I just found this in my old OLD journal. 2005 was such a bad year for me. This was what kicked it off and I felt like I should always remember how I felt THAT day.
A little background...my cousin, Mervin, was gay. He could never be openly gay until he went away to school at Texas A&M because of fear of what would happen to him in our small town. Though he never "came out" to any of us in the family, we all knew he was gay. It was just unspoken. It's funny. I think this is hitting me so hard right now because we've had two suicides in middle TN lately from bullying and it just grates on my nerves because in high school my cousin was bullied...and from reading his online journal right before he died, his "personal" relationships didn't go so well either. So sad. So desperately sad. God, I miss him. He was my big brother...and knowing he's now just a headstone at Carter Cemetery breaks my heart. He was so much more than that.
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FEBRUARY 7, 2005
Today has been...interesting, depressing, shocking...and I'm sure I could think of a million other words about it.
Sometimes in our lives...there's someone that may not be a sibling, but is close enough to be considered one. It's someone who is there for you and you hang out with on a daily basis. This person can be a friend...or even closer, a cousin. Life goes on and you each go on to do different things and life just gets in the way, in general. You always assume that there will be time later in life to catch up again. Time to sit around and reminisce about when you were kids and used to ride bikes together, play kickball, use your grandparents swing as a spaceship and watch tv together.
Sometimes you don't get that chance. Sometimes, through life's many twists and turns, you lose track of one another and you don't know what's going on with that person who is special to you and is close enough to be your brother. You think about them. You wish you could see them more often. You're PROUD of them for all they've accomplished. You wish you could be LIKE them...as smart and independent. Sometimes you just wish you had been there for them so that MAYBE tragedy wouldn't have had to claim them.
When someone close to you commits suicide, it's hard enough dealing with the emotional distress of losing them...much less dealing with the thoughts and concerns about what they must have been going through to bring them to it. All you can do is cry and wonder about what was so bad about life to make them do it. Then you cry some more. It's something I'll never understand...and I know that...I just wish I had known how much pain he was in. Maybe I could have helped...even if I was just a voice on the phone.
How does someone who is three months away from completing his DOCTORATE in BIOCHEMISTRY go from being so bright and vibrant to taking his own life in the chem lab of Texas A&M, the school he loved so much? Why does someone who is literally a genius just forgo a job offer in JAPAN to take his life in such a way? Why? I just want to know. I wish he were here. I wish I could hug him. I wish...and I pray. I pray for him. I pray for his parents and his sister. I pray for his niece and nephew. I pray for our family. I pray for understanding. I pray for God to forgive him. I just pray. With all my might, I pray.
As silly as it may seem, all I can see in my minds eye right now is all those times we played at my grandma's house and my house. I see us riding bikes around here. I see him as the person I wanted to be so badly.
I don't see him as the pathetic person that I know the detectives at Texas A&M see him as. I don't see him as he portrayed himself in the suicide note. I just see HIM.
God, please...help us all to understand and get through this with as much dignity and grace as possible.
Now, since I've made no sense...here's the story from the news in College Station, TX:
Aggie Grad Student Found Dead
Steve Fullhart
A Texas A&M graduate student was found dead Monday morning in the chemistry building.
The body of 27-year-old Mervin J. Bazile Jr. was found in one of the third-floor labs seated at a desk with a note on the table in front of him. University Police would only confirm the note appeared to be written by Bazile, but would not elaborate on the contents of the note.
Bazile's family has been notified, and his body has been sent to Conroe for an autopsy. Officials on the scene estimate the body could have been in the room since Sunday night.
UPD was there for four hours Monday morning examining the scene. No classes or schoolwork was disrupted as a result, and use of the building is back to normal as of early Monday afternoon. The facilities in which Bazile's body was found are used by graduate students, but weren't scheduled to be used until later in the day.
Bazile lived in Bryan and was originally from Louisiana. He was a graduate student in the chemistry department.
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