I always like to appear more cultured than I am so I jumped at the chance to use some South African slang. My friend Alex came to join my club via another down the road but ultimately from Durban. Bru, I was told, means mate or bro. It sounded good in his accent.
Some shared dialect helped but we had plenty more in common. A love of the greatest of all sports being paramount.
A relatively short friendship however it has had a bigger impact on my life than any other. This must be a mix of who he was and, sadly, how he died.
When I was told Alex had died by suicide I cried. I can remember the pattern of my bed cover and what I’d paused on my TV to take the call. I’d told myself that although he’d been unwell he had gone past anything like that. I didn’t want to think about what I could have done more to help.
It’s been hard to admit but I was not the friend to him that I thought I was. I can’t analyse what he was going through or how he felt. I’ll never know what happened in the lead up to him dying. I do though know I didn’t do enough. Even if I had it might not have changed anything. I still could have done more.
I did speak with him a while before about mental illness. I visited him in hospital when he was taking time to get better. I even shared with him my own experience of being affected by a depression that left me wanting to die. Perhaps I felt I’d done enough to make myself an option should he want to talk. I moved back to cricket, Everton, music and pool as the basis of time together and what we’d talk about.
He’d have been 38 today. Instead he’s frozen in my head as a 24 year old. Still someone wanting to get more catches and stumpings. Still inclined to a surreal piece of humour. Still someone so loveably sincere.
I think as time goes on it gets easier to rationalise things that happen. It was meant to be etc. I can’t do that in this case. If I let it then it nags at me.
I try to use that nag to keep Opening Up going. It’s not easy with life being so different for me since it started. Suicide prevention is still the aim. There’s heaps of data and strategies out there. I read as much as I can. Yet still the thing that matters most is what we can do for those closest to us.
Mental wellbeing has got to me more than just avoidance of mental ill health. Our sport shows us how techniques to help the mind can be transformative. The biggest difference for performance. Many of the same techniques aid wellbeing. We have what we need in cricket and the community it brings.
I had a quiet moment early this morning, having a coffee before work. I wondered how Alex would look if he walked in to the cafe. Would I get a bru or boet? Would his hair be going grey? Would be still be keeping wicket?
It’s sad. Too sad to really think about I reckon.
I’ll wish him a happy birthday and keeping remembering him.
Happy birthday, bru.
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