Reverend In Peace

The first I heard about Jimmy was the morning of the 29th of December, my friend form Ireland was over so I hadn’t really been keeping up to date on the on goings of the world via the internet or TV. I was actually washing my face in the bathroom when I heard my mobile phone ringing in the next room, my friend passed me the phone in the hallway, still ringing and laughed because I still had half of my face covered with white soapy cream.

When I saw who was ringing I assumed it was because she had managed to clear some time to meet up with us the next day, she had said she was busy the day before. It baffled me slightly though because the friend that was ringing me hates talking on the phone, preferring to converse through text or online.

When I answered and heard what she said my stomach dropped, almost like the feeling when you realise you’ve fucked up real bad and there isn’t a way to fix it. The first thing I said was ‘Oh shit, you’re joking, right? Please tell me this is a joke’

A reasonable request, I think, they aren’t unknown for playing pranks, and it’s not like any of my friends like Avenged Sevenfold, other than the odd song which they grow attached to.
When all she replied with was ‘I’m sorry’ I knew she wasn’t joking, I could hear the genuine regret in her voice.

At that point I was glad I was holding onto the sink because my legs buckled from below me for a second I tried to say ‘please tell me this is a sick fucking joke’ but I’m not really sure what came out because I started having a panic attack, something not as foreign to me as I would like it to be, as it’s happened a few times before.

‘I’m really fucking sorry’ was all I heard before I hung up.

Then I cried, I’m not sure how long but it was on and off for over two hours, maybe three, my friend started crying at the sight of me curled up crying – the first time I’ve witnessed her cry in the seven years I’ve known her. She told me that when I first walked back into my room and collapsed on my bed beside her, in tears, that one of my friends had died.

After about half an hour of crying I decided to check the internet, I looked on the avenged sevenfold official website, facebook and Wikipedia and each confirmed the next. I even went to my mobile and checked it wasn’t April fool’s day – that’s how desperate I was, I forgot it was December.

After that my face contorted into tears as I thought about Jimmy dying, he was 28, married and had his entire life ahead of him, he was a talented musician and every doorway could have opened for him.

Then I was laughing as I was crying because it was only that morning my friend and I had finished hanging up some Avenged Sevenfold posters that she had given me one of them was on the back of a ‘Bullet for my Valentine’ poster and I had a hard time deciding which way I wanted to stick it on the wall, eventually I had decided to go with Bullet because it was better photography, and now I’m going to switch sides again. I was also laughing because I felt numb and as if it was real, like I have dreamed it all.

Now I’m just in denial, Jimmy can’t have died, he was young, married and had millions of people who loved him and looked up to him both as a musician and as a person, but the unchanging sick feeling in my gut along with the tightness and dull, throbbing pain in my chest, which prevents me from sleeping tell me otherwise.

My deepest sorrows and sympathy go out to Avenged Sevenfold, along with Jimmy Sullivan’s friends and family and most of all; Leana, who are all going through such indescribable torment in possibly the darkest periods of their lives’