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*relentlessly me*
"Last year was a very strange year…
It started with one of my best friends Tim taking his life after he’d reached out to me for help. There were more than 100 emails between us, starting with one sent just before Christmas 2011 in which he said out of the blue: 'I might just kill myself' to 23rd February 2012 when he wrote: 'I need to sleep' and I replied: 'Have sweet dreams'. Four days later my great American friend of 21 years ended his life. I discovered he’d done this through tribute messages on his Facebook page from his son, ex-partner and his ex-partner’s new partner. Knowing what happened now, the emails – included in this story – read like a long suicide note or farewell letter. Tim was 48, a professor and a hugely popular person, and I miss him. The relationship was always a great personification of the special US-UK friendship.
Two days before Tim took his life the sister of my best friend from school was murdered by a man she'd met on Facebook who she'd run away to be with, leaving her family at the other end of the country. Then three months later, one of my friends in our West Country hamlet passed away from an unexpected heart attack. In October I was told by another close friend that a man she’d started seeing had been arrested for killing his 'missing' wife and there was going to be a 'murder without a body' trial. Two weeks later another friend in our hamlet died, within just weeks of getting a hostile blood test result.
This all happened in eight months. Yet this wasn't how it was supposed to be…"
This is David's vivid, heartbreakingly honest and sometimes humorous story on the strange year that was – one that told him that the really important things aren't things, but people and their relationships with one another. It's a powerful tribute to Tim, a real paean to friendship, to love and to taking opportunities. He also writes about anger, addictions, getting older, grieving, parenting, carnal urges and other general ramblings on life. He acknowledges it might just be self-indulgent crap…
Here’s a short tribute/book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibS1KL...
It started with one of my best friends Tim taking his life after he’d reached out to me for help. There were more than 100 emails between us, starting with one sent just before Christmas 2011 in which he said out of the blue: 'I might just kill myself' to 23rd February 2012 when he wrote: 'I need to sleep' and I replied: 'Have sweet dreams'. Four days later my great American friend of 21 years ended his life. I discovered he’d done this through tribute messages on his Facebook page from his son, ex-partner and his ex-partner’s new partner. Knowing what happened now, the emails – included in this story – read like a long suicide note or farewell letter. Tim was 48, a professor and a hugely popular person, and I miss him. The relationship was always a great personification of the special US-UK friendship.
Two days before Tim took his life the sister of my best friend from school was murdered by a man she'd met on Facebook who she'd run away to be with, leaving her family at the other end of the country. Then three months later, one of my friends in our West Country hamlet passed away from an unexpected heart attack. In October I was told by another close friend that a man she’d started seeing had been arrested for killing his 'missing' wife and there was going to be a 'murder without a body' trial. Two weeks later another friend in our hamlet died, within just weeks of getting a hostile blood test result.
This all happened in eight months. Yet this wasn't how it was supposed to be…"
This is David's vivid, heartbreakingly honest and sometimes humorous story on the strange year that was – one that told him that the really important things aren't things, but people and their relationships with one another. It's a powerful tribute to Tim, a real paean to friendship, to love and to taking opportunities. He also writes about anger, addictions, getting older, grieving, parenting, carnal urges and other general ramblings on life. He acknowledges it might just be self-indulgent crap…
Here’s a short tribute/book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibS1KL...
359 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2013
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11 people want to read
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September 10, 2013
Although *relentlessly me* deals with the most tragic of losses it is not a depressing book, it's heart-breaking and raw but also life-affirming, heart-warming and funny. David also writes about his family life and in particular his two young sons, there were several passages I laughed out loud at, and lots of parenting moments I recognised. The warmth radiates from this book, the love David has for his family and friends and the very special relationship he had with Tim.
My own brother, Simon killed himself in August 2012 so this was a book I could sadly relate to, it's a book that sums up the mind-blowing confusion of suicide, looks at depression, addiction and ageing, contains passages that made me cry for my pain, for David's pain and the pain Tim and Simon must have felt before they reached that ultimate decision. It also has passages of hope, words that inspired me and were deeply thought-provoking. It's a book about life, about the worst moments a person can face but about the best too. Ultimately it's about how although we have lost someone very dear to us in the most tragic of circumstances, we are still here, surviving, loving, laughing and living. Or as David would put it "being relentlessly me".
My own brother, Simon killed himself in August 2012 so this was a book I could sadly relate to, it's a book that sums up the mind-blowing confusion of suicide, looks at depression, addiction and ageing, contains passages that made me cry for my pain, for David's pain and the pain Tim and Simon must have felt before they reached that ultimate decision. It also has passages of hope, words that inspired me and were deeply thought-provoking. It's a book about life, about the worst moments a person can face but about the best too. Ultimately it's about how although we have lost someone very dear to us in the most tragic of circumstances, we are still here, surviving, loving, laughing and living. Or as David would put it "being relentlessly me".
Displaying 1 of 1 review