What I Lost

Some housekeeping: this post discusses suicide and eating disorders. All names have been changed, all dialogue has been altered or added, and a couple personal details have been edited. Finally, thanks to C for her help editing this; I know it was a big undertaking.

Fourteen days after, I am kneeling in front of a small altar set up at a park. I’m wearing shorts, and I regret it for a couple reasons – it’s unseasonably chilly, and about half of those gathered at Avery’s memorial service are wearing all black. I, on the other hand, opted for a light blue Mountain Goats shirt and canary yellow shorts.

Maybe I should have worn black too, I think. If anyone asks, I can say it’s something I would have worn when we were hanging out.

I look down and try to orient myself to the present moment instead of ruminations about my wardrobe. Attendees were invited to place an object that reminded us of Avery at the altar. One person brought All About Love by bell hooks, another a birthday card Avery had painstakingly created with their beloved calligraphy pens and washi tape. There’s a framed photograph of Avery wearing their trademark pink glasses. The glasses sit in front of the picture, and I pick them up to feel their weight in my hand.

“OK, everyone, we’re going to get started,” Avery’s best friend Bailey says. The small crowd finds places to sit on blankets spread across the grass. Nobody knows who I am, but I’ve heard about almost everyone in attendance. I’m aware of our mutual therapist, Eleanor, sitting behind me. It’s so strange to see her outside of a therapy context.

Bailey did a great job planning the service. Friends take turns sharing their memories of Avery. They comment on how kind, smart, and self-critical Avery was. They openly name the cause of death as suicide and reckon with the complex feelings a suicide death elicits. They pray Avery is at peace, that we will meet them again in a next life.

After leading a moment of silence, Bailey starts a tribute playlist. Conor Oberst’s whine emanates from the speakers.

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Bright Eyes was Avery’s favorite band. I am… less of a fan, but I tolerate them at this moment.

As the song ends and transitions to “ICU” by Phoebe Bridgers, Avery’s cousin stands up. “I’m going to smoke a joint in memory of Avery!” she announces. “Come over if you want to join me.”

Eager to avoid small talk, I head to the circle being formed and stand next to the cousin. She takes a drag from the joint and hands it to me. As I bring it to my lips, I make eye contact with Eleanor. Eleanor’s eyes are bright red, and she is shaking with sobs, supported by another therapist. The absurdity of the situation suddenly catches up to me.

I am absolutely not supposed to be smoking a joint in front of my therapist, and my therapist is not supposed to be crying in front of me, I think. But then again, Avery’s not supposed to be dead.

One thousand seven hundred and eight days before, I’m sitting in front of my laptop. I take a deep breath, open a link to a Zoom room, and click “Join meeting.”

I had begun outpatient work on my eating disorder a couple months earlier. I was paired with a therapist who wasn’t a good fit for me, but she helpfully referred me to a weekly process group for LGBTQ+ people with eating disorders. This was the first night I was to join the space and I was nervous.

After I’m let in to the room, Eleanor welcomes everyone and asks us to do introductions.

“I can go,” says Avery. They are wearing those pink glasses I would later have trouble putting down, and a satisified tabby cat sits in their lap. “My name is Avery, I use they/them pronouns. I’ve been in the group for about a year and a half. I appreciate this space because I can truly be myself. We’re glad to have you here, Jasper!”

Treatment friends are an interesting category of relationship. I can think of no other context in which I would expect to learn about someone’s deepest struggles within the first ninety minutes of meeting. As a result, tight bonds are forged quickly.

On the other hand, treatment friendships often fizzle out when one or both parties have exited a program. You swear to stay in touch forever, but it’s difficult to maintain contact when you’re not seeing each other every day. Also, processing trauma and learning skills together doesn't mean you're compatible in the outside world.

For a relationship built in treatment to last, it must be grounded in some kind of commonality outside of your pain and the way you’re coping with it. Avery and I had that commonality. We were around the same age (though they were a little older and I looked up to them like a big sibling). We were both trans. We were both from the south – or rather, they were definitely from the south and allowed me to insist that southern Missouri counted as “the south.” We both had two cats and had gotten humanities degrees and loved to read and craft. Every week, I looked forward to hearing what updates they had to share and what feedback they would give to others. I would do anything to support Avery, and I knew Avery would do anything to support me. (Unfortunately, we both struggled to actually ask for that support.)

One day in 2023, Avery used their process time to share that this was their last day in group due to a cross-country move.

“I’m really sad to leave Minnesota, but I’m hopeful that this will be a fresh start,” they said.

We all said our good-byes and logged off for the night. Despite the hours we had spent together in group and PHPs and providing meal support at each other's apartments, I assumed Avery would turn out to be another friend made in treatment that I would never see again. When I thought of them over the next couple years, I wished them well.

