From the Vox archives: This is goodbye.
I just found out that the Wayback Machine has archived some of my Vox writing. I really enjoyed writing over there, so I'm going to copy and save it over here.
This first entry I'm moving over isn't a happy one, but then, sometimes that's how those things work.
-----------------------------
This is goodbye.
Dec 10, 2007 at 1:32 AM
2 comments
What seems like decades ago (and maybe it was), I remember laughing at Death. Not outright laughing, because I knew that people weren't really invincible... but the thought of people just Not Being There wasn't something that seemed realistic.
It just didn't happen, okay?
It's not that I didn't go to funerals, or hear about dead people. At least once a year we had a family reunion of sorts, at someone's funeral. All of us used to get together around the casket, make the appropriate noises, and talk about how we'd have to keep in touch... we'd make the jokes about how if it wasn't for all the funerals, we'd never see each other.
Thinking back, fourth grade may have been where it started to become a little more real for me. My friend and classmate, Raymond, had a dad who smoked. Apparently one day his dad fell asleep smoking... and the next day we were having little grief counseling sessions. His house burnt down and I guess Raymond tried to get out but couldn't. It didn't really hit home, he just never came back to school.
Somewhere in there my relative, whose prefix I forget (Great Aunt? Great Grandma?) also passed away. That one was a little tougher since I used to spend a lot of time at her house; she had a little parakeet that was fun to play with. I recall my whole family taking it kind of hard, but the funeral is a blank to me. The overall memory is just of times at her house, but the whole thing is overlaid with sadness.
Quite awhile went by, during which I'm sure other relatives passed on, but then one day.... Death Happened. Not even Death, but The Grim Fucking Reaper came along and cut a big hole in my heart. I'm still not over it. I only have one photo of him, his senior photo that makes him look like he's running for office. Mike Namadan will be under 21 forever in my head, and I'll think of him every time I see a pack of Marlboro Reds. I stole his last pack and hid it in my portfolio case, in an effort to try and get him to quit. My techniques were very different in those days, but it seemed to work.
Fuck.
He's dead.
Even now that doesn't work for me. Goddamn drunk drivers, taking my friend away. Fuck you.
...
I think I'm getting better. His ghost used to follow me around, not letting me get any sleep. Now the exact time and date of his death are fuzzy, but it was October '99, and we started taking classes together in July. We had both barely graduated high school. He was an inspiration to me and a guy I had more than a little crush on. I got him a job working at Dollar General with me, and helped him get a second job at Michael's (yes, the craft store). We made fun of our manager Ron, he laughed at my being girly over one of our instructors, and he made a good friend. The day before he died we had gone to the Carnegie Museums for part of the day with our class. When we came back we walked down to a horrible pizza joint and grabbed some slices, then just walked around downtown Pittsburgh with our other friend Mike. It was an awesome day.
After class the next day, the details are fuzzy, but I remember thinking I should stall him from going home. We were carpooling now and then, but he took his own way home that day. For some reason I had also gotten the guy I was seeing a job at our store, just on Sundays to help unload the truck. There was a woman, Lois, who worked with us as well... she was the mom of this guy from my high school who nine million girls had a crush on. I remember my manager calling me, my boyfriend and Lois into the back. There may have been another person but the back office was very small. My manager told me to sit down, and then said that Mike wasn't going to make it in to work. It wasn't making sense. Then .....he started choking up, covering his face; he said he couldn't talk about it, and left the room while telling the other guy to explain. I don't remember who he was, but I remember a man putting his hand on my shoulder, looking steadily into my eyes, and saying that Mike was not going to make it to work ever again. Something bad happened to me inside and I said, "Is he okay?", and the guy said no.
No.
He was not okay.
Then he said "....but the paramedics said it happened instantaneously and he didn't suffer."
I shoved past the guy, this man who was trying to tell me my friend was dead, and made it out of the front entrance. Walking rapidly. Then I had no control over my legs and sat on the sidewalk out front, because there was nothing else I could do. A year went by while I was weeping out there, and one clear memory is of an old woman telling me that I shouldn't sit on the cement because it would give me hemorrhoids. I told her thank you, but my friend was dead.
