Faded Denim: October 2008

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Let's Go Dancing in the Rain... continued

i went to school the next day and put on the same strong mask. the principal gave an impersonal announcement about justin's death that morning and almost immediately i could hear sobs throughout the classroom. that was the worst week of my life. i tried to be a shoulder for others to cry on, but inside i was the one crying.
on wednesday evening my friend gave me a ride to justin's viewing. what surprised me when we walked into the room was that justin's parents weren't crying. they were smiling and comforting everyone. i asked them how they were holding up, and they told me that they were fine. they told me they knew that he wasn't hurting now, that he was with God and would wait for them in heaven. i cried and nearly collapsed. mrs. schultz stepped forward to hug me, and i cried on her beautiful red sweater. i looked into her eyes and saw her sympathy for a girl who'd lost her friend.
i went home that night with a deep sadness in my heart for justin. i wrote a letter to him that i planned on giving him at his funeral. in the letter i wrote to him about how sad everyone was, how much we missed him, how wonderful his parents were and the things he'd never get to do on earth. i closed it with:

somehow i've always believed that once in heaven, tangible things really don't mean that much anymore. well, before you get too used to your new life, take these things with you. the smell of grass thirty minutes after it's cut. the feel of freshly washed sheets. the heat of a small candle. the sound a bee makes. the taste of a hot coke just poured and swirling with ice - hot, but partially cold. the feel of raindrops on your soaked face. but if you take nothing else with you, take your family's embrace.

i paused and stared into my candle. i rearranged my pen in my hand and continued writing. tell you what, justin. when i die, let's go dancing in the rain. i smiled through tears and slid my letter into an envelope.
the next day was justin's funeral. at the last minute, my ride had to cancel because of a schedule conflict, and i was left to sit alone in my house crying. i glanced down at my letter and smiled, "how am i going to get this to you now, justin?" i laughed through my tears and kept crying.
sometimes strange thoughts pop into my head, as if from somewhere else. sitting on my bed fingering a tissue, one of those thoughts told me how to get it to him. smoke is faster than dirt. i was startled by this, but after thinking about it, i realized i was to burn the letter, not bury it. i cried for an hour as i carefully burned the letter. i'd burn a corner, then blow it out under the running water in the sink, afraid of the flames. eventually, the letter was gone and the white smoke streamed from my window. i waved it away and prayed to God that justin would someday read my words in the smoke.
that night i dreamt about death and awoke at 2:38 a.m. to hear rain tapping on my window. rare are the visible words from heaven, but those precious raindrops were my answer. i had told justin that i wanted to go dancing in the rain. the slow rhythm on my window told me that justin had heard me. in that moment, i knew that he felt no pain and that we would see each other again. and on that day, we will go dancing in the rain together.

claire hayenga

Let's Go Dancing in the Rain

spring break of 1999 was perfect - i got to spend the entire time with my friends just vegging and hanging out. of course, there was that english project due the day i got back, which i put off until the sunday before. i was sitting at my computer furiously making up an essay when my little sister walked in from softball practice eating a snow cone and laughing with a sticky smile.
"whatcha working on?" she asked lightheartedly.
i smiled at her appearance and told her that it was just an english essay. i turned back and continued clacking away. from behind my shoulder she tried to start a conversation.
"so..." she began. "you know a kid in your grade named justin? justin schultz?" she licked at a drip on her snow cone.
"yeah, i know him," i replied. i had gone to elementary school with justin. he had to be the greatest guy i knew. he never stopped smiling. justin had tried to teach me to play soccer in the third grade. i couldn't get it, so he smiled and told me to do my best and cheer everyone else on. i'd kind of lost touch with him in the last year, but i told my sister yes, anyway.
"well," she said, trying to keep her messy snow cone under control. "his church group went skiing this week." she paused to take a lick.
lucky guy, i thought.
my sister swallowed the ice chips and continued, "so he went skiing and today he died."
i felt the blood drain from my face in disbelief. my hands froze on the keyboard, and a line of Rs inched across the screen. mu jaw slowly dropped as i tried to process what she'd said. breathe, something in my head screamed. i shook my head and whipped around to look at my sister.
she was still innocently munching on her snow cone, staring at it determinedly. her eyes rose to mine and she leaned back, a little startled. "what?" she asked.
"y-you're joking, right? who told you that? i don't believe it. how? are you sure?" i spit out a long string of questions.
"claire," she stopped me. she began a little slower this time. "a girl on my softball team was house-sitting for them. justin's parents called her today and told her, and she told me. sorry, i didn't think you knew him." she sat very still waiting for my response.
every memory i had of justin flashed through my mind. i inhaled slowly. "no. no! NO!" i tried to scream. no words came out. i sat up clumsily and shakily ran from the room with my sister behind me yelling, "wait! i'm sorry..."
i called one of our mutual friends right away. she told me between sobs that no one knew why he died. the thirteen-year-old was as healthy as a horse. he fell asleep on saturday night in the hotel room, and when his roommate tried to wake him up sunday morning, justin wasn't breathing. i didn't want her to hear me cry, so i quickly got off the phone.