Three-hundred and seventy-six days before, I log into group as usual and am stunned to see Avery has joined the Zoom.

“Avery!” I scream with joy, forgetting I am muted and appear like a mime to everyone else. Avery smiles back, their cat once again perched on their lap as if they had never left.

During process time, Avery shares that they had been struggling. They briefly cover the last three years, where they bounced between treatment stints, stays with relatives, and managing new and ongoing medical conditions. Now, they’re back in Minnesota and feeling down.

“I feel like no matter what I do, eating disorder catches up to me,” they say. “I just don’t see a future for myself. I know I should do HLOC^[1] again, but I don’t see the point and anyway I don’t feel sick enough for that.”

We all share our advice and validation for Avery, and when we log off I pull out my phone to text them.

“Hi friend 🧡 good to see you tonight. Welcome back to group! I’d love to support you. Would you like me to a) get a Meal Train going, b) plan a time to come over, or c) both?”

They respond: “I would love to plan a time for you to come by and say hello sometime! It’s always a joy to see you!”

Thus began our monthly dinners. After work, I would pick up food from a place near my office – a falafel bowl for them and lamb kebabs for me, all in a white plastic bag with a friendly yellow smiley face. Then I would bus to their studio apartment in the heart of the city.

Avery didn't own much furniture. What they had was hastily bought from IKEA when they moved back to Minnesota. Instead of chairs, we would sit next to each other on an ugly yellow couch made for children that flared up my TMJ pain. As we ate together, whoever was struggling the least with their eating disorder would encourage the other one to finish the meal.

We would talk for hours about anything and everything. We shared book suggestions, we showed off our birds on the Finch app (a self-care game where we were friends), we laughed about our teenage Tumblr days and compared treatment adventures. When I left, I would immediately look forward to our next hangout.

Ten days before, I walk into Avery’s apartment.

“Your neighbor has interesting opinions about women,” I say, and tell them about the man smoking cigarettes and informing me about his sexual experiences while I waited for Avery to let me in.

“Oh god,” Avery groans. “I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

“It’s fine, I love hearing wild stories from strangers. I just wish I knew what to do in situations like that. Like, as a man I should stand up for women and be like, ‘hey, knock it off,’ but I'm never sure what to say in the moment. I was taught how to protect myself from men like that, not how to relate to them like a peer.”

Avery nods. “I really feel that.”

We sit on the couch with our lamb and falafel. I turn my head to look at Avery and try to ignore the jaw pain. “So how are you?”

“You know, I’ve been better,” says Avery. For the past few weeks in group, they had talked about how the eating disorder was becoming unmanageable again. Unfortunately, they were on Medicaid, and Medicaid in Minnesota will only pay for eating disorder outpatient or inpatient care.^[2] They were desperate enough that they were prepared to self-pay the astronomical amount of money required for a couple weeks of residential care, but the eating disorder treatment center had rejected them due to the severity of their depression. Meanwhile, psychiatric hospitals were reluctant to keep them more than a couple days due to the severity of their eating disorder. Avery had been talking more and more lately about how desperate they felt to find help, and the treatment hot potato was weighing on them.

“I have a plan though,” they say. “There’s a hospital out of state that specializes in treating severe eating disorders. They keep you for a week or two because the goal is to get you back into your community and not leave you hanging out in a hospital forever. I’d be able to get some help and also come back and see my cats relatively soon.”

“That’s great!” I smile, as one of the cats jumps into my lap to sniff my kebab.

“I’m hopeful,” they say. “This is a ridiculous situation though. Medicaid treats people like absolute shit.”

Their voice is intense when they speak. I look at them, and they stare across the room and out the window. Avery never expresses anger, and I’m startled. It makes sense to me though; they’ve often spoken about how hard it is to access care with Medicaid.

They clear their throat and the gentle Avery I know returns. “But enough about me. How are you?”

I stay later than usual that night, a little over five hours. Eventually, I start to grow restless. I don’t want to take the bus at night, so I pull out my phone to order a rideshare.

“Welp, I’d better be going,” I say, slapping my knees.

“Thanks so much for coming over, Jasper,” Avery says. I’m fiddling with my phone and not looking at them. “I just want you to know that you have everything you need to be an excellent writer. You’re so beautifully expressive. I hope you keep pursuing it.”

I look up from my phone. Avery is referencing a previous group session. Eleanor had assigned us a writing prompt about what we wish people knew about us, and one of the items on my list was “I am a writer who never finishes anything, so who am I, really?”

I register how meaningful Avery’s statement was and feel guilty for wrestling with the Uber app while they said it. “Aw, thanks! That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”

They smile, and all of a sudden my ride is here.

