Bad news
first thing this morning. My daughter
called around 9 to tell me that her dear friend
(since middle school) was in a wreck last night
and has serious brain damage. He was taken
by life flight to a hospital in St. Louis.
He spent so much time here during middle school, high school
and every time Lauren came home to visit (and still when
she comes home and he's in town). He has recently been
living in Hawaii, and Lauren was going to go visit with him
there, but he got transferred back to the St. Louis area
recently. He had just bought a new car, and all I know is that
he flipped it and was ejected.
I think of him as one of my own, so I am just physically ill,
my heart is breaking, and I'm just a mess, but I'm
trying to hold it together.
Lauren is on her way to St. Louis. She spoke with his mom
and found out that the damage is so severe that they think
if he makes it, he would probably have to live the rest of his
life in a long-term care facility. Earlier this morning, his brother
told Lauren that there was no brain activity, and if that is so,
then obviously the machines are the only thing keeping him here.
I am praying for a miracle for my Jake, Jake the pillow snake.
I can see his smiling face as I type this and feel his big bear hug.
I love you big guy...hold on.
6 comments:
So, so sorry. You have my sympathy.
Thanks, Talia. My daughter called from the hospital last night to tell me that there is nothing that can be done. I think the hospital staff was were just trying to work on organ donation and helping his parents.
I am just devastated, and I hurt so for his family and for my daughter, who loves him so as well.
Poem: "Sweetness" by Stephen Dunn, from New and Selected Poems 1974-1994.
Sweetness
for my mother
Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac
with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving
someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.
I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn't leave a stain,
no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet. ...
Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low
and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief
until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don't care
where it's been, or what bitter road
it's traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.
"often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving"
Those lines in particular stayed with me all day.
I was thinking of the sweetness of knowing Jake. Of his smile. Of his hugs. Of his enthusiasm and equally of his casual and relaxed approach to many things in his life.
He is gone now.
My daughter was supposed to start her two week vacation after she got off work yesterday, but of course, when she found out about Jake, she went to St. Louis. She left there this morning after everyone had said their goodbyes.
She is on the way to Tulsa. The band had a two week tour planned (she, her boyfriend, and the drummer are the band basically). Shows in Tulsa, Death Valley, some other places, but she is only going to stay there through tomorrow and will drive back home for the funeral.
Today, one of Jake and my daughter's friends, and one of my boys, I might add, knocked on the door. He was on his way to St. Louis when he got the call that there was no need to come. We just held each other and cried.
I will, for the rest of my life, miss Jake's gragariousness, his optimism, his smile, his love for my daughter and her family, his giving spirit, his wonderful presence.
Maggie, I read your sad news and it reminded me of this poem.
To an Athlete Dying Young
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
--A E Housman
Briefer than a girl's. That line always catches in my throat when I try to read this poem out loud.
As I did just now for you.
Maggie, 'm so sorry for your loss.
I am so beside myself.
I am wearing a green organ donor bracelet on my left arm. His mom gave it to me today.
She is incredibly strong.
I took soup and bowls and plates and garbage bags and toilet paper and utensils.
I took coffee cake and manned the phones while they went to the funeral home.
I was there alone in the house, looking at pictures of Jake.
My daughter's heart is broken in so many pieces, as mine has been too many times.
My heart is broken.
I will so very much miss him.
Thank you for the poem. I was thinking of asking his mom if I could read a poem
My daughter and one of his other friends are going to sing
Sea of Love
I think it's very fitting, and they sounded beautiful tonight practicing and his mom said she had chills when she heard them.
So many things make no sense.
How well we know that.
Thanks for the poem and just just just being here.
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