Richards Grave

I went to Richards grave yesterday, my best friends grave. Feeling lost or too off my head to turn up amnywhere else I could always go see Richard . No judgement. Never a need to talk or be up or on the ball, I could just turn up and be welcomed. If I had no money or meens he would share his humble lot, if I was wedged up, it was his too. We were together, total trust. Seldom in life do ypou get that. Had Richard ridden the storm he would be here now. But it was not to be. His downward spiral, his deathwish too strong.

So, lost and confused I went to his grave. In the green burial area at Lawnswood cemetery there are some hundred saplings, one for each body, 6 feet under. Just one tree died. Perhaps the toxins in his body, the alcohol, the heroin, the methadone, the crack cocaine in Richards blood were just too much to sustain life, even the life of a tree. Isat with him, shared a can of special brew. I then took a walk to the undergrowth. No permanent markers are allowed in the green burial area, to the carved block of oak I had placed there to commemorate his death, I hid it in the undergrowth. Winter reveals it, in summer it is hidden by nettles and other weeds. I thank the Lawnswood staff for not moving it and hope it remains there.

Richard was the most honourable person I ever met. All people with prejudices about alcoholics and drug addicts are the same as racists anmd homophobes. Small minded boigots that the world could do without. But then Richard was always disabled, an invalid, an in valid, a none valid human being. I never saw him as anything other than a great human being. He saw himself not as he was percieved but as what he thiought 'normals' saw him. His bravery was huge. But his bravery gave out. No one is invincible, but he came close.

When the last time he went to hospital I hoped it may give him time to think. The strongest I saw him was in jail. His 'friends' let him down, but the break from being on the out gave him time to heal. He signed himself out from hospital, you can't do that from jail. Out of hospital he was free to destroy himself.

Those who broke his legs and hip nare dealt with. But it can't bring him bnack. They wetre the degrenerates. And I hope there is no place for them as I know there is a place for Richard. It was all we could do for you, my brother, I hope they burn in hell and that you rest in peace.