Remembering Adam McVay

I’ve been thinking about my friend Adam lately. He took his own life in September 2004. I found out about it months later, sometime in 2005. I found out via email and let out a cry outside the canteen building of the college where I was studying Art Foundation. I never met Adam face to face, but he was one of my best friends. Adam McVay, was a friend of my friend, Marie. The connection was Spain, where both of us had lived (although my parents are English and his are American) although he wasn’t living in Spain anymore but had relocated to Louisiana. Marie introduced us via email. After that, we wrote to each other on and off for six years. I was 15 and he was 17 when we first started corresponding. We wrote about all sorts – art, literature, politics, scrambled attempts to make any sense whatsoever about our respective loves and friendships, music, film, depression etc. He introduced me to the art of Andy Warhol. That seems incredible to me now, as Warhol’s everywhere. Well, I didn’t know about him until 1998 when Adam enthusiastically sent me a long email about him with a bio and potted history of sorts. Adam’s interests were eclectic and he was a fucking intelligent young man. But that’s it, he stayed young. He took his life at age 23. We used to send each other poems. This is one that Adam wrote and this is the preceding note to it. ‘anyway, i wrote a poem with my sister, yan yan, you, and a bunch of other girls in mind, just kind of the sense of frustration and understanding that i get from one or the other. anyway, see what you make of it:’
Poem by Adam McVay

It's someone you know, and love very much

And with the failure of a phone call

They turn into that sense of loss you scream out against.



You never get sick gradually

You're sitting there eating a hamburger or something

And then you just don't want it anymore

Why not? Because the air from the A/C is too cold

And your long sleeves are about to make you pass out sweating



It kind of happens like this

You are anxious and hopeful

So much that you push away that sense of evil

The one that occupies your peripheral awareness

Then you dial in the number and wait



She's talking, and you answer, and she says oh

I was talking to Lisa, or Wade, or God



You're talking about art, and the romance of old couples

who were separated by death for only a few hours

And you know she usually thinks of things like that

But she thinks you're weird because you say them



It's that feeling of sickness that makes you feel like a hollow body

Just a cold animated steak that wants to cry in bed



I feel so fragile, like I have the energy of a great American dam in my head

But someone could shatter me from the outside with just a laugh.



But I've been sitting here for hours staring at the bed from a chair

And the bed seems like a large, sickly, off-white person

You just don't want to sleep with, thought it'll be ok when you fall asleep



So instead I am going to work on my fluorescent tan, writing poetry

About intangible things that I think only Elisabeth will understand

And identify with, Unless.

I’m the ‘Elisabeth’ in the poem, that’s my Sunday name although I go by Eli. I hope I’m not blinded by my friendship with Adam, but I think it’s a fucking fantastic poem – aptly describing the debilitating nature of depression while scrambling bravely still to connect with loved ones, to feel human again. It’s desperately sad, but also very moving and well-crafted. Reminds me of an Elliott Smith or Jackson C Frank song, in its tone, subject matter and musicality.

The following poem is something I wrote for Adam, maybe a month or so after finding out. I remember feeling guilty for missing him. I thought I had no right to grieve as I’d never met him in person and I knew his sister, parents and girlfriend Yan Yan, and our mutual friend Marie, would be beside themselves with pain and unimaginable grief. I wrote to his sister, Micara and to his mum at the time and I’m still in touch with Micara.

For Adam McVay 10.07.05

Abducted. Vegetating
in certain states
by a current; seamless
flow. Ingrown words
plagued by somnolent
soul splashed
into a soul-less
screen to
wake me
make me
stand to attention
refill my brain
with heightened
idea injections,
disturbances,
pokings -
highly welcomed -
orchestral poetics
by a raw, life-fanatic
whose haunted passage
infected me with
what is an
unstoppable surge of rage
at the nothingness that
remains of
this agent of passion,
constantly mocking the mediocre into oblivion -
overwhelmingly overloading me
with upwardly descending
thoughts
to fertilise my mind
with explosions
of wonderfully unstaged,
arranged - indescribably
beautiful letters -
that unsettled, alarmed me
into action -
this creator, instigator
is angrily, notably
missed in his absence.

I wrote a more tender poem for him another time, and I hope it doesn’t sound too angry. I wasn’t angry with Adam, I was angry about his loss. My poem isn’t great but it does describe something of the rawness of being 22 (when I found out about Adam’s suicide) and losing someone I’d loved and connected to on a deep level. This is something I wrote to Adam’s mum at the time, which I hope sums up our friendship somehow:

‘Throughout those six years when we wrote to each other, he sent me a
sizeable amount of his writing. Much of it was published on the internet.
I was wondering whether you’d like me to send any more of it. All I know is
that such an indescribably soulful person as Adam should be remembered, for
his enviable enthusiasm, and his talent for art, poetry and thinking.
I loved him, even though I never met him, he was one of my best friends.’

The line in Adam’s poem where he says ‘They turn into that sense of loss you scream out against’ fucking gets me to now. Sums things up about his loss so painfully. I miss him very much and from time to time wonder what he would think about certain situations, artists, music etc. I wish his poems, paintings and stories had a wider audience. He was a conflicted, depressed, funny, raging, talented, provocative thinker and person, and just beautiful.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or depression, I would urge you to contact 24/7 helpline Samaritans. UK: 0845 790 90 90 ROI: 116 123 or via email at jo@samaritans.org

THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST LIVING MISERABLY, or CALM, is a registered charity, which exists to prevent male suicide in the UK. In 2013, male suicide accounts for 78% of all suicides and is the single biggest cause of death in men aged 20 – 45 in the UK. Get in touch with them from 5pm to midnight every day on 0800 58 58 58

There is also a fantastic BBC documentary called ‘Life After Suicide’ by Angela Samata, here: BBC Life After Suicide Documentary I watched it earlier this year, and it was immensely helpful and moving. Angela’s partner took his own life and the film charts Angela’s journey over a decade after, remembering him and the aftermath of his death, but also talking to other families bereaved by suicide. It’s a very brave film and Angela is helping to open up the dialogue about an incredibly painful and taboo subject.