what stored me really for a loop over the last two weeks
is i got a email from the son of a friend of mine and i was informed that he he took his life so
again i was in a state of mourning
i'm not going to mention his name i'll just call him al and
al was a really active subscriber on my channel over the last two or three years and
over the last year and a half he and i have
been talking a lot more because he's a big sharpening katana sharpening guru
we had this entire plan for katanas and i've i've already invested over you know over ten
thousand dollars buying old katanas that needed polishing i purchased five or six thousand dollars
of katana natural whetstones and and so we were talking well on a weekly or bi-weekly basis
the week the day that i got the email from his son we had just spoken about four to five days before
about some you know knew what stones that he wanted to pick up so you know in all honesty
it hit me completely by surprise i knew he was a little lonely i knew he was a little
you know bored because he was living at home by himself and he didn't have a significant other
and you know it was during in 2020 when we really started getting to know each other it was during
the heat of the pandemic right so so he didn't go out very much he was locked away at home
um i didn't think it was going to be that bad
i didn't know it was that bad so when i got the email from his son it it was a really weird
email to receive because i felt like i could just call him on the phone and send him a text
because i i you know processing you know trying to process it and trying to understand it i looked at
my phone i'm like literally four or five days ago he just texted me about some wet stones
so so i didn't feel like it was appropriate for me to post a video and you know fake a smile or
pretend like nothing ever happened
so that's where i am today um i'm you know i'm i'm over the hump in terms of my sickness
i'm 99 better
but there are these um things that are happening around me within my immediate circle that
just got me thinking a lot more about life and about
yeah about life and i really just wanted to post this video to tell you guys that i'm okay
letting you guys know i'm okay i've gotten a lot of messages from you guys on instagram on facebook
um the comments section my email everyone's asking if i'm okay and you know i'm okay
you know but i just want to encourage you guys
if you guys have someone you've been thinking about and there's someone that you haven't
wanted to call drop a line to just to say hello tell them you love them please do right i mean
you know the the fixer in me the the problem solver in me feels like i could have called al
and i could have said hey man just thinking about you let you know letting you know everything's
okay on my end i hope you're well uh you know so part of me feels like i'm response i'm not
responsible i can't i can't let myself feel like i'm responsible for his death
but part of me feels like i could have done something different or part of me questions
you know whether or not i could have done something different and you know i spoke to
a couple of people about this and they said hey you know what don't beat yourself up
nothing you could have done or said would have changed the outcome that's probably true but there
is a part of me that wonders you know if i could have done something you know something different
al is not the first person i've lost through suicide or to suicide
and so the feeling is not new but it's something that you're never prepared for and you never
you never get used to it one of my co-workers um back when i had a normal job
he took his life the day he said to me i'll see you tomorrow and so all of those emotions and
the thoughts came back when i heard about how and i thought man you know like had i invited him to
grab a drink after work and maybe he wouldn't have done what he did
know so the same feeling goes uh the same thoughts go through my mind about else maybe if i call them
that day you know he'd still be here so i just you know there's there's not
much point to what i'm saying other than i just hope that you guys can
make that time to make the phone call send that email send a text to someone you've
been thinking about later on you love them let them know you're thinking about them
because they can literally go in an
instant
i didn't know what was gonna go through my mind you know making this video i i thought
i thought i was just gonna make a video and just to be cheery and talk to you guys about
the new studio that i'm so excited for but i i can't fake it um i can't pretend that
these things don't affect me that they don't happen so i hope you guys can appreciate that
you