Jacob Aldridge

It seems like just yesterday I was introduced to a boy called Jake. He lived down the road with our friend Eli, and at first I thought this boy talks to much lol. He SOOn became a crush of mine. I liked jake and he told me we should just be friends. We ended up being the best of friends so good in fact Jakey loved me by junior year/senior year. We kissed the night before he left for the Army. I gave him a necklace of mine and i begged him not to leave. I was terrified he’d never come back. I was right, Jake left and a part of him was left behind when he came back. Jake wasn’t the same. He had seen too much. He was back a few years when Eli committed suicide in November 2014. Well they say he did, but I dont believe he did. Jake was out on a march with other veterans when he did it. They were roomates. I picked jake up that night and we mourned together. We stayed holding each other all night crying on and off into each others arms. I wanted to make sure he was okay that he was safe so i got him and had him stay. That was the night we did things we never told a soul about. He told me he loved me and wanted to raise my daughter and try to make us work. I told him no because I knew he was on drugs, and he said he’d stop for us. I didn’t give him a chance. we went months without talking, til one day we picked up where we left off and few weeks after that we ran into each other at the karaoke bar and we all had ablast that night. Fathers day 2015 ……was the last time Jake posted on Facebook. June 21, 2023…I talked to him just maybe a week prior. June 22, 2024 I got the phone call i dreaded. Jake had died ….a possible od/heart attack. They never really said the full stry. he was staying with a group of people he lived in an apartment out in the back of this house. SUPPOSEDLY these people checked on him every hour all night because he was sick the night before he was throwing up blood. Jake would have called Elis mom he always called her when he was sick or needed something, but she never got that call that he needed help. These people claimed to check on jake every single hour…..but when it was called in Jake had been dead for HOURS before anyone was called and the newspaper said it looked like the place had been “wiped clean”. NOBODY was charged with negligence or failure to render aide. I fell to floor sobbing screaming my Jakey was gone. I still miss his laugh if you wonder how he laughed, just watch jay and silent bob he looked and sounded just like jay. He intrduced me to clerks lol and dogma. He was the complete opposite of myself, but my best friend in the entire world. I am thinking of you today Jakey, it his father’s day and I wish I could have saved you on your last fathers day. See you again one day.