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COMING HOME by Brad Anderson The day we scattered Kelly's ashes was a stormy one. During her brief trek across the bay of Campeche, earlier in the week, Hurricane Dolly had pumped a tremendous amount of moisture into the Texas Gulf Coast region. On this day, she was nothing more than a tropical low, in the mountains of northern Mexico, but she was letting us know that she still had life within her. Over the three-and-a-half-hour drive home, I tried to remember the last time I had seen Kelly. Ten years ago. Summer. Kathy had rounded up two of her girl friends from college, along with Kelly and me, and somehow talked us all into spending the day in Galveston. It was one of those endless days, filled with laughter, picture-taking, ice-cream cones, and not enough shade, as our hot-pink skin later attested. That was the first time in five years I had seen him, and he looked great. As last days go, it couldn't have been better. Kelly and I had practically grown up together. We had spent countless nights at each other's homes. We had studied together, prayed together, hiked together, camped together. In other words, we had been inseparable. He was my best friend for most of my life. Then, after High School, we went our separate ways and lost contact with each other. Kathy was probably the first of us to learn of Kelly's sexual preference: that she was in love with him, back in high school, was no secret to anyone. I can remember those times, feeling jealous of him because I had a secret crush on her, much of the time. When she revealed her true feelings to him, he gently let her know they could never be anything more than friends, something she was, all the way to the end. The things we learn at funerals! Kathy called me late that Sunday night with news of Kelly's passing. She told me in clinical terms: Kelly died at 3:05 AM today; he left the hospital last Monday but he had to come back when his platelet count dropped to fourteen; he was haemorrhaging out of his eyes and lips, when he died. That was Nurse Kathy speaking, Nurse Kathy who had pulled a twelve-hour shift Saturday, stayed up all night with Kelly, and pulled another twelve afterward, before finally finding the time to call me. I think we all do that to some degree - stick to the cold hard facts of death so that we can block out the hurt for just a little while longer. We try to fool ourselves into believing that if we can relay the information as though we are giving a lecture, or perhaps just passing our knowledge, of some remote event, on to strangers, we can get through the bad times, without having to face the wrenching of our psyche, all at once. It never really works, though. This trick that we try to play on our hearts lasts only for a short while. Our hearts are made to pour out, for those we know and love, during their suffering and passing. To hold our emotions in check does all of us a disservice, if, for no other reason, than because we are trying not to show how much another has meant to us. It is an act of self-deception, a fool's game of trying to deny our humanity - one I know only too well. We gathered at Dido's, a restaurant just outside of Brazoria, Texas, on the banks of the San Bernard River. The rain stopped long enough for the thirty or so of us to bounce across the gangplank, to the sternwheeler, tied up at the dock. Of those who had assembled for this final farewell, I knew only four: Kathy, Kelly's grandmother Dorothy, his cousin Lisa, and his brother Gordon. Everyone else was either a member of the family I had never met before, or were friends he had made since high school.
© 2001 Brad Lee Anderson |