Gerry Reid
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of a dark day for me. One year ago tomorrow, my close friend Gerry Reid was fatally injured in a horrific wreck on I-40. Gerry was like a brother to me and his sudden death shook me to the core.
I remember telling my brother, Jeff, and my friend, Scott, in a moment of misplaced optimism outside of the Duke ER, that one day we would look back on this and laugh. Well, that didn’t pan out. For months afterward, I would collapse into sobbing fits at the thought of my friend. Other times, thoughts of him would frequently pop into my mind during the day. “I wonder what Gerry would think of this” was always a popular saying among his friends. That didn’t change with his death.
These twelve months haven’t been easy, but I can say that I’m learning to focus more on the good times we shared, rather than the way we parted. I know Gerry is still around, in one form or another. Occasionally I will dream of a conversation with him and it’s like nothing has changed. I wish I could hold on to more of those conversations and share them with others.
If there can be any good that came out of Gerry’s death, it’s that so many people gained the gift of life (or gained a better life) through Gerry’s many organ donations. From a completely selfish point of view, I have become friends with many of the hundreds of Gerry’s friends. As the saying goes, you can tell a lot about a person by the friends he had, and Gerry has the absolute best friends. These friends have become closer to each other following Gerry’s death, united in that way of tragedies, and our friend lives on through these connections and the many stories that are told.
I can’t speak for all the people who knew and loved Gerry. Everyone’s experience is different; everyone has to work through their own private grief. I still miss him and I always will. The Gerry I know wouldn’t want me to mope, though. He’d soon be in full cheerleader mode, urging me to get back to living life to the fullest.
It’s tough, Gerry, but I’ll get there.