My Beliefs vs My Friend

It's February 2004, I'm 19 years old and I've just moved out of home for the first time. I start living with a friend from college, his brother, his brother's friend (Darren, who is the main point of this) and a German girl. I lived with them for about 15 weeks, give or take, and in that time I became good friends with Darren. We would have long conversations after I got home from work at 2/3am and they were cool conversations. There was even one time when I got home at 5am and found him just sitting outside the flat.

It was always obvious that Darren was, putting it nicely, not a person who society would like. He would regularly steal from the local HMV but was generally a nice lad. Infact, looking back on it, it becomes obvious that he was the one who was stealing the food from the rest of us. Despite this, I enjoyed the conversations I shared with him. Infact I remember one night I got home and we were talking, I was saying that I didn't want to go to work (I was working for McDonalds at the time) and asked him to break my leg, and he was actually going to do it. He actually got my ankle and knee and I have no idea what he was going to do, but I chickened out at the last minute. He always struck me as someone who would help his friends out.

I move out 15 weeks after moving in after growing tensions between myself and two of the other four housemates.

Darren Abrams

Skip forward to mid-2008 and I'm in contact with my friend from college and he tells me that Darren had killed himself in 2007. After looking into it, it turns out Darren was going to soon be on trial for being directly involved with murdering another person with his friend.

Although me and Darren hadn't spoken for several years and I only knew him for what even now does make up 0.1% of my life, it hit me and I was saddened, however, it got me onto the question of morality and I found myself questioning whether I should actually feel sad for him.

The guy was a nice lad whenever I spoke to him, but murdering someone (and reports suggest it was literally just because the guy he and his friend killed was a chav - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039804/Killer-murdered-teenager-boasted-dont-worry-just-chav-jailed-life.html) and then killing himself is something that really causes a bit of an internal issue with myself.

I have always had an issue with people who kill themselves. I'm not religious or anything, I don't believe in any kind of afterlife or anything and that allows for a certain level of being liberal with my beliefs, but suicide is always something that struck a nerve with me. Obviously there are certain situations I will let slide but suicide after you've killed, or at least directly helped kill someone, is something that really bugs me. I can't just ignore it when trying to remember my friend.

For what it's worth, RIP Darren.