The day my life stood still

September the 18th marks the day when my best friend, Kiki, died after being in a coma from a car accident in Los Angeles two years ago. There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about him. Its been two years, but I'm still pretty lost about the whole thing. He was the older brother I never had. I could talk to him about everything and anything. He was a friend. I miss his laugh, his jokes, his humor, the prank calls, the drinking, the good natured fighting. He was more than a friend. It wasn't just that we had a good laugh once in a while. Kiki actually cared about what I was up to, about whether I was looking for a job, whether I was doing okay with my girlfriend, whether my new apartment was nice. He was the one person in my life I could tell absolutely anything. He would listen, and he would respond. Kiki was never selfish, and he always spoke the truth.

We had our ups and downs. I first met him during my first year at boarding school. He was a quiet kid not happy to be away from home. He was pissed off at something during that year, but I did get to know him. Then we became friends. Not really close, but we had the same circle of friends. The next year, I hated his guts. He was a cocky, show-off, attention whore. We had stupid arguments, but were still sort of friends. The third year was when we really bonded. We spent so much time together just hanging out, talking, playing one-on-one basketball. I have never played that much one-on-one with a single person before or after that. We'd just play and play, memorizing each others moves, trying to outsmart each other. Lots of great fun and laughs in between. It was then and throughout college where I finally discovered who my best friend in the whole world was.

The last stretch of time I spent together with him was during the summer of 2001 when Kiki came to visit Hong Kong for a couple of months. He liked it so much that he even spoke of moving here permenantly. Now thinking back, I wish I had convinced him to do so. We had such a great time that summer. After all is said and done, one thing I don't have is regret for not being the best friend I could to him.

Even after two years I still feel like I'm missing something in my life. I lost so much when I lost him. Nowadays, I feel stuck. Things I used to tell him, I no longer have an outlet. He's no longer there to give me that kick in the ass, that sound advice from a friend who is so close to you that he couldn't tell you anything but the truth, no matter how hard it was to hear sometimes. Still to this day, I'll see something funny and think to myself, "Kiki will get a kick out of this when I tell him". Then it immediately dawns on me that I won't get to tell him, and we won't share that laugh because he's no longer here.

I'm still not sure how to deal with losing Kiki. What do I need to do? Should I even attempt to not think about him? Is it stupid of me to still keep that answering machine with his silly prank calls recorded on it? Occasionally, I'll have that recurring dream that he's suddenly alive again and I'm so happy that he's back. Perhaps that's more of a nightmare... but only after I wake up.

Anyways, this is getting out of hand. If Kiki were around, he's probably tell me I'm wasting my time and should get on with life. He's probably right, as usual. Either way, Kiki, my mentor, my brother, my friend: I miss you.