You know how in books they say, "She started to laugh hysterically, while crying at the same time"? Well, that's what happened, but there aren't words to cover what really happens.
I don't remember going to his funeral, but I do remember going to his grave, alone, and then coming in (with very red eyes) to my new job, where I was accused of being high. I remember standing outside our downtown building before class, every day for at least a month, waiting for him to turn the corner from the bus stop. He was going to be late, where was he? My friend Anthony, who is still a good buddy of mine, was the only one who showed real concern. There was nothing I could do, and I couldn't stop watching to see when he was going to come around the corner.
I carried his smokes around in my portfolio case for years. They're still around somewhere. I haven't been back to his grave in almost five years, though I probably should put flowers on it. His family is too far to do it.
His mom came to my job to ask me if I wanted any of his things. His clothes, his art supplies. She called, she emailed. I couldn't handle it. When I finally could, she had moved to Florida. I wish she'd just given me some of his things without bugging me so much, but there's nothing I can do about that now.
He never knew I was going to move across the country (when I knew him, I didn't either), so I think that's why his ghost hasn't made an appearance out here. But, he did used to always tell me that I couldn't bitch about lack of change if I didn't do anything about it, so I know that he's somewhere, being proud of me.
.........
That was a long ramble, several years in the making. I'll have to find his photo sooner rather than later and put it up. Perhaps tomorrow.
...
After that, the next one wasn't an easy one either, but I don't have the energy to recap it fully. The short version is that my friend Jennifer Henry, Jen-Hen, is also fucking dead, and it sucks.
Jen had been friends with our crew since roughly fifth grade. This happened about a week before I moved to California in '01. She was out walking at a high school track with her mom, back in PA, and told her mom that she didn't feel good and wanted to sit down. Then she started getting sick, or something along those lines to prompt her mom to run for an ambulance. By the time her mom came back, Jen had passed away. From what we found out, she had had a defective heart valve since birth, and it just gave out.
She wasn't even 20 yet.
My next encounters with death have been recent... within the past few months. If you happen to browse back through my Vox, you'll see the following:
I haven't always been a cat person; MarSing still lives with my family back in PA. She was a tiny little rockstar Shih Tzu, she's maybe 14 now. We got her when I was in sixth grade.
One day I decided to take a nap with her on the kitchen floor. Barrettes and a shirt that changed color in the sun, oh lord.
August 31st of this year, I went back to go visit PA. Hung out for six days, the longest I'd been back in about four years. Things were different. Crazy. MarSing was seventeen (!!!!), and no longer in the prime of life. I was also wondering why she hadn't A) passed along already or B) been put to sleep. She was having seizures more often and was having a tough time walking / standing (even to eat). It was sad.
Well, on September 25th, my mom finally put her to sleep. That was a fucked up phone call to get that I don't want to recap, but I finally shed a couple tears last night before I fell asleep. I know that someday soon I'll have a small period of mourning/hysterics, because it's not good to keep all this bottled up, but for now I just feel numb. When we first got her and did the math, the thought of her sticking around until I was almost THIRTY was insane, that was like, a million years away!
You know what else is insane, I just saw that one of my high school friends on Facebook added a "birthday calendar" app. Usually all those apps go on my ignore list, but that one is pretty helpful. Perusing her profile, I saw the following:
"Larissa Young turns 27 on Jan 10"
That gave my system a nice little shock. It's tough to see it in print, because it hasn't hit me yet, and won't for awhile. Wasn't I sixteen a minute ago?
Oyyy, but I digress.
Finally, the last item, the most recent one... a week or two ago I was out with my friend Tom, who worked with me at Aplus. We were rehashing everyone, as per the norm, so my inquiry soon turned to our coworker Boyd Marshlain. He was a cool guy that helped me learn to sell, and we always had a friendly competition going on. He was a really cool guy. He lived in a house with his girlfriend of (approximately) ten years, Teresa, and they just seemed like a fun, nice couple.
Anyway.
Me: So how's Boyd?
Tom: Ah. You... didn't hear?
Me: What? No. Hear what?! Wait, what?
Tom: It's not good.
Me: Oh no. .....pause......... is he okay?
Tom: No.
