Requiescat

One of my friends died of a sudden heart attack yesterday. Tony Frawley, Irish, aged 48. He was a member of my little family of friends here on Pha Ngan.

I got there about half and hour after it happened, and it must just have been my own racing pulse that I felt when I checked him out. He was gone, but still fully warm. We sat with him on the deck of the Dragon Bar through the rest of the sunset, overlooking Haad Salad bay. He had said to one of us last week, "I don't want a long time, I want a good time." And he had it. He and Mairead had a great three months here. And how much better a place than a long, grim decline in a hospital bed. Haad Salad is so lovely at sunset, the rocks and the palms and the fishing boats. And for her, I think it's been good to have hethe rest of us right around her, so close at hand when it happened. We've just been sitting with her and help her get everything squared away to go back to Ireland. John and Sven and I moved their stuff out and returned his motorbike. TJ took her to Samui to get some of her affairs straightened out. Better that than many other ways it could have happened.

He was starting over. After twenty-three years in the army and a previous marriage and five children, he retired and started a new life with Mairead. He was so goddamn tough when he was alive. You just can't plan these things. They were getting ready to open their sunset bar out on the rocks overlooking the sea.

And now things are breaking up and settling down at the same time. Everyone's talking about quitting smoking. Talking about leaving. Talking about taking the opportunities that are in front of them. Talking about mortality. It's all pretty familiar from other deaths, but the whole thing has been really shocking and grim.

It's funny, Sven and I were planning a going-away dinner party for all of us right when it happened. Once Mairead's on her way, I'm leaving the island.