A Miracle

We have to write an essay for our final in English. The topics on the list we get to pick from are very vague and general. Looking at the list I tried to find something I was qualified to write about since it is an opinion paper. Here is the list:

1. War in Iraq
2. Stereo types-tattoos and piercings
3. Toys that children play with
4. Changes in lifestyles
5. Homelessness
6. Economy
7. Car seat safety
8. Teen Pregnancies
9. The way that children deal with death.
10. Drunk driving
11. Abusive relationships
12. Road rage
13. Prejudice
14. Former Felons
15. Gay marriages
16. Gangs
17. Anger management
18. Country vs. City living
19. Domestic Violence
20. Internet
21. Competitive sports

There are a few topics here that unfortunately I know a little bit about through personal experience. Gay marriage isn't one of them, so it was immediately excluded as a possible topic, as well as Gangs or the Economy. I know they are there and I know they both suck. That's my opinion on that. Unfortunately that's not enough to woo my way past the essay committee in Flint and pass the class. The other things I know a little bit about, but still not really enough to fill up three pages double spaced. This sounds awful, but I tend to shield myself from much of what is going on in the world. I rarely watch t.v., and I only listen to NPR if the radio stations aren't singing my tune. That being the case, I picked the topic that I have the most personal experience with. Naturally I picked "The way children deal with death."

After starting this paper, I instantly regretted picking it, because I really don't know how they deal with it. I know how I dealt with it, but the paper is an opinion paper not a personal experience paper. Here's my experience. Form your opinions as you wish.

My little sister and I went to church that Sunday with my friend Michelle. Michelle and I were in seventh grade. We didn't go to church as a family when I was a kid, so going with Michelle was kinda spooky, but I liked it. She went to a full Gospel church that met downtown in an upstairs loft near the restaurant my mother worked at. I really wanted to learn more about this Jesus character whose name my mother screamed a lot. So, we would steal her mom's cigarettes, puff them down, go to church, get slain in the spirit and everything was cool. On this particular Sunday we watched a film on the Shroud of Turin. People sang in tongues afterwards. They sounded like angels. It made me cry. I got caught up in the emotionalism of it all. The pastor asked me if I wanted to be baptized. I said yes.

This wasn't the first time I had said yes to Christ. Occasionally a Sunday school bus would come by to pick us up when I was very little. I must have been 5 or 6. It was all milk and cookies cool until they herded us Little Lambs to the basement of the church. My sister and I clung together. The Sunday school teacher looked like the guy from the movie "Phantasm" with a 40 watt bulb swinging over his head. He said if we didn't ask Jesus into our hearts we were going to burn in hell. Frankly I didn't think things could be much worse than they were above ground, but the thought of burning for eternity didn't appeal so much to me,so I said yes. With every fiber of my being I said yes. I have wanted to be good ever since. I thought by doing