Me: Shit.
Well...this is a good story, a very befitting one: he'd gone to the Padres game one night about three months ago with our coworker Mark Matto. They were both big fans of baseball & beer, so it worked out okay; Boyd had season passes to every San Diego related sports event. Anyway, they went, had a good time, and went their separate ways. Apparently he went to sleep that night and just never woke up.
That is awesome.
Not the fact that he's dead at 40, but the fact that he died after a great day, and in his own bed. You really can't ask for much more. Boyd deserved that, and I hope I go the same way... except maybe after a day of skiing or something. I don't really love baseball.
Of course I started to cry a little when Tom was telling me, but kept the majority of that in. You don't just bust out crying in somebody's mostly-new Five series BMW, especially not when they're driving.
This is the main reason I started this entry... cleaning out my Inbox last week I found an email from Boyd, with the subject line, "gonna miss ya". It gave me another fucked up little jolt. He sent it after I'd been let go from Aplus, along with these photos. (I have others, and should find them sometime soon as well.)
P5170177
DCP_5722
So this is for Boyd.
You were the man, buddy.
I don't really have anything else to recap, thank goodness. With most of these, it's not the person being gone that bothers me, but lately (as I've started to notice time creeping up), it's the horror that happens when you find them. I think of Teresa waking up, and going to wake up Boyd, and nothing happens. I think of how she might have remained calm, calling the paramedics, or I think of how she could have started screaming, shaking him to wake up and he wouldn't. I think of her maybe throwing up and not wanting to go back in the room where he was sleeping, and the hysteric phone calls that followed. I think of Jen's mom, finding her daughter unconcious at the track, and the horror that she must have felt. I think of how bad Jen looked in this weird blue tux they'd picked out for her, and how they had done a horrible job on her hair and makeup. I think of how it made me feel a little better, because she didn't look like the Jen I knew, and that it helped me pretend my friend had just moved away. I think of that bastard that killed my friend, and wonder why he was drunk enough to drive up the wrong on-ramp at 2 in the afternoon. I wonder if he's paying for it, or if he's dead too. I think of how these people were just suddenly Not There Anymore, and the lives they affected with and without their presence.
The worst part, the part that wakes me up cold in the middle of the night sometimes, is that someday I'm going to have to deal with this when Jason and Brak die. My mom, my grandparents, they'll all eventually die too, ...and so will I.
I just don't want to have to deal with it.
2 comments
Tags:
no bueno
Next Posts
Happy Thoughts
QotD: En Route
Today and today and today.
...like peppers.
I should get this out of the way now.
Previous Posts
Love Can Be Like Bondage
Just in time for Christmas!
Voxtastic
A llama, a priest and a chicken walk into a bar...
The Other Side of Real
Comments
Justfomahninjas
Justfomahninjas wrote:
Dec 10, 2007
Reply
[this is good]
Awwww man what a sad post! (By the way, I just joined.. I took ur suggestion and checked the site out.) Anyway, sometimes it's best to just get it all out... actually there was just a funeral for a lady in my congregation Saturday. She was on dialysis, which is a special grueling kind of awful all by itself, but she ended up in the hospital a week or 2 ago, they thought she was gonna be ok one minute, and then the next she's gone. But since she had been in pain so long, it's honestly kind of a relief to know that she isn't suffering anymore.
My co-worker lost a friend of his a few months ago... he was only 25 and died of an asthma attack in his sleep. I have asthma, and that scared the crap outta me when I heard about it.
PantherQu33n
PantherQu33n replied to Justfomahninjas’ comment:
Dec 10, 2007
Reply
Woo, you're here! Rockin'. Vox is not bad and for some reason I feel much more secure posting here as opposed to my nine million other blogs, so I try to get more quality than quantity. Sometimes it's tough though.
Death is unavoidable. Like taxes, kinda. At least you can hide from taxes for awhile NOT THAT I WOULD. And it was probably best for the lady in your congregation. Also, going in your sleep is probably the best (and easiest) way ever. The only other story I had that sounds like a good ending is knowing a guy who was hopped up on E, and died during sex. That could have been good or bad, I'm hoping it was good.
