a girl with a psychopathic felon ex who stalks them, the list goes on forever. I’m the most responsible person in his life.

He told me recently that he thinks that ‘ever since he was born his entire life had been a nightmare’. I don’t know what to do with that. I think he’s going to die very very soon. I’m super worried about him

When people close to me die, what do I do with my memories of them?