Everyday there is something that makes me think of Salome. Just right now it was hearing a song for the first time, and thinking that I need to send it to Salome. It never fails, it doesn’t register in my brain yet that he is not here right away. We talked almost every single day since high school. Talking to someone that often, to a sudden stop, never felt this feeling before.
When we first met Sophomore year, 2006 we were instant best friends. One of our first convos was about Tupac. I was going thru a heavy metal phase and I had the audacity to tell him I do not listen to Tupac, and I’m not sure if I have ever heard a song from him. Let me tell you that changed real quick because the NEXT DAY, Salome brings me every single one of Tupac’s songs on like 12 cds he downloaded. And he called me, every night to see which cd I was on, what my fave song was so far. And I told him this was not one sided, if I’m going to listen to his stuff he’s gotta listen to mine. And that was the start of our music trading. And it never stopped.
Thinking about how we would stay up for hours every night after school and talk about I don’t even know what. We argued. We loved to argue with each other. We always thought we were smarter than the other. But he was smarter than me for sure, but I would never admit that.
One of my all time fave memories is we were talking about a history project we had due the next day, and he was so proud of his he worked on it all week. I told him I didn’t even do mine, I was just going to take the L on that one. Well he wasn’t ok with that and he did my whole report. He did it on Rosie the Riveter. While we were on the phone he’s just on his computer typing away, finished it in just a few hours. He said it’s better than nothing just turn it in. So I did. To both of our surprise, I got an A on that project. Salome, he got a B on his. I couldn’t believe it, he couldn’t believe it and he never dropped that story. I would tell him, really you got an A too.
I learned so much from him because of our arguments. It was like we would just pick a topic, I would have no clue about it but just argue the opposite of him of course, he had to fight to get me to agree with him. But because of that I would be researching stuff, he was researching stuff, he made me the top of the line arguer I am today. Anytime any major event happened in this world, I would just ask him. And he would keep me up to date on all things.
He was my truest friend. He actually cared about me, a lot. One of my only friends that I never doubted if they did or not. He proved it many times thru the years.
I became a foster parent at 22. Took in 7 kids. I had no idea what I was doing. I called Salome and Tab and told them what was going on, and they picked up on my subtle cry for help and they were there that night with toys, clothes, stuff that little Salome already outgrew. It really saved me.
I was living on base in lemoore by myself, and had a surgery done that knocked me down for a week. Salome and tab were sure to be there, bringing me food and just to be there for me.
I went thru one of my darkest times about 5 years ago. Salome called me every single day to check on me. And I’m not exaggerating. Every single day/night. He would call me out on the stupid shit I was getting into. And I did rely on him heavily thru those times. And he was there the whole time. Both him and tab.
I’ll never forget when and where I was when I found out Amari had passed. He told me, he just said she’s gone. And I just said, I’m on my way. I flew out the next week.
I am so thankful I flew out to be there with them. Of course I didn’t know that would be the last time I would see him. It’s almost bittersweet. I was there because of horrible circumstances. The first night I was there we stayed up all night talking. It was so great, but my heart was breaking the whole time I was there because my best friends were hurting so bad. Even tho he was the same amazing happy go lucky attitude big smiles. I could see it and I could feel it and there was nothing I could do but just be there so that’s what I did. We laughed we cried.
Salome told me he was having health problems. Every time he went to the hospital he would just be like well I’m here again. And I was actually getting mad, I didn’t understand why they couldn’t figure out what was going on. Salome never made it seem like a big deal tho. He would make light of it.
The last thing he told me was they were running tests from his mild stroke he had. And I asked him if it was caused by stress. He never opened that message. It’s still unread. At the time I thought he fell asleep. Then Tab made an update I didn’t ever want to see.
I was soooo worried about him since I left Texas. And when the medical stuff happened I would have these thoughts that it might be from stress of everything they’ve gone thru. But never once thought it would result how it did because that’s just not even a possibility he was supposed to outlive me by far. He should have.
while everything was happening I felt so helpless, I was 8 months pregnant, I couldn’t fly. I couldn’t talk to him.
I had a dream he decided to show up in. It was the strangest dream. I was in the hospital with him in the bed. But he was also Standing next to the bed and I just had this deep hollowing feeling of sadness, but he was like come on now, no need for any of this let’s get this fixed up. And it was like he was fixing himself on the bed making him look better so I wouldn’t feel as sad. It doesn’t make sense but it made sense to me. I instantly woke up and just knew. That day Tab announced he was gone.
My son was born a month to the day later. During that time I really wish he was here to talk to.
I don’t know I thought maybe writing some of these things out would help. It’s been hard, I’ve never lost a friend before. But he wasn’t even my friend. He was absolutely my brother.
I wanted to post some good memories that showed how amazing of a person he is. Even tho everyone that knows him knows that.
I will always be thankful for him and everything he’s taught me in life.
