a person that saved my life: christophe laflamme

I met this guy back in second grade of primary school if I remember correctly and a large part of my rapid growth in terms of mental maturity for my age could largely be attributed to the challenges I faced in my own head at the time.

Tiny Russel went through a lot back then.

I remember vividly back in fourth grade, me on a yellow school bus on the way to school, dreading every single day I would attend, hoping the little bolts that would stick out on the metal strips of the bus that I would lay the left side of my head on would be pointy enough to poke a hole through my head when the bus hit a bumpy part of the road and end my life, as well as many other scenarios that would regularly plague my mind.

A person that, without a more eloquent way of putting it, saved my life, was Christophe.

He completely disappeared on all social medias and rarely uses his phone from my understanding. Last time we talked was back in fall of last year, and it was after he finished reading the rough draft of my first book. He door belled and visited my house to return it. We talked outside the entrance for hours, as we used to in the past, as for whatever reason, he always preferred to stay right outside the door and never come in, and the rare times he did, we would just watch music videos to whatever song we both liked at the time on the tv.

It was after a good amount of self reflection that I’ve done these last couple of weeks on my whole life and after reminiscing on the past, that I realized I kind of owe my life to a lot of people, especially him.

For the people that knew me in primary, with the exception of the middle to end of fifth, to end of sixth grade primary where I became a bit more confident, I was a pretty chubby and introverted individual. Often staying inside, just on my computer. People talk about getting outside and touching grass to others that are too chronically online, yet back at my worse, I remember some days being in the basement of my old house and even the sunlight that would radiate from upstairs felt like too much.

The habit of sitting on my computer stayed with me for years, and would be a coping mechanism for how much I hated not only myself physically, but my thoughts themselves too.

There would have many days where I’d be staying inside my house, and there would have days my friends would be playing outside in the park or in the neighbourhood, and they’d only see me online,even though I lived a 3 minute walk away from the park we used to regularly play at. I would frequently ignore calls and texts, and whenever I did respond, it was to only come up with an excuse as to why I couldn’t go. I felt pressured to go outside, yet Christophe, a lot of the times, was patient.

This guy would doorbell my house and already knew that I wasn’t going to come to the park. Instead of going to play basketball with everybody else right away, he would always make sure beforehand to take time out of his day just to check up on me and talk to me about whatever new music he listened to or about a particular game we were playing at the time.

He didn’t care to force me out of the house, and we’d even just go on walks around the neighbourhood, no matter the weather.

I’d say the most important part of the day for me are the walks I take by myself, and I just realized this as I’m writing it out, the main reason why I started even going out on walks in the first place is because of him.

For a person that harboured such a deep hatred for himself and just wanted to isolate himself from everybody regularly, Christophe was one person that old chubby Russel may have found annoying from time to time for how much he would door bell his house, but after a lot of self reflection, is one person that I, without a doubt, owe my life to.

written on: july 5, 2024 at 2:46 am