My sorely missed best friend

2 years ago I lost my best friend. He was everything to me. We would talk about everything and anything no matter what time of day or night. He would always be there to encourage me to try harder or keep going when I wanted to give up. He would be my voice of reason and my conscience sometimes. I would turn to him when I had a question or anything really in my life and he would come to me. I feel like he did alot more for me then I did for him even though he assured me all the time that I helped him out too.
I moved away and came back all within a couple years and we still didnt lose touch. I had just moved in with my now husband and Leon was complaining about some ingrown hair under his arm. We made a couple jokes about it and I urged him to get it checked out. A couple weeks passed and it wasnt mentioned again our lives went on as normal, talking about work and the different day to day activities we did. Then one day he messaged me and asked if I was sitting down. I thought he was going to tell me some ridiculous joke or something, I was not prepared for what came next. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma.I didnt know what to do or what to think. I must have been sitting on my kitchen floor crying for about an hour or so before J came home and I had to go over it again with him. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't strong enough to support my best friend through this. I couldn't even handle it myself let alone try to help him out like we always had.

It may sound selfish of me to say that I was worried about how I would handle it but its very true, first you worry about your friend then you worry about yourself then the rest kind of falls into place like the treatments he will be going through, the things he will be missing out on , the things he will have to see and endure. Its all very overwhelming. Im very happy that I can say he met someone during his struggle. They were perfect for each other, she is an amazing person and was by his side through the whole thing. I would be glad to call her my friend. I talked to him through it all. I would drive up to Hamilton after work frequently to bring him food and other assorted goodies. He remained calm through everything but you could tell that it was difficult for him as well.

He finally got to go home and we thought everything was good. For 6 months things were great he was out walking to the store and everything. Then again he messaged me asking if I was sitting, this time I expected the worst. The cancer was back. There was a tumor in his back that he had to get checked out. Then what feels like a crazy whirlwind, he was diagnosed with kidney failure, liver cancer and bone marrow. He had a bone marrow transplant and still through it all he was calm.

Then one day his girlfriend was done visiting and we didnt message as much since I didnt want to cut into his alone time with her since he had been sent home again after finding all this out. For a couple very quiet days on my end I wondered how he was doing, how he was feeling and so on. Then a mutual friend of mine messaged me and asked if I knew Leon had been rushed to the hospital. Which I didnt. I quickly called his phone which had no answer of course. I jumped up and started getting dressed even though I had a huge sinking feeling. It felt like time had stopped. I grabbed my phone again to check to see if I could get ahold of his brother to find out what hospital, I opened my Facebook app and dropped my phone. He was gone. Just like that. In a matter of minutes of finding out he was at the hospital someone had posted on Facebook that he was no longer with us.

There is not a day that goes by that I dont think about him. Something always reminds me. I will always regret that I never got to say a proper goodbye as our last conversation was more joking about his girlfriend visiting and how badly I needed a vacation before starting my new job the next month. Maybe it was better that way, a normal conversation instead of trying to get all the words right. I'll never know though.

I went out and got a tattoo in memory of him the following month I wanted to have something tangible to remember him by and have him with me always.