I snapped back to reality and looked around the room again. How could I ever of like this place? It’s so clammy and dark in here. It’s darker inside than what it is outside, the walls don’t have dry wall on them, there just bare wooden beams, nails are sticking out of them everywhere and the floor is just a wooden pallet set up on rafter beams. Nothing around me seemed real anymore. Like it wasn’t there the chair I was sitting in wasn’t real, the floor I was on, the table we sat around, the only thing that seemed real was us. The people that sat in these fake chairs, around this fake table, that is set up on this fake floor, with all of these fake objects scattered around the room.  I thought to myself, “how does it come to this? How could I have ever believed that any of this was real? These things aren’t making me happy, I was already happy, these things are just making me numb. Soon I’d be as numb as Steve.” The thought terrified me, it sent shivers down my spine and made my hands start to tremble.

Then I realized that I was still completely unaware of if Mike was ok. I knew why Mike had went to the hospital. I didn’t even need to ask, we all knew that Mike Gokee had O.D.  I tried to ask if Mike was ok. I wanted to know, or then again did I? Would it really matter? Are any of us going to be ok?  The answer was maybe, just maybe. I really didn’t think that there would ever be a time in my life that I would put myself into a situation where if I was asked if I was going to be ok, that I would only be able to say, maybe. I started to feel even sicker, leaning over the side of my chair I puked. After I was done vomiting I cleared my throat and asked, “is Mike going to be ok?”  Then I sat there patiently waiting, waiting for the answer that would follow. The answer was yes, Mike was going to be ok. But that answer was a lie in itself, he may have been ok this time, but in the end the answer would be no, Mike is not ok.

                My life changed that day. Mike taught me a lot, my relationship with him had its ups and downs. I spent a summer with him that I will never remember or ever forget. I still follow his philosophy; if you’re happy then what more do you need? Live today for today, because yesterday is the past and tomorrow may never come. That day in the garage and every day since, that saying has had a whole new meaning to me. I realized that I do not want to be in that garage the last day of my life, I don’t want to be doing any of those things the last day of my life.