I'm also hoping people don't think I'm crazy, it just takes me a long time to vent.
Yar! We should hang out soon. When are you free?
This first entry I'm moving over isn't a happy one, but then, sometimes that's how those things work.
-----------------------------
This is goodbye.
Dec 10, 2007 at 1:32 AM
2 comments
What seems like decades ago (and maybe it was), I remember laughing at Death. Not outright laughing, because I knew that people weren't really invincible... but the thought of people just Not Being There wasn't something that seemed realistic.
It just didn't happen, okay?
It's not that I didn't go to funerals, or hear about dead people. At least once a year we had a family reunion of sorts, at someone's funeral. All of us used to get together around the casket, make the appropriate noises, and talk about how we'd have to keep in touch... we'd make the jokes about how if it wasn't for all the funerals, we'd never see each other.
Thinking back, fourth grade may have been where it started to become a little more real for me. My friend and classmate, Raymond, had a dad who smoked. Apparently one day his dad fell asleep smoking... and the next day we were having little grief counseling sessions. His house burnt down and I guess Raymond tried to get out but couldn't. It didn't really hit home, he just never came back to school.
Somewhere in there my relative, whose prefix I forget (Great Aunt? Great Grandma?) also passed away. That one was a little tougher since I used to spend a lot of time at her house; she had a little parakeet that was fun to play with. I recall my whole family taking it kind of hard, but the funeral is a blank to me. The overall memory is just of times at her house, but the whole thing is overlaid with sadness.
Quite awhile went by, during which I'm sure other relatives passed on, but then one day.... Death Happened. Not even Death, but The Grim Fucking Reaper came along and cut a big hole in my heart. I'm still not over it. I only have one photo of him, his senior photo that makes him look like he's running for office. Mike Namadan will be under 21 forever in my head, and I'll think of him every time I see a pack of Marlboro Reds. I stole his last pack and hid it in my portfolio case, in an effort to try and get him to quit. My techniques were very different in those days, but it seemed to work.
Fuck.
He's dead.
Even now that doesn't work for me. Goddamn drunk drivers, taking my friend away. Fuck you.
...
I think I'm getting better. His ghost used to follow me around, not letting me get any sleep. Now the exact time and date of his death are fuzzy, but it was October '99, and we started taking classes together in July. We had both barely graduated high school. He was an inspiration to me and a guy I had more than a little crush on. I got him a job working at Dollar General with me, and helped him get a second job at Michael's (yes, the craft store). We made fun of our manager Ron, he laughed at my being girly over one of our instructors, and he made a good friend. The day before he died we had gone to the Carnegie Museums for part of the day with our class. When we came back we walked down to a horrible pizza joint and grabbed some slices, then just walked around downtown Pittsburgh with our other friend Mike. It was an awesome day.
After class the next day, the details are fuzzy, but I remember thinking I should stall him from going home. We were carpooling now and then, but he took his own way home that day. For some reason I had also gotten the guy I was seeing a job at our store, just on Sundays to help unload the truck. There was a woman, Lois, who worked with us as well... she was the mom of this guy from my high school who nine million girls had a crush on. I remember my manager calling me, my boyfriend and Lois into the back. There may have been another person but the back office was very small. My manager told me to sit down, and then said that Mike wasn't going to make it in to work. It wasn't making sense. Then .....he started choking up, covering his face; he said he couldn't talk about it, and left the room while telling the other guy to explain. I don't remember who he was, but I remember a man putting his hand on my shoulder, looking steadily into my eyes, and saying that Mike was not going to make it to work ever again. Something bad happened to me inside and I said, "Is he okay?", and the guy said no.
No.
He was not okay.
Then he said "....but the paramedics said it happened instantaneously and he didn't suffer."
I shoved past the guy, this man who was trying to tell me my friend was dead, and made it out of the front entrance. Walking rapidly. Then I had no control over my legs and sat on the sidewalk out front, because there was nothing else I could do. A year went by while I was weeping out there, and one clear memory is of an old woman telling me that I shouldn't sit on the cement because it would give me hemorrhoids. I told her thank you, but my friend was dead.
You know how in books they say, "She started to laugh hysterically, while crying at the same time"? Well, that's what happened, but there aren't words to cover what really happens.
