I was always frustrated by one area of impenetrability, which was that Terry never flagged in his enthusiasms. There was beauty in that, but there was also a closedness in it. If something went wrong, he was always immediately thrilled by what he had learned from it. If it rained, he was rapturous about all the indoor things we might never have done had there been sunshine, and if we were arguing, it was always sure to make us closer. I’ve tried for a clearer formulation of this relentless quality; at the time, it seemed like only built-in cheerfulness, but now I know that it was a way of keeping despair always at bay, and reflected not perfect resilience, but a terrified vulnerability, as though he knew that the slightest incursion of darkness would be enough to swallow him whole. It was a pleasant quality in doses, but it precluded certain depths of intimacy. You couldn’t see Terry and not have fun, and sometimes, you wanted him to be bored, or tired, just for a minute. There had to be sadness in him, but you couldn’t reach it except when it came out of him in quick, rare flashes of anger, and it’s hard to be friends with someone who will never be sad with you.
[This is a gorgeous essay. I hate to excerpt it at all. -Ed.]
Douglas Faneuil is the founder of Living Proof Productions, a not-for-profit devoted to suicide prevention based in New York City. He also designs database solutions for companies throughout the Northeast.