Call me crazy, but I recently got an urge to write about, or at least list, all the people I know who have died.
I think the source of this urge can be traced back to a conversation I had with my girlfriend a few weeks back.
We had been sitting at our kitchen table and I had made a remark about someone I knew who had died, and then I said, "I know a lot of people who have died....You also must know a lot of people who have died, right?" And she said, "No, not really actually."
And then I realized that I know more than a fair share of people who are now gone. Just as a disclaimer, I don't mean what I'm about to write to be a tribute or a memorial, even though it still sort of will be, in a way. All I'm saying with this post is this: I sometimes think about the people that I know who have died, and their deaths have made grooves in me. Some of those grooves are deeper than others, but despite that, I think about these people relatively often, and I just wanted to get this down.
Jessica, she was in my kindergarten class and she died of a heart problem during the summer of kindergarten to first grade; Eric's grandfather, Eric was a childhood friend of mine and his grandfather was run down by a car while attempting to cross 108th Street in Forest Hills, Queens; Lisette, she was a girl I knew from middle school, a girl I actually dated for just one day, believe it or not; Jason Butler, he was a super charismatic, athletically talented and really nice guy I knew in high school who was hit by a truck as he was attempting to cross a street; Christine, she was a girl who was sick with cancer when I was in high school and eventually succumbed to the disease; Billy, he was a guy who used to hang around Great Neck and I think he died of an aneurism; my ex-girlfriend's brother, Joseph; my grandmother, Anna, who died of pneumonia a few days shy of her 95th birthday; Muriel Klein, my great aunt, who had lived in Howard Beach, Queens, for many years and had loved crosswords; Peter Franzoni, a kid who I had known from middle school and high school; Jessica Mena, a friend of mine and my good friend Matt's sister; Ellen Harris, my good friend Andrew's mother and a person I saw almost every other day for years on end; Dave Fleetwood, a supervisor for Chestnuthill Township, Pa., who was killed when a disgruntled citizen went on a shooting rampage at a township meeting.Crazy, when I look at this paragraph above, this block, if you will, of deaths and lives lived. There's just so much there -- so much compression in it all. Perhaps the the strangest part of this whole undertaking, for me at least, is that when I read the names of the people listed in the paragraph above, I can often imagine their voices as well. And when I do, when I imagine their voices, it's then that much of what I think to be true or false gets thrown into question.
2 comments:
I met Chad Smith a long time ago. We were both sixth graders in Mrs. Gerber's class. For whatever reason, Chad had this unusual edge to him. A sort of street-wise toughness to him not yet cultivated in the Great Neck kids familiar to me. Chad seemed to gravitate towards Yosi and other students who seemed a little older, a little tougher. I remember his smile, his hair style back then, the way he dressed. He was different. And I think had I been able to traverse the stupid ar tificial boundaries middle school and high school set before teenagers, I would have been able to connect with him. Just yesterday I had a conversation with two Great Neck 2000 Graduating Class Alumni. We were reminiscing. Later, while talking to one of them, a former military member, the subject of Jason Butler arose. Bobby Altamore had posted a haunting and emotional description of a dream in which Jason visited him. Not unusually, I spent the next morning, today, typing Jason's name into the Google search engine. I came across this website seemingly by accident. And it was not until after I read several excerpts that I realized who was the author. See, yesterday, while talking to my friend, I learned some things and shared things about Jason Butler's and his passing away's effects on others. Perhaps ten years later, I sat on a couch in a random bar next to Joshua Sabloff. We talked about random things, and I told him that a student and wrestler I coached had recently passed away. The experience brought back traumatic memories of being a witness to events unfolding in the wake of Jason's accident. Visiting the ICU, observing doctors attending to Jason laughing as they exited his room and feeling angry, watching other Great Neck students I barely knew, crying helplessly in the hospital ward. I shared with Josh my reflections about J.B.'s death, and surprisingly, Josh opened up about how it had affected him at such a young age. And then yesterday, my friend told me about Bobby Altamore, J.B.'s 'brother from another mother' posting the description of the dream. To capture J.B.'s presence and personality in so few words, Chad Smith accurately described who J.B. was with terse but adequate summation. To think that he continues to touch people's lives in some way. The myths that surround Bruce Lee and Alexander the Great do not confound me. Because I witnessed firsthand the ungodly hand-eye coordination that Jason Butler possessed and despite his troubled, rebellious nature as a student, observed first hand his ability to traverse those artificial boundaries that middle and high school pose among students. Perhaps the chasms need more bridges like Chad Smith's writing. What does it mean when someone says 'Only the good die young." An attractive, former eighth grade middle school teacher (she was latina, the name escapes me ) taught that such a phrase was a lie. I ask, then why the fuck say it. Tigers are beautiful yet deadly, hurricanes inspire awe yet obliterate what is in their path. Nothing really good can come out of an untimely death. Some of life's riddles are better left unsolved.
Wow, this was really interesting. You met me in Ms. Gerber's class. . . Who are ya? You know, someone just posted on Facebook a picture that was taken in Ms. Gerber's class. And I was in it! Crazy that that was 21 years ago. Thanks for sharing all your thoughts. It really means a lot to me.
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