I don't remember going to his funeral, but I do remember going to his grave, alone, and then coming in (with very red eyes) to my new job, where I was accused of being high. I remember standing outside our downtown building before class, every day for at least a month, waiting for him to turn the corner from the bus stop. He was going to be late, where was he? My friend Anthony, who is still a good buddy of mine, was the only one who showed real concern. There was nothing I could do, and I couldn't stop watching to see when he was going to come around the corner.
I carried his smokes around in my portfolio case for years. They're still around somewhere. I haven't been back to his grave in almost five years, though I probably should put flowers on it. His family is too far to do it.
His mom came to my job to ask me if I wanted any of his things. His clothes, his art supplies. She called, she emailed. I couldn't handle it. When I finally could, she had moved to Florida. I wish she'd just given me some of his things without bugging me so much, but there's nothing I can do about that now.
He never knew I was going to move across the country (when I knew him, I didn't either), so I think that's why his ghost hasn't made an appearance out here. But, he did used to always tell me that I couldn't bitch about lack of change if I didn't do anything about it, so I know that he's somewhere, being proud of me.
.........
That was a long ramble, several years in the making. I'll have to find his photo sooner rather than later and put it up. Perhaps tomorrow.
...
After that, the next one wasn't an easy one either, but I don't have the energy to recap it fully. The short version is that my friend Jennifer Henry, Jen-Hen, is also fucking dead, and it sucks.
Jen had been friends with our crew since roughly fifth grade. This happened about a week before I moved to California in '01. She was out walking at a high school track with her mom, back in PA, and told her mom that she didn't feel good and wanted to sit down. Then she started getting sick, or something along those lines to prompt her mom to run for an ambulance. By the time her mom came back, Jen had passed away. From what we found out, she had had a defective heart valve since birth, and it just gave out.
She wasn't even 20 yet.
My next encounters with death have been recent... within the past few months. If you happen to browse back through my Vox, you'll see the following:
I haven't always been a cat person; MarSing still lives with my family back in PA. She was a tiny little rockstar Shih Tzu, she's maybe 14 now. We got her when I was in sixth grade.
One day I decided to take a nap with her on the kitchen floor. Barrettes and a shirt that changed color in the sun, oh lord.
August 31st of this year, I went back to go visit PA. Hung out for six days, the longest I'd been back in about four years. Things were different. Crazy. MarSing was seventeen (!!!!), and no longer in the prime of life. I was also wondering why she hadn't A) passed along already or B) been put to sleep. She was having seizures more often and was having a tough time walking / standing (even to eat). It was sad.
Well, on September 25th, my mom finally put her to sleep. That was a fucked up phone call to get that I don't want to recap, but I finally shed a couple tears last night before I fell asleep. I know that someday soon I'll have a small period of mourning/hysterics, because it's not good to keep all this bottled up, but for now I just feel numb. When we first got her and did the math, the thought of her sticking around until I was almost THIRTY was insane, that was like, a million years away!
You know what else is insane, I just saw that one of my high school friends on Facebook added a "birthday calendar" app. Usually all those apps go on my ignore list, but that one is pretty helpful. Perusing her profile, I saw the following:
"Larissa Young turns 27 on Jan 10"
That gave my system a nice little shock. It's tough to see it in print, because it hasn't hit me yet, and won't for awhile. Wasn't I sixteen a minute ago?
Oyyy, but I digress.
Finally, the last item, the most recent one... a week or two ago I was out with my friend Tom, who worked with me at Aplus. We were rehashing everyone, as per the norm, so my inquiry soon turned to our coworker Boyd Marshlain. He was a cool guy that helped me learn to sell, and we always had a friendly competition going on. He was a really cool guy. He lived in a house with his girlfriend of (approximately) ten years, Teresa, and they just seemed like a fun, nice couple.
Anyway.
Me: So how's Boyd?
Tom: Ah. You... didn't hear?
Me: What? No. Hear what?! Wait, what?
Tom: It's not good.
Me: Oh no. .....pause......... is he okay?
Tom: No.
Me: Shit.
