Monthly Archives: September 2009

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Dear Jason

I read in a book once if you wanted to \”forgive\” someone who had passed on to write a letter to them which of obvious reasons you can\’t send to at them.  Its not so much that I don\’t forgive you; I just have a lot to say I guess.  My guilty conscious eating away at me for all those e-mails I never sent to you when you were actually alive to read them.  I could make these posts private as you know I\’m not one to publicly broadcast my pain I choose not to for a few reasons.  Not because I want anyone\’s pity, but maybe this will help someone.  Besides its my blog, my domain, my rules! lol

It still hasn\’t sunk in yet which is normal I suppose, its only been 4.5 days.  I just keep hoping that this is just a horrendous nightmare that I will wake up from and I will come home from work to find an e-mail from you telling me that your alive and well like you did the last time you ran off on me.  I\’m kicking myself in the ass in a way.  I knew, I had this feeling and after reading those last e-mails we shared the signs were all there.  I know you can\’t help someone who won\’t/can\’t help themselves.  Perhaps you didn\’t want to, maybe you were too fucking proud to take my suggestion to determine if you were really bi-polar since you told me you were suffering from depression/anxiety.

Its a damn good thing you changed the IAM2 dev forums to my server because I didn\’t have an e-mail address handy for James in my contact list.  We hadn\’t spoken in a while, because we\’re all so insanely busy.  I\’m just glad that in spite of that fact that it was your death that brought us back together so to speak that he heard it from me.  Unlike myself who 1st heard about it via facebook but was too dense to clue in (sorry Carly) and then for some unforeseen reason I went onto Shannon\’s blog and read the news there.   Shannon of course being ever so tactful didn\’t say why but deep down I knew.  So I emailed him and me not being patient what so ever googled Carlsbad area newspapers and there you were.  The latest breaking news story for all the world to see.
I didn\’t want to believe that it was you although they said your name.  I shouldn\’t have read those news reports, especially after the fact.  I really didn\’t need to hear about what happened to your lovely face and your brilliant mind.
I cry a little less now, although sometimes its still hard.  Like when I was talking to Daniel, I couldn\’t help it when I talked to my mom and James being sweet gave me his number and I honestly can\’t bear to call him at the moment.

I wish that you were still here.  I missed you before and even more so now.  I was ever so hopeful that things would work out and we would rock out our projects and then you could say:\” Nothing tastes better then the embarrassment of those sure that you would fail\” (Marilyn Manson).  Since you can\’t I sure as hell can try!  I spoke to Daniel today, we both agreed that you can\’t EVER be replaced but in the same token I still need a \”business\” partner in some form or another.  Even just to take care of things if I get sick, or go on vacation and he accepted.  Fuck!  Sorry man, sometimes I have bursts of anger…  Modology will go on and eventually somehow, someway so will I but my life and our pet project will never be the same without you.  At first I was going to say the hell with it, it wouldn\’t be the same without you.  However James saying that we needed to round up the funds to pull the dreamhost account back into good standing so your legacy could continue so I decided against ditching it.  I will do my damnedest to move it all over to my server, its all I have left of you and I refuse to let it go.

People of course are talking a ton of shit and it pains me to read things like this and even this, you know why it hurts me in one way and its totally BOGUS bullshit in the other way.  In the same token however there\’s been a HUGE outpouring of support and people have been saying some really nice things about you.  One comment was especially nice:

\”Edurus_Fas wrote:

I hope no one minds me posting a poem I found a while ago.

A Memory Hug Author Unknown

Your loss has left a hole in your heart.
That never goes away…
you learn to live with it.
With acceptance of the loss and
changes in your life, the pain lessens.
Eventually memories fill up the space,
but it never goes away.
Then, when you least expect it,
a memory spills out of the hole
in your heart and washes
you clean again with tears.
Think of it as a Memory Hug

This poem helps me in some ways about the three members of my family I lost in 2008. I hope it helps those who knew Jason too.\”

At times like these I truly wish that there is life after death, because after I\’m done screaming at you for hurting me and countless others like this for doing what you did to yourself; then I can tell you I love you at least one more time because I do.  You were one of the sweetest guys I know and your my everything.   I\’m suffering from tattoo fever again and since I know you wanted another tattoo for the longest time I\’ll be getting one on your behalf.  Not quite sure what you had in mind so I\’m actually getting two, one for you and one on your behalf to remind me that life is precious.   I hope your resting well dear friend, I miss you.