“I won’t be at group next week, so I’ll see you in two weeks,” I say as I gather my belongings.

They stand up to see me off. “Looking forward to seeing you then!”

I close the door and leave their apartment for the last time.

Two days after, group is canceled with only a few hours notice. Eleanor is usually very respectful of everyone’s time, and I assume she is dealing with a crisis.

I send a text to Avery. “Sorry I won’t see you tonight! 💔” The message is undelivered, and I wonder if I’m having some network issues. I move on with my evening.

Three days after, I’m procrastinating on going to sleep by scrolling on social media. At 10 p.m., I switch from Reddit to Facebook, and a couple posts down I see that Paige, an acquaintance from a previous PHP Avery and I participated in, has changed their profile picture to a selfie with Avery. I had no idea they were friends, and I’m happy to unexpectedly see Avery on my feed. I read the caption more closely.

“Everyone who met Avery loved them. They were so kind and strong. We will miss them deeply.”

I involuntarily scream. Were?! For some reason I am convinced Paige is playing a practical joke in some strange bid for attention, since Avery deleted their social media and can’t reply and confirm they’re alive.

Eleanor will know what’s going on, I think, and run upstairs. Kimberlite comes around the corner to ask what’s wrong and I brush them off. I navigate the clinic’s labyrinthine phone tree and finally get Eleanor’s voicemail. “Hey, it’s Jasper. I just saw a Facebook post about Avery that used the past tense to refer to them?” My heart pounds and my voice rises as I run out of breath, so I take a deep breath to keep my composure. “So, uh, if you could just call me back with an update I’d really appreciate it. OK, thank you, bye.”

Four days after, I take a day off work. I wait for Eleanor to call me back. I spend a lot of time sitting on the couch, wondering what is going on. Avery clearly wasn’t thriving when I saw them last, but this was not an outcome I had foreseen.

I obsessively weigh the possibilities in my mind and land on two. Either it was suicide or complications of the eating disorder. Both options make me sick; they both denote a high level of suffering that I wouldn’t wish on anyone in their last moments.

I wonder if Avery knew they were going to die when they complimented my writing. I wonder if something I said pushed them over the edge. I wonder how I can throw my leftover kebab away now. I wonder if this would have happened if I had shown up to group last week. A heavy weight crushes my chest and lodges in my throat.

Five days after, Eleanor has not called me back. I realize I probably won’t hear from her; she’s likely busy trying to figure out how to handle the situation. I haven’t talked to Paige in four years, but I work up the nerve to reach out to them. I can’t live with the wondering anymore.

I open up Facebook Messenger. “Hey Paige,” I write. “I was shocked and saddened to read about Avery. Could you please let me know if there is a memorial planned, and if it’s not too much what exactly happened?”

Paige confirms Avery died by suicide and tells me more details. I asked to hear them, but now that I know I wish I could forget.

They also tell me they’re keeping Avery’s cats for now.

“We have a potential new owner coming over to look at them today at 6,” they write. “If you want to say good-bye to the cats you should come over before then.”

I barrel over to Paige’s house as soon as possible and fight back tears when I see Avery’s cats huddled together on a mattress. They’re as friendly as ever, but their slightly ungroomed fur tells me they’re stressed.

As I pet the tabby’s stomach, Paige tells me stories about adventures they’d had with Avery and shows me selfies from visits to Mall of America, parties, camping trips. I smile politely and don’t have much to say. I have no photos with Avery to exchange, and telling Paige the contents of our discussions feels inappropriate.

Then, Paige asks, “Didn’t you have a birthday party last year?”

The year before I had thrown a huge birthday bash with games and a fancy cake and a Polaroid station. I had invited Avery but they texted me at the last minute that they wouldn’t be coming. I knew such a large gathering might be anxiety-inducing for them, so I didn’t think much about it.

“Yeah,” I say. “I invited Avery, but they didn’t come.”

Paige pauses. “I just want you to know Avery was so excited to go and was upset when they couldn’t do it. They were sure you’d be angry with them.”

I pause, sad that Avery would think that of me and once again aware of our similarities – I’d think the same thing, were I in their shoes.

“I could never be angry at Avery,” I whisper.

Six days after, I am leaving the office. I smell the familiar aroma of Mediterranean cooking and see someone walking by with takeout in a white plastic bag with a friendly yellow smiley face. My stomach lurches, and I resist the urge to rip the food out of their hands and throw it to the ground. I never want to see that fucking smiley face again.

Eight days after, I visit an escape room with some friends. I dutifully help solve puzzles, but my mind is elsewhere. I keep replaying the questions I’d already been sitting with, wondering what to do with the fact that I’m really glad Avery didn’t have to go to the out-of-state hospital, thinking about how they won’t be at group next week.

