I want to also add that my thoughts have been increasingly with Max's family and close friends at this time of the year. In fact, my wishes go out to all those who are reading this blog.
Tomas Corbyn, xx
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
A Year On
I can't believe it's been a year since Max went. I feel that the day Max did die will always be remembered as the most horrific one of my life. I don't feel it right to compare how I felt then and how I feel now, as only after we accepted and understood this loss did the Cadiz group start any sort of process of personal healing. It is a commonly used phrase to say that time can heal just about anything, but, even for me, who only knew Max for a few months, there will always be moments when I think back on what happened to him and feel the colour drain from my face. Looking back at what actually happened to Max, I can not see it as anything but an incredibly unfortunate event. Max was larking around, but that was Max and to take that away from him would be to extinguish part of his character. He deserved better, without doubt. I have found refuge in thinking about it pragmatically. It makes no sense to keep getting yourself caught up in the tragedy of it. The conclusion of this process for me came when I realised that there was no way of completely feeling better or letting the memories go. However, I think my way of coping is to try to cling onto the other memories I have of him. I've still got the baseball top I was wearing from that night in my wardrobe at uni. I can't get round to cleaning it. It doesn't remind me as much of the moment of Max's death than the amazing time we were having beforehand, so I guess it's more symbolic of how together we were as a group.
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I think I hear in what you say echoes of my own difficulties about how and why Max died. Certainly he was not an innocent bystander caught up in something that was not of his own making. He did have a hand in his own death, being too rash, thoughtless, or over-exuberant, perhaps having drunk too much for his judgement to be sound. But I also think that he was desperately unlucky - no-one seems to know quite how he fell, why he was unable to save himself. Young men between the ages of 18 and 25 are a vulnerable age group more likely to do reckless or ill-advised things and some of them die. Others walk away to tell the tale. It is so sad that Max did not.
I find It is so hard to accept that a few seconds fooling around should have had such a desperate consequence.
It must be terrible for those of you who saw him die to have to carry that memory with you, and I am pleased to hear that as time goes by you are finding ways of dealing with the horror of that night.
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