Tribute to Heath, Jack and Ennis
I read quite a few of the tributes written for Heath, but not all. This has been rolling around in my head for awhile now. I hope I haven't written something that someone else may have done first. If I did I'm sorry. But you know what its like when the words won't leave you alone, and you just have to put them on paper. I still feel so sad about Heath. It still hurts. Donna
He felt cold. Why hadn't he put on his boxers and a T-shirt, but he felt too cold and sleepy, finally sleepy, to move.
When he opened his eyes, at first things were hazy. When his vision cleared he looked up into his own face, but it wasn't his own face. He frowned, closing his eyes. This is crazy. He opened his eyes again when he heard the voice.
"Don't beleive what he's seeing." Jake's voice? What's he doing here? But it wasn't Jake, not really.
The black cowboy hat, the jeans and blue denim shirt with white pearl buttons. And the other face, the face that wasn't really his. Couldn't be. He must be dreaming. He closed his eyes again.
"Heath, look at us." His own voice, but not his voice. Heath sat up, rubbing his eyes. There was no real substance to his surroundings, everything looked misty and unereal. But the two men looking worriedly at him seemed real enough.
"What's going on?" he asked. "You two aren't real. I must be dreaming. God this is a nightmare."
"I wish it was a nightmare, bud." Jake/Jack Twist's voice.
"Where am I? What's going on. Is this a bad trip?"
The other two shook their heads sadly.
"You wanted a sleep, you were missin' Matilda and Michelle, too many different drugs mixed together."
Heath looked at Ennis Del Mar and shook his head dazedly. "But you're not real. You're just characters in a movie."
Ennis and Jack both shook their heads again. "You two made us come alive, bud." Ennis hid his eyes under the straw colored cowboy hat, much as he did in the movie.
"You and Jake had no real idea what you brought to the hearts of thousands, maybe millions of people. A lot of those people wrote their own stories about Jack and Ennis, based on the character's Annie Proulx created; characters you two brought to life," Ennis said.
Jack Twist smiled, somewhat sadly. "They couldn't stand it, so they fixed it."
Heath shook his head again. "I don't believe this. So I'm in some sort of la-la land? Shit, I need to wake up."
They just looked at him sadly. "Its too late for that, Heath."
"What are you talking about? I just need to sleep this off."
Jack and Ennis just looked at him.
Realization his him like a punch in the gut. "I won't be waking up, will I?"
The cowboys looked at each other and back at him. They both had tears in their eyes.
"No! No! No! This can't be happening! What about my little girl?" Heath raged, pulling his hair in frustration. He was sobbing now. "What will happen to Matilda? I wanted to see her grow up!"
"You'll see her grow up, Heath. You just won't be a part of her life the way you planned. But you will be, in a different way. Michelle won't let her forget you."
Heath drew up his knees, crossing his arms and burying his head. He cried for a long time. When the looked up again, the two cowboys had gone, but he knew that they really had been there.
He looked down. He didn't know how it was possible, but he could see Michelle sitting on the side of Matilda's little bed, brushing their daughter's hair back from her small tear stained face. The child was asleep and Michelle sat beside her crying her own silent tears. His heart ached, and he tried hard to make Michelle feel his presence, and he thought maybe she did.