"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
chicken soup for the teenage soul on tough stuff: stories of tough times and lessons learned... copyright © 2001 by jack canfield and mark victor hansen... pages 28 - 32
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