Take comfort in your friends, everybody hurts.
At 3AM, we walked in to a quiet house. You know that feeling when you move somewhere new, the feeling of it not being your home? That you are somehow intruding on something that you can't really explain, but still, here you are in a home that has all of your things, so it couldn't possibly be anyone's home but yours? That's what it felt like. Rob and Pat weren't ready for bed. Neither was I, but I had wanted to give them some space. It was the beginning of a divide in me that I haven't really had the words to explain until now, but at that point I put their grief, the two people in the world who could have possibly understood what I felt, ahead of my own because I put misplaced value on myself and what I meant to Joe. I put more importance on their friendship and brotherhood, instead of viewing it all equally. It wasn't the smartest idea, in hindsight, and created some problems in my own mind that stick with me, still. We needed to get them some warm clo...