Friday, October 10, 2008

The Last Song for Christy... continued

i got the call a few months ago. even though matt and i had broken up over a year before, we were still close friends. the call wasn't from him, though. it was from another friend.
"becca, look... i thought i should tell you. christy died. she overdosed. heroin. i'm sorry."
the air went numb, and the murmur of the tv in the other room muted. i dropped the phone and stared at the wall for what seemed like hours.
"but she was clean. ten years now! she was clean..." i mumbled softly, my voice tainting the wind that blew on that rainy afternoon. i called matt. he was with his family up north, where it happened.
matt told me, "she wasn't supposed to die. she was going to be married in a couple of months. they had the date and everything. we found this picture of her. she was wearing wings. you should see it; she looks like an angel."
he wasn't crying. i searched the blues of his eyes for a tear, but he was hypnotized. the shock. the impossibility of his earth angel lost somewhere in the universe. it was too much.
"the last time i saw her, she was so happy. i had my guitar and i was playing for her, and she was laughing. she was so beautiful and so happy. she was going to be a makeup artist. she would have been the best." matt was smiling, and i took his hand.
she didn't have to die. she was clean for ten years, and then one day she started up again. her body couldnt take it. she passed out, and they couldn't revive her. they couldn't make her come back.

matt spoke during the funeral. his words were soft and eloquent, and he looked out at christy's friends and family and told them how much he loved her, how much he will always love her. he showed his tattoo, the one that he and his sister got together. some laughed. some cried.
the picture that matt had mentioned to me was perched behind the podium, between lilies and roses. matt was right. she did look like an angel - red lips and blue eyes, wearing white and angel wings.

that night, after the funeral, matt and i went down to the cove where he and christy used to laugh. "how could she do this? why? why did she have to do this?" he asked.
he cried. i cried, too.

i talked to matt the other day. i asked him how he was doing.
"i'm okay, he said. "most of the time. sometimes i can't sleep. i'm waiting for christy to come home or for her to call. sometimes i have these nightmares. i play the guitar a lot, even more than i used to. i have to practice. i'm in a band now, and we play gigs and stuff. the last song of the set is always the best. that's the song i practice over and over again until it's perfect. it has to be just perfect because i play it for christy. the last song is always for christy."

rebecca woolf

The Last Song for Christy

matt never did drugs. he spent his afternoons and nights riding his skateboard through backstreets of the small town that raised him. his friends would experiment with the usual substances, but not matt.

christy was his sister; six years older. she and matt were close. they both liked tattoos and metal guitar riffs. christy would paint incredible portraits and abstract images, and matt would jam on his guitar. they shared stories, and they always said "i love you" before bed.

when matt and i started dating, the first family member i was introduced to was his sister, christy.
"see this tattoo on my wrist. christy has it, too. we got them together." he lit up whenever he talked about her.
matt was at the peak of his skateboarding career, and christy was still painting. she was beautiful. they looked a lot alike - black hair, blue eyes. christy was petite - her makeup dark and interesting - her lips, red and passionate. she looked the part she played - the artist, the once-rebel who survived hell and was now back, living life while revisiting the shadows of her past with each stroke of her paintbrush.
when matt was in junior high, the police took christy away. his parents wouldn't tell him why, but he found out on his own. heroin. she had been doing heroin, and they caught her. she was only eighteen. she spent the next several months in rehab while matt waited, guitar riffs, skate tricks - waited.
when she finally did come home, things were different. christy seemed distant and matt didn't know what to say. a few months later, they came again - the police. matt was sleeping, and they knocked down the door. his sister was screaming as they dragged her away, this time to prison.

i asked matt what it was like, how that affected him. i tried to imagine hearing her scream. i wondered how it was possible for matt to sleep when he knew his sister was cold and alone in her cell somewhere.
"i couldn't," he said. "i couldn't sleep."
"did you visit her?" i asked.
matt was silent.
"did you ever talk to her about it, tell her how much it hurt you, tell her that you couldn't sleep, tell her that you were afraid?"
there was as long silence. "she's okay now. she's been clean for eight years. she's great. it's over. the drugs, it's all over." matt spoke to the wind when he spoke of christy's past. his voice would fade out into oblivion and then he'd change the subject.

when christy was finally released from jail and then rehab, matt's family decided to move. they moved south, away from christy's reputation and the backstreets where matt had conquered curbsides and half-pipes in the small town by the sea. christy was clean and never again did matt wake up to his sister's arrests, or a cold sweat after the nightmares that plagued him while she was away. she had been clean for six months, and then two years, and then four. matt went to high school and christy moved back up north to go to school.

