3/14/2000 - R.I.P.

1998 - Age 20

1984 - Age 6 June 1996 - Age 18

2000 - Imo, Jeff (22), Trails, & Bne

This is dedicated to one of my best friends: Jeffrey Rafael Alvarez.
We knew him as Odyssey. We used to hang out almost every day
and talk about life and our futures. We had plans and dreams.
He had everything going for him. He was only 22 and in school studying multi-media.
He was a talented mc and producer, who had been putting demos out for years.
We used to hang out, mix records, play shows together, and promote.
Jeff was a loving, charasmatic, good person who was fun to be around and
would always go out of his way to help you out if necessary.

Then things changed. His mother passed away and he took a leave of absence from
school to go settle her affairs. He still had a sister in NYC and some family in North Carolina but
in the years I knew him I never once heard him mention anything about a father. I later found out that
he had a step father that also passed away back in 1992.
He only had several really close friends, people he grew up with and people
that he saw on a daily and worked on music with.
He spent some time in Fort Lauderdale and then eventually moved back up to Orlando.
Ever since then he was abnormally quiet. Not just to strangers, even to his boys.
He then decided he was going to move to New York and look for work up there.
He had oppurtunities to work in a good industry and he had a degree in Culinary Arts.
He drove from Orlando to North Carolina and then to Washington DC and then New York.
After about a week of living in NY he said he got bored and moved back down here.
I figured he missed us, his only real friends in the world.

He talked of going back to school and he was supposed to become a representative for our company.
I made him some business cards and he bought a whole bunch of clothes from us that he was supposed to resell.
He just released an EP full of tracks him and his friends had made. We were about to move into a house together when
he started going through really bad depression. He was living on my couch and all he did was sleep like
12 hours a day and smoke a lot for about a week. I told him the herb would just make him sink further but
he wouldnt listen to anything I had to say. I confronted him several times and asked why he was acting so
strange and what can I do to help. He would just look away and not answer me. A few days later he found
somewhere else to stay and he seemed alright. We were back to hanging out again, going to record stores,
parties, whatever. He still wasn't really talking though.

One day he dropped all his records off in front of Immortal's house without even telling him. That had us kind of
worried. The next day I found that he had taken all the gear he had bought and brought it to school and gave it
all away. That is when we knew something was wrong. But he would just come and go as he pleased, pop up
whenever and then disappear for a couple of days. By now we were trying to figure out if we should have him
admitted to a hospital.

We were too late. I came home to find out that Odyssey had taken his own life. He drove out to the side of the
Florida Turnpike and shot himself. I didn't even know he owned a gun or where he could have got one from.
He was one of the most peaceful individuals you could ever meet and he never hurt anyone.
He just couldn't cope with living any more. He didn't have to go out like that. He still had us and we tried to help
him but he didnt know how to reach out and open up to the only people he could. He left us and his family grieving.
Hopefully now he is in a better place with his mother because I know that's all he wanted.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who has friends or family going through hard times. Look for the signs, talk to them,
and if that doesn't work do whatever it takes to get that person proffessional help. Even if it means calling the cops,
having them baker acted, or even just bringing them to talk to a counselor. Get Help!
Once that person is gone they are not coming back!

Life is relatively easy as long as you have water, food, and shelter. So please don't waste it and don't let your peoples
do the same. I hope whoever reads this gains something from it and learns from others experiences.
I'm just trying to make peace with my man while I sit here and shed tear after tear.
The sad thing is that about after a week almost no one will remember him.
But there will always be a hole in my life and all those who loved him.

Until we meet again,
Rest In Peace Odyssey
Love,
"TRAiLS" JMF

Check the Music Page for some of his songs!