Love Steph

Lyrics to How To Save A Life :
Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it\’s just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you\’ve told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you\’ve followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he\’ll say he\’s just not the same
And you\’ll begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life

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Gallery

Since I\’ve had numerous ask me if I had my work online I though that I might as well get off my ass and publish some of my \”work\”.  Photography is a hobby for me and nothing more.

Some of you may like it, some of you may think it sucks.  Which is fine because regardless of what you think, keep in mind that I don\’t care either way.

Broken down into categories to make for easier viewing, enjoy!

Steph

*Links open in a new window*

Black & white collection

Macro collection

Random collection

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Time well wasted today!

I\’ve wanted to go to the botanical gardens for a while now few years now.  Of course no one wants to go with me a majority of the time.  I asked Donna if she wanted to go and she said to me and I quote \” I don\’t want to spend the whole day watching you take pictures of flowers.\” So when Jackie said she\’d go with me, I was pretty excited!  I needed the distraction and today wasn\’t a disappointment.

We started out at this little tiny hole in the wall restaurant for brunch where Jackie patiently listened to me ramble on about Jason and offered up some thoughts on her own experiences as well.  I had jokingly said that if there was such a thing as life after death then I\’m looking forward to kicking his ass for hurting me so bad.  Her reply to that statement made a lot of sense and made me feel better: \”Steph, if there truly is life after death, then he\’ll already know how much you hurt and how much your suffering because of his loss.\”  She\’s got a point, I have to give her that!  It was also comforting to me in a way, because you know as religious as I am NOT by any stretch of the imagination I only wish/hope the he really can see just how much of an impact that his death has left on so many people.  I was able to get a hold of James who worked on the IAM2 project, I have yet to get back to him but I will on Monday.  He\’s really only one of the few people that knew how close we were.  The outpouring of awesome support I\’ve gotten from everyone has been amazing!  I\’ve had a lot of new people pop into my life and \”old\” people that I haven\’t heard from in forever come back into it.  I of course avoid dragging them into my emotional trauma and most of them have kept a respectful distance while I grieve.  I have to say once again that I am beyond grateful to have the close friends that I do.  I couldn\’t get through this without you and I love you for it!

Anyway moving along…  We ate after running some errands for her rescue and headed out to the gardens which is MASSIVE, Jesus Christ I think we both sat down for all of a minute the entire afternoon.   We had a field day checking out all the different gardens and even popped in briefly to the insectarium to see how much we weighed in ants & I picked up some candy coated bugs for the kids.  I\’m thinking Chelsea will think that its gross whereas Dustin will think its pretty neat.  What can I say, that\’s the fun part about being an aunt 🙂

All in all it was a good day, although an exceptionally long one!  Then we headed off to the west island for some dinner and I got to meet my possible new companion for Heddy.  He\’s a cute little tabby cat and hopefully they get along as he\’s in need of a forever home.  My memory card is full and the batteries are dead so once they\’re recharged then I\’ll post pictures from the tattoo convention and the botanical gardens as well.  I\’m far more interested in seeing how my garden pictures turned out as I got pretty up close and personal with some bee\’s while I was there.  Didn\’t get stung by any thankfully and I also nabbed a shot of a butterfly that was kind enough to hang out while I took a picture.  One thing I\’m not looking forward to is uploading literally hundreds of images.  My HDD is once again becoming over-run with images and needs to be sorted out again *le sigh*

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And life goes on…

I got a text from Jen this morning asking me to go to the tattoo convention (which I had forgotten ALL about) but after reading yet another follow up on Jason\’s death in the news with some rather gruesome details I really wasn\’t feeling up to going.  Yet Jen was insistent that I don\’t stay at home & grieve like I wanted to today and go out and have some fun which I did and I am pretty glad that I didn\’t stay at home & cry and freak out.  You know l I wanted to *cough cough* thanks for \”ruing that Jen\” lol *cough*.  Generally I\’m usually the  tough girl who hides behind her feelings and its rare for me to let them out.  However I can tell you one thing that I am so eternally grateful that I have the friends that I do have and the awesome support they\’ve given me.  I\’ve had countless people die in my life, it happens.  This isn\’t my first suicide related death that I\’ve had to deal with either but this one was the closest to home for me and I\’m still numb from the shock of it all.