"were you afraid?" i asked.
"nope. she was going back to school. i was glad. she was going to pursue her art. she was so talented, you know," matt whispered.
i knew. i had seen her artwork. it hung in matt's room, in his kitchen and bathroom. she had even painted straight on the walls. matt let her paint all over them.
matt and i dated during my senior year. he was my first serious relationship. christy came down to visit matt and the family pretty often, and whenever she came down, matt would rush to be with her. she was the woman in his life, more than i ever was. christy and matt were best friends. they were like nothing i had ever seen. matt would light up when christy entered a room. he was so proud of her. she was his angel, his big sister, and everything she said was amusing, brilliant or just cool.

Turn It Upside Down

i spent a little over a year working with kris at the creamery, an ice cream shop in our city. he was a year younger than me, about sixteen. we didn't attend the same high school and didn't have a lot in common - we simply worked together for an entire summer and school year. outside of work, i didn't know a lot about kris. he was close to his family, talked about his friends and his girlfriend a lot and was active in his church. but at work, i knew him well.
kris was probably one of the most uplifting people who i have known. he loved to joke around, often blockading one of us into the huge walk-in freezer where all the ice cream was kept. he was a tall guy with smiling brown eyes and sideburns that he grew really long. he had so much energy and was always the first to do the jobs the rest of us hated, such as cleaning out the bathrooms or taking out the huge bags of sticky trash. i loved nights that i got to work with him. they went by fast and were fun. plus, he was the only boy working at the creamery, so i felt safe when i walked out the door, sometimes around midnight, to go home.
i remember one night in particular. i came in at 5:00 p.m. that night to work the closing shift with kris and melanie. it was a hot summer day, and i was in a terrible mood, not at all looking forward to the night ahead. kris could tell right away i was in a bad mood and tried to cheer me up, but it was pretty much to no avail. i had decided that it was just going to be a rotten day, and there was nothing anyone could do to change that. we finished up early, took out the trash and were walking to our cars after saying goodnight. suddenly, i heard someone chasing after me. before i could turn around to see who it was, kris had picked me up and successfully turned me over so that he was holding me in the air upside down. i screamed until he finally let go, and i yelled at him, asking what in the heck he was doing. his reply was that he had to get me to smile at least once that night.
"well," i told him, "it didn't work. i didn't smile."
"yes, you did," he said. "you just had to be upside down to see it." he was basically implicating that my frown had been turned upside down. he flashed me a smile and said goodnight, and i smiled all the way home.
after a year and a half at the creamery, i decided i wanted to move on, so i wasn't there the night it happened. on july 15, 1999, they had just finished closing and kris was the only one behind the store when he got into his car around 11:00 p.m. he never made it out of the parking lot.
i was eating breakfast and watching the news the following morning. i listened with absolute terror as the reporter recounted the story. "a seventeen-year-old boy was the victim of a random act of violence last night. two fifteen-year-old boys and a seventeen-year-old boy are in custody for what was appears to have been an attempted carjacking in old colorado city." my heart stopped, my whole body went numb, and i knew even before his picture flashed on the screen and she said his name. "kristopher lohrmeyer died instantly from a single gunshot wound to the head."
something changed for me that night. kris died. i realized that nothing in our future is certain. the only thing i am ever going to have control over is my own attitude. and the most important thing i can do is to open my heart to everyone, just as kris did to all of us. and it is because of him that i now know how to turn my own frowns upside down.

jessie williams

Thursday, October 9, 2008

I Never Knew

the difference between holding on to a hurt or releasing it with forgiveness is like the difference between laying your head down at night on a pillow filled with thorns or a pillow filled with rose petals.