Well...this is a good story, a very befitting one: he'd gone to the Padres game one night about three months ago with our coworker Mark Matto. They were both big fans of baseball & beer, so it worked out okay; Boyd had season passes to every San Diego related sports event. Anyway, they went, had a good time, and went their separate ways. Apparently he went to sleep that night and just never woke up.
That is awesome.
Not the fact that he's dead at 40, but the fact that he died after a great day, and in his own bed. You really can't ask for much more. Boyd deserved that, and I hope I go the same way... except maybe after a day of skiing or something. I don't really love baseball.
Of course I started to cry a little when Tom was telling me, but kept the majority of that in. You don't just bust out crying in somebody's mostly-new Five series BMW, especially not when they're driving.
This is the main reason I started this entry... cleaning out my Inbox last week I found an email from Boyd, with the subject line, "gonna miss ya". It gave me another fucked up little jolt. He sent it after I'd been let go from Aplus, along with these photos. (I have others, and should find them sometime soon as well.)
P5170177
DCP_5722
So this is for Boyd.
You were the man, buddy.
I don't really have anything else to recap, thank goodness. With most of these, it's not the person being gone that bothers me, but lately (as I've started to notice time creeping up), it's the horror that happens when you find them. I think of Teresa waking up, and going to wake up Boyd, and nothing happens. I think of how she might have remained calm, calling the paramedics, or I think of how she could have started screaming, shaking him to wake up and he wouldn't. I think of her maybe throwing up and not wanting to go back in the room where he was sleeping, and the hysteric phone calls that followed. I think of Jen's mom, finding her daughter unconcious at the track, and the horror that she must have felt. I think of how bad Jen looked in this weird blue tux they'd picked out for her, and how they had done a horrible job on her hair and makeup. I think of how it made me feel a little better, because she didn't look like the Jen I knew, and that it helped me pretend my friend had just moved away. I think of that bastard that killed my friend, and wonder why he was drunk enough to drive up the wrong on-ramp at 2 in the afternoon. I wonder if he's paying for it, or if he's dead too. I think of how these people were just suddenly Not There Anymore, and the lives they affected with and without their presence.
The worst part, the part that wakes me up cold in the middle of the night sometimes, is that someday I'm going to have to deal with this when Jason and Brak die. My mom, my grandparents, they'll all eventually die too, ...and so will I.
I just don't want to have to deal with it.
2 comments
Tags:
no bueno
Next Posts
Happy Thoughts
QotD: En Route
Today and today and today.
...like peppers.
I should get this out of the way now.
Previous Posts
Love Can Be Like Bondage
Just in time for Christmas!
Voxtastic
A llama, a priest and a chicken walk into a bar...
The Other Side of Real
Comments
Justfomahninjas
Justfomahninjas wrote:
Dec 10, 2007
Reply
[this is good]
Awwww man what a sad post! (By the way, I just joined.. I took ur suggestion and checked the site out.) Anyway, sometimes it's best to just get it all out... actually there was just a funeral for a lady in my congregation Saturday. She was on dialysis, which is a special grueling kind of awful all by itself, but she ended up in the hospital a week or 2 ago, they thought she was gonna be ok one minute, and then the next she's gone. But since she had been in pain so long, it's honestly kind of a relief to know that she isn't suffering anymore.
My co-worker lost a friend of his a few months ago... he was only 25 and died of an asthma attack in his sleep. I have asthma, and that scared the crap outta me when I heard about it.
PantherQu33n
PantherQu33n replied to Justfomahninjas’ comment:
Dec 10, 2007
Reply
Woo, you're here! Rockin'. Vox is not bad and for some reason I feel much more secure posting here as opposed to my nine million other blogs, so I try to get more quality than quantity. Sometimes it's tough though.
Death is unavoidable. Like taxes, kinda. At least you can hide from taxes for awhile NOT THAT I WOULD. And it was probably best for the lady in your congregation. Also, going in your sleep is probably the best (and easiest) way ever. The only other story I had that sounds like a good ending is knowing a guy who was hopped up on E, and died during sex. That could have been good or bad, I'm hoping it was good.
I'm also hoping people don't think I'm crazy, it just takes me a long time to vent.
Yar! We should hang out soon. When are you free?