Jason\’s death rocked me to the very core of a soul that I didn\’t even know that I had.  It still hurts, and I won\’t go on pretending it doesn\’t.  It still seems surreal to me that I won\’t ever hear from him again.  I thought of him today when I was at the convention and how he always wanted to get another tattoo.  So I talked to my ex today who\’s apprenticing to tattoo and he\’s going to do a small memorial piece for me after Christmas when the shop isn\’t so busy.  Jason couldn\’t afford to get a new tattoo, so this one will be for him in his honor.  His death has taught me that life is short and sometimes goes by too fast even if he was the one who decided to cut it short.  Needless to say I am now counting my blessings a little more then I used to.

I shunned the convention for a few years now mostly because it was the same old, same old. However this year was MUCH better then the previous one\’s I\’ve attended and I\’m glad that I went we had a lot of fun!  Jen nabbed all kinds of goodies for herself, Clint got a new tattoo, I nabbed a ton of tattoo convention swag for Ania, I treated myself to a really amazing poster that I need to have framed & had an awesome and exceptionally entertaining dinner.  Dinner was entertaining because as we were sitting on the terrace which overlooked the space between Windsor station where the convention was being held and the bell center where the killers were playing tonight so there was a huge crowd outside between the 2 events and all of a sudden I see numerous people pointing up to the Marriott hotel and at first I didn\’t know what everyone was pointing at until I noticed a couple in the window giving us a free show.  I don\’t think they realized how many people were paying attention to them until they looked out the window where at least 500 people started cheering and waving lol.

All in all, was a really good day!  Spent money that I shouldn\’t have, but I rarely go to the conventions and fuck it, you only live once!  During my time at the convention, I got a phone call from someone that I haven\’t heard from in ages so we made plans to hang out after I got home.  I won\’t divulge all the details but needless to say it was good to see him because of an incident that had occured 2 years ago and I was itching to call him on it.  Which I did of course!  It was nice to see him, somewhat reminiscent of high school to some degree but all in all the entire day was a welcome distraction.   Good times, with even better friends 🙂

Some people have asked what will happen to the business but I want to make one thing clear: Yes Jason *was* my business partner but first and foremost he was a dear friend.  Our friendship developed quite the bond over time and while I need time to heal this gaping wound of hurt that I have, the show must go on.  Jason would have wanted it that way.  I\’m trying to come up with the funding to reinstate his now suspended dream host account (which I always had access to).  That\’s where IAM2 was hosted and several other sites as well so I would at least like to get the source codes so I can move it to my domain and try to keep his memory alive in some form or another.   As far as Modology is concerned, even though Jason is no longer with us;  he will still be listed as staff.  Any money he would have made through our business venture will be put into a fund and donated to various charities that deal with suicide prevention and awareness.

Eventually I would like to start the Jason Cartwright memorial fund in his honor as a non profit organization.  Looking back I knew, the signs were there and while I did my best to rally behind him and be there I think that it was just too much for him to take.  I\’m 99.9% certain that the whole incident with Rachel fucking him over at his job at BME the way that she did was the proverbial straw.  Had it not been her it would have most likely been someone else of course.  I acknowledge that for what it is, I will however forever blame her for his un-timely demise.  As far as I\’m concerned, even though she wasn\’t there; she was the driving force behind him pulling the trigger.

Perhaps I just need someone to blame amongst the grief/anger/sadness/hurt I feel at the moment.  Maybe not, but I knew him better then most which is sad.  I have a ton of people to rally behind me when things get tough and for the first time I let them \”shoulder\” the burden of grief with me and I\’m glad I did.  Sometimes one needs to break down their barriers and let some people in, or at the very least; build a few windows.

I\’m looking forward to later to day where I\’m visiting the botanical gardens with Jackie so that should be a lot of fun.  Haven\’t been there yet strangely enough!  So there\’s going to be a ton of pictures to upload when I get home.  I took lots at the convention today and I\’m not going to bother uploading any of them until I get back from the botanical gardens.