loren fischer

she was my best friend, and i loved her. she was the coolest girl in junior high and everyone wanted to be like her... and she chose me to be her best friend. her name was cindy. she was beautiful with her black hair and tall, thin body. while the rest of us in eighth and ninth grade were still looking amorphous, trying to take shape, cindy was already beautifully poised in her adult body. her mother had died when she was a little girl. she was an only child, and she lived alone with her father. by the time we would get home from school every day, he would already be at work. he wouldn't come home until two or three in the morning, so we had free reign of the house. no parental supervision was the greatest thing we could ask for as teenagers. her house was a big, two-story that was concealed by a large grove of orange trees. you couldn't see the house from the street, and we liked it that way. it added to the mystique and allure that we were always trying to create.
at school she was pretty much the center of attention. one whole corner of the quad was dedicated to cindy and her "followers." if there was new music, clothes, hairstyles or even new ways to take notes or study, you could be fairly sure that it came out of that corner of the quad. even the school faculty caught on to the power this girl held and convinced her to run for class president. cindy and i were voted in as calss president and vice president by a landslide.
by day, we were the acting liaison between students and faculty; by night, we hosted social activities at cindy's house. if we weren't having a party, people would come just to hang out. kids would be there for all kinds of reasons - to talk about relationships, their parents, to do their homework, or just because they knew someone they liked would be showing up.
after everyone left, i would usually spend the night. my mom wouldn't like it very much if it was a school night. sometimes cindy would come back to my house to spend the night, but my mom didn't like that much either because we would stay up all night laughing and talking. cindy didn't like to be home alone.
that following summer, after i came home from vacation with my family, things were starting to change. cindy looked thinner than usual with dark circles under her eyes, and she had started to smoke. the strikingly beautiful girl looked pale and gaunt. she said she missed me a lot. while it was a boost to my ego, i couldn't believe it could be entirely true. after all, there were always people trying to be close to her and get into her circle of friends.
my solution: two weeks at the beach. our parents pitched in to rent a beach house for two weeks. my mom would be the only supervision. in cindy's inimitable style, we collected a group of beach friends within a couple of days. we'd all hang out at this local café during the day, when we were not in the water or on the sand, and at night we'd hang out around this fire pit on the beach.
cindy started to look like her old self, but better. she was tan. she looked great in a bikini, and all the guys on the beach wanted to be around her. but she was still smoking. she told me it calmed her nerves.
one night, cindy came back to the beach house very late. she was all disoriented and noticeably excited. she told me she and this one guy had been drinking and smoking marijuana, and they had gotten together. she said that i had to try marijuana because it made everything better, clearer, in fact. she said she really liked this guy and wanted to run away with him. i knew she was just high, and she'd feel differently in the morning.
when school started that next year, things weren't the same, and i missed the old routine. cindy wanted to get into different things than i wanted, and she started hanging around guys more and more. we would still hang out from time to time, but it wasn't as fun as it used to be. cindy would get really serious and tell me that i just didn't understand how things were. i just thought that she was maturing faster emotionally than the rest of us, like she had physically.
one morning when i arrived at school, there were police cars all around and a lot of nervous activity in the halls. when i proceeded toward my locker, my counselor and another woman stopped me. i was asked to follow them to the office. my heart was pounding so fast and hard that i could hardly catch my breath. my head was racing with the different scenarios that might have caused this odd behavior.
when we all sat down in my counselor's office, the principal came in and took a seat. was i in some kind of trouble? the principal began by talking about life and maturity and circumstances. now my head was really spinning. what was he trying to say? and then my world froze in the time with the words, "... and cindy took her own life last night using her father's gun." i couldn't talk; i couldn't move. tears started streaming from my eyes before my heart could even comprehend the pain. she was only fifteen years old.
as the suicide note explained, her father had repeatedly sexually abused her and she knew no other way out. months after he was arrested, he finally confessed. the note also said something else. it said that the only family she ever knew and cared about was me. she left me a ring that her mother had left to her.
i cried for weeks. how is it that i never knew? we were closer than anyone and talked about everything; how come she never told me that? i was certain that i could have helped her, and i began to blame myself.
after weeks of grief counseling, i came to understand that the burden of cindy's sexual abuse was too much for her to bear, especially when she started to become intimate with boys. the counselor explained to me that her shame was too great to talk about, even to her best friend. it dawned on me how alone she must have felt, and it suddenly became clear to me why she never wanted to spend the night alone in her own house.
my own suffering - weeks of pain and confusion - was eased greatly with all the help and support i received. teachers, counselors, friends and family members all nurtured me. it was clear to everyone that this situation was going to change my life forever, but because i let help in, it subsequently added to my life an aspect of wisdom and compassion. i wish that cindy could have known the relief that comes from letting others help you with your pain.
cindy's suicide note also requested that she be cremated. the note said i should spread her ashes wherever i wanted to. i chose the ocean off the beach where we had spent two weeks that summer.
on the day of the memorial, we rented a boat to take us out to sea. the boat was packed with friends and teachers, even though it was a rainy, overcast day. we stood on the bow and took turns sharing our experiences and love for our friend. when it came time for me to free her ashes, i hesitated. i didn't want to turn them loose in a sea that looked dark and menacing. i thought she had had enough of that in her own life.
my hesitancy gained attention, and both my mother and my counselor stepped up on the platform and put their arms around me. with their support i opened the lid and set my friend free. as some of the ashes hit the surface of the water, the sun broke through for a moment and sent beautiful rays of light that sparkled on the surface of the water. the clouds parted some more and soon the whole both was bathed in warm sunlight. at that moment, i felt calmer than i had in weeks. somehow i knew that the angels had come for my friend and that she would be all right - and so would i.

rosanne martorella

Faded Denim