influence

The biggest influence in my life was my friend Nick. I became friends with him when i was 13. He stuck out like a sore thumb with his 10 inch tall teal mohawk. He was really free spirited, and outgoing. He taught me how to not care about things that didn't matter, and as cliche as it sounds, he taught me how to live life by each moment, and not worry about the future. Fall of 2005, Nick showed us this "gnarly battle wound" he got from skateboarding down a steep hill and eating shit on the pavement. It was all swollen, and we would try and press it like a button, and he would get irritated. That lump didn't go away. He went to the doctor for a cold, and came back with stage 4 Ewing's Sarcoma, which is an aggressive for of bone cancer. We were all shocked, but for Nick's sake, we tried to go about things like we did everyday. I still drew vagina's on his bedroom wall, and he still picked my nose and sat on Tom's head. We still went ghost hunting at the infamous Bachelor's Grove, and tried to go about things like nothing was wrong. Our friend Autumn threw a party at her house with a huge donation jar for people to give money towards his treatment. His mom was a mom to all of us, so we wanted to help her out. I remember me asking him how he was doing and him smiling and giving me jazz hands as he replied " I'm Dying!"... so i socked him real good in the stomach. Winter of 2006, he disappeared. He refused to leave his house because he wasn't feeling good. We tried to throw rocks at his window, and ring the doorbell, and harass him until he came out, but he never budged. I got the call from his girlfriend Ashley at 12:27 in the morning exactly on April 24th, 2006. I didn't pick up because i knew what she was going to say. Nick was dead. We found out from Nina(his mom) that the reason he became reclusive in the last months was because he didn't want us to see him, and remember him as sickly, frail Nick. He wanted us to remember him how he always was. The saying " you never know what you had until you've lost it" never applied to us in Nick's case. We knew he was amazing, and we knew he was one of a kind. Even though it meant no more phone calls when his eyebrows grew back in, and no more drawing them on with different colored eyeliner just to make him mad, we knew it was for the best. We had another party at Autumn's to raise money for a memorial, since his family had him cremated. The memorial consisted of us plating a tree in a nearby park, putting a gold plaque in the ground engraved with his name and a few other things, and ceramic angels set into the ground on either side of the plaque. I used to visit it once a week when i still lived at home. There's not a day that goes by when i don't think about him. Even if it's just for a second. He influenced all of his friends, and we all miss him terribly. I can't believe it's been two and a half years already. He was no doubt, the most influential person in my life. And i will never forget him.