#3 Snapshot for 2009: Goodbye Too Soon
December 23rd, 2009 by John Creighton in Snapshots
Tags: Atwood, Community, Friends, Neighbors
It is my first vivid memory of standing in this room. I’m told I was there before but I really don’t remember. I would return more times than I can count to say goodbye to neighbors, friends and family. My most recent visit was to escort my son and youngest daughter to give goodbye pictures to my father. My oldest sent a picture but did not want to make the visit.
On this day, I stood in the viewing room at Schandler’s Funeral Home (now William’s) to say goodbye to an occasional playmate. I was nine years old. He was eight.
Too many young people died in my years growing up in Atwood. I have many vivid memories of hearing the news of a tragic accident or sitting uncomfortably in the pews of one of the town churches, chafing in my church clothes as songs and eulogies cascaded around my ears.
This is the first death of a playmate I remember. I don’t know where I was when I heard the news. I do remember that my mother cried a lot and looked ashen for what seemed like weeks but was probably days.
I made up visions of the tragedy for myself based on the bits and pieces of information I took in from people’s conversations. How much is true I don’t know for sure.
I see best friends, cousins, laughing in the family garage. It’s a day like any other filled with the joyful sounds that are unique to eight year-old boys. Laughing, wrestling, arguing and laughing again. They are playing cowboys or soldiers. I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter. They’re having fun.
One of the boys, I’m not sure which, picks up the shotgun that leans in the corner of the garage. They both want it. They grab and tussle as young boys do. They are unaware that a shell still rests in the chamber.
There’s an explosion. One life ends. The life of the other boy is changed forever. It could have just as easily been the other way ’round.
I stand over the open casket and play these images through my mind. Looking down, I see the familiar face of a neighbor and yet, dressed in a suit, he seems a stranger. I take a long look. I’m curious why he holds a rose between his hands. The story on the school playground is that it covers up a wound. I don’t know.
As I look, I don’t feel anything except the etching of images on my mind. Imgages I see from time-to-time to this day.
My mother touches me gently on the shoulder. I follow her to the door so the procession line behind us might advance. I don’t look back but I never forget.
Tragedies we cannot explain are part of every community. They hurt. They scar. The painful memories never go completely away. But we move on because we have to. Our families and our communities still need us.
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Originally published January 20, 2009 on www.johncr8on.wordpress.com.