Today's entry will be slightly different. I'm about to go out with a collegue of mine for drinks and amusement, but before I do there's something I'd like to share with you. Some of you might know bits and pieces, but I don't think I've ever told anyone all of this in full. So please, sit back, and let me tell you a story.
This past week was filled with photo's and messages from friends I made on my trip to Trinidad and Tobago years ago, as they celebrated their famous carnival. Just like it does every year, the constant stream of colourful images and entertaining stories made me think of my short time on that small island, and the journey that was supposed to change my life. It did, perhaps, but not in a way I would have foreseen.
My time in the Carribean was brief for a myriad of reasons, but they all boiled down to the simple fact I was still a kid and I couldn't cope with feeling bad and not really having anyone to share it with. I had just been dumped by my then-girlfriend and left without any form of closure, and I ended up on a beautiful paradise island that had a strong case of small-island mentality. The combination was too much for me to handle, and I ended up returning home well before the supposed end of my journey.
Tobago was a wonderful place though, an island where the majority of people were incredibly nice and people handled their business with respect for each other and the things around them. The locals didn't race around but took their time to enjoy the moment, and to be immersed in such an environment was refreshing while it lasted.
I stayed at a simple B&B and shared a room with Dominic, the owner of the local surf school I was working for. Dominic looked the part: always smiling, enjoying life to the fullest no matter what he did. I spent every second of my time there with Dom, and I never fully grasped how fond I had grown of him until I returned home. It was hard not to like Dominic, with his continious enthousiasm and his beautiful smile. No matter where we went, people always greeted him or stopped to have a chat, and through Dom I was quickly accepted by the local community of surfers and fishermen. I'm not sure what I would have done without him at the time, and the impact he made on me was quite astonishing.
After I returned home we stayed in touch, and even though we didn't speak as often as I would have liked, I greatly enjoyed our conversations. Dom always had time for me, and as I grew older I started to appreciate him and what he had done for me more and more. Dom wasn't perfect, and he had made mistakes like all of us, but he had things figured out. He was happy with what he was given and didn't ask for more. He worked for everything he had and he enjoyed every single day to the max. I was jealous at him for my inability to do the same thing, and I told myself on countless occasions that I would try to be more like Dom.
Tragically, Dom was taken from us six months ago. His body was found in the waters of the Mt Irvine region, the one place he enjoyed being more than anywhere else in this world. The circumstances surrounding his death were murky and will most likely never become clear, and his passing was accompanied by much pain and anger.
I choose to remember Dom differently. I remember the roommate that would wake me up every morning at five, share a couple of peanut-butter-jelly-sandwiches and a cup of coffee with me, strap his Rusty and my Byrne to the roof of his crappy car and drive the both of us down to the Bay to check on the surf. He never once during my time there missed a session. Dom wasn't a great surfer by any means, but he loved being in the water and his drive and passion were inspiring.
There's one particular session I remember, at a spot called Crazies. Dom got hammered and didn't catch a single decent ride (it was called Crazies for a reason) but he never let up, and he left the water smiling. He was smiling every time he took me to Airports, a beautiful spot that never once worked during my time in Tobago. And he was smiling when he dropped me off at the airport and told me I could come back any time.
He invited me back at least 50 times over the years, as did others. I've even been invited back a couple of times since his passing, and even as recently as last week. But I never returned to that place, and I don't think I ever will. There are some places that are marked in our minds, places that are irreversibly connected to a set of memories. They can be some of the most wonderful places in the world, places we return to hundreds of times in our lifetime and even more in our minds. But there are also the places we can never return to. The places that haunt us, the ones we see with our waking eye. Knowing we are in a place we will never be again is an odd feeling, and I wish I would have felt it as I boarded the plane.
Tobago didn't change me as I would have hoped. You always hear these stories of how people came back from trips a "changed man", but that never happened to me.
When Dom died six months ago, I was already going through hell. My parents had just boarded a plane and wouldn't be back for another week and I had no one to tell me things would be okay when I was told he was gone. I had just spoken to him and the realization that would have been the last time, the power of the last words he would ever say to me hit me like a brick to the face. It was the final drop, the final push I needed to put me over the edge.
Dom had his regrets. Hell, he had plenty of them. But at one point, we either allow our regrets to define who we are or we choose to learn from the mistakes we made and carry on. Too often I had done the former, and if there was one thing Dom tried to teach me, it would be the power of the latter. The way he lived and the manner in which he died made me want to be a better man, a different man from the one I had become. I won't tell you I was entirely successful as people are probably still able to read my regrets off my forehead, but ultimately, it was Dominic that led me here, today. Living in London, in an attempt to do something with my life before it's too late.
And it's not because he was taken from us far too soon. Dom didn't teach me anything the day he died- he taught me in living. His death wasn't a stark reminder that life can be over in a second: the story of his life was a painful reality check, the realization I was going absolutely nowhere, and nowhere fast.
I made Dom several promises, and I tried keeping all of them. In some I was successful, others I'm still fighting to keep. But every morning, when I turn on the computer to get to work and Skype opens, Dom's face greets me. I never had the heart to delete his profile, and I'm glad I didn't. Because it reminds me of the man who did more for me than he ever knew, and the man I'm hoping I can be. I have failed at numerous things and I have countles regrets, just like Dom did. But he found a way to be happy, and judging by the enormous support on his Facebook page and the almost daily messages from people missing him to this day, he found a way to make the ones around him happy as well.
You were an inspiration Dom, and every day I fight to make you proud. I'm sorry I haven't been in the water since, but I promise I'll keep trying. I love you man, and I miss you like hell.
Mahalo Dom.
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