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Chas’s Memory
I remember the day when life, for me, changed from something taken for granted to something worth noticing.
During my junior year in high school, one of the seniors killed himself. We were a small enough school that most of us knew each other, and I had known this senior all two-plus years I’d been at that school. We were told his reasons for having killed himself, but they didn’t make sense to me or to my friends.
Later that spring, one of those friends killed herself. I had known her longer and better than I’d known the senior. She lived around the corner from our house.
Sandy was in the hospital with (I think) hepatitis. It was lonely there. Her mom (there wasn’t a dad in her household) worked and had a younger child to take care of, too, so she couldn’t spend much time visiting the hospital. After a few weeks, for reasons none of us knew, Sandy’s mom forbid Sandy’s boyfriend to visit the hospital. Then she gave away Sandy’s horse because she didn’t have time to take care of the horse.
On a day visit home, Sandy shot herself in the head with her shotgun. It took a few days for her to die. Even then, as an innocent 16-year-old, I ached for her mother.
Death made the rest of our group of friends more aware of life. I’m sure others from that group remember those few days when we called the hospital over and over and over again asking for news, hoping everyone else was wrong and Sandy would be all right again. We promised each other never to let anything somebody else did to us make us kill ourselves – a first step in appreciating life not as a given, but as a choice.
Chas
March 19, 2005
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Joel’s Memory
I am dying younger than I had planned, and memories hold less interest for me now than does curiosity. What’s next? I look forward to finding out.
Memory, though, is the contest, so here is one of mine, along with what it means to me.
I remember my mother ironing my father’s shirts on a summer afternoon. She always sang as she ironed, to entertain me and whichever of my friends were visiting. She ironed as she did everything else we saw her do, with love of the task and love of the people for whom she did these things.
Through law school and my practice, I retained her love of the task but lost her love for the people involved. Then I met the love of my life and learned that it’s impossible to love only one person, that love must be for everyone if it is to mean anything.
In the hospital these years since the “accident” that put me here, I have been surrounded by people who exemplify my mother’s love of the people for whom they “sing” as they do tasks. On GoodGrief, I see Chas “sing” with her words of support for all of us. I have worked to give that same gift within my shrinking environment. I hope I have succeeded.
Thank you all for your loving support of my efforts to leave the hospital. I am leaving soon, not in the way I had planned, but with a peace I could never have imagined.
Joel
March 22, 2005
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Site and page contents and design copyright 1997-2006 Chas Ridley.
Portions copyright 1999 Dan Ridley, used with permission.
This is revision 13 of http://hotbooks.com, the Web site for
Chas Ridley, PO Box 1290, Mt. Shasta, CA, USA
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