Close friend and brother in spirit and he's gone...

My buddy Scott is the one dressed up like Sylvester the cat in my profile photo. I knew him for 21 years. We were together as a couple between 2008 and 2011. I packed up and left Denver to move to St. Louis to be with him. It didn't work out, but we were better, much better as friends. Over the years he stumbled from one disastrous relationship to the next, drinking more heavily as the years went on, but he still traveled, visited me, and once the pandemic started, he spent alot of time on my "quarantine" patio where we would talk for hours. Every day we exchanged jokes and funny memes.

I'll never forget that message from his son on September 5th telling me he was gone, that he had shot himself in his study. Like it was a joke, then a really bad nightmare, and I had to tell so many other people what happened, because our social circle was so closely entwined. Even now there are days I can barely function, and the pain is so intense.I feel like my soul is crying and cracking. How did I miss the signs? My brother from another mother, goofy techno nerd, and erstwhile storyteller will never send me another message or ask to come visit. To make matters worse, my neighbor died 3 weeks ago due to complications from septicemia. I feel like I'm being hit with an emotional cudgel as I try to move forward. I dealt with the loss of my only sibling, a sister, in 1988, the death of my father 4 years later, and the death of my mother in 2014, but those losses pale next to the pain I've been experiencing since my buddy committed suicide. I feel so lost, and so heavy with grief some days, the pain is almost beyond words.