“We got it!” A cry from a friend jolts me out of my reverie, and I follow the crew to take a victory photo in the lobby.

The game master takes one photo with a fish-eye lens effect, and everyone laughs at the results.

“Oh my god, this looks like a ‘90s album cover.” “Levi, what are you doing with your face?” “Ugh, you can’t see me…”

I look at the photo. It is pretty funny, and I smile an authentic smile. Upon noticing this, I stop and call up my previous thought pattern. It’s better to be miserable and thinking of Avery than happy and forgetting them.

Fifteen days after, Kimberlite’s friends are hosting a barbecue. I don’t feel very outgoing, but they’re good people and Clay is excellent behind the grill.

I’m standing at the edge of the festivities by myself when Tim comes up to me. “Hey Jasper. How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s been better.” Tim raises an eyebrow. “My friend just died.”

“Shit. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.” I pause, then blurt, “It’s nice to be here with my friends who are alive.”

Tim laughs. “You said it, not me. Do you want to tell me about them?”

I look at him, unsure where to begin. I met them in treatment for my eating disorder, and they were one of the strongest, kindest, most dedicated people I’ve ever known, but they couldn’t see that and they killed themself and hung me out to dry and I’m not mad at them because they were suffering but also what the actual fuck, it feels like they broke some sort of promise to stay alive and work toward recovery, and where does that leave me? If they couldn’t recover, is it pointless for me to try?

I quickly rule this out and begin talking about Avery’s cats.

Forty days after, I sit down at my desk. Ephemera related to Avery’s death has been gathering in a corner of my office, and I finally feel ready to add it to my junk journal.

I open my sketchbook and get to work pasting in memories of the past month – a flyer for a county mobile crisis team, a quote from Spirited Away I drew from a bowl at the memorial, a strip from a roll of Avery’s beloved washi tape that Paige had saved for me.

As the smell of Mod Podge and paper grows stronger, I reflect on how I’m feeling. There have been more moments of genuine happiness recently, but I still ruminate on what their final days might have been like and what I could have done to prevent this.

Then, the ugly yellow couch comes to mind and my thoughts begin to race. You will never sit on that couch again. You will never see the cats again. You will never hear their laugh again. Someday, when this washi tape runs out, you will have nothing left of them.

I am tempted to go to bed and stay there for the rest of the day. Instead, I open the Finch app and find Avery’s profile. After much deliberation about which preset message to deliver, I choose to send comfort.

I truly hope you have that, wherever you are, I think. The alternative is too painful to consider.

I press the send button. It feels a little cheesy, but it helps to have this small connection to Avery. My thought spiral pauses and eventually fades away.

Sixty-eight days after, I’m back at the park in my Mountain Goats T-shirt and yellow shorts. This time it feels like 103 degrees, and I am drenched in sweat. I run down the hill leading to the memorial site and sit down.

Eleanor recommended a book to me about grief. One of its key points is that ritual is crucial for processing a loss. So, I've decided to try out a ritual for Avery. I pull out a bowl, my water bottle, and a piece of jasper from my backpack.

I purchased the jasper earlier today for a couple reasons. First, I love buying crystals to mark new periods in my life. The loss of Avery shattered me, and I am slowly putting the pieces back together and discovering who I am in the aftermath.

In addition, I’ve decided to start a blog. It’s something Avery had encouraged me to do repeatedly and something that I demurred every time out of fears of not being good enough. However, I've realized life is short, and it's important to follow where your heart leads while you still can. I decide to write under the name Jasper as a reference to my memorial to the person that inspired me to take the plunge.

I set the bowl on the ground, add the jasper to the bowl, and cover it with water. I pull up a handful of grass and toss it in the water as well.

Then, I pull out my headphones and play a song. I listen intently and focus on the sensations in my body, casting away anything that is not related to this moment and my connection with my friend.

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

It feels strange to be in a world without Avery, and my emotions about their loss spike in intensity every so often. I know I said I could never be angry at them, but I do feel angry sometimes. Sometimes I’m mad at myself for not doing more to help them, sometimes I’m mad at them for leaving, sometimes I’m mad at Phoebe Bridgers for announcing new music after Avery died instead of giving them something to look forward to.

Then there's the disorientation. My questions about their death are no longer running 24/7. Instead, confusion hits me like a truck at unexpected moments and leave me grasping for a clarity that I know will never arrive.

At the end of the day though, I’m just sad. I used to say there were four people who completely understood how my brain worked and who I didn’t have to explain anything to. Without Avery, there are now three.

The song ends, and it’s time to go. I put the jasper in my pocket, toss the water and grass onto the parched earth, and wipe the bowl down before putting it in my backpack. Then I turn around and clamber back up the hill, ready to face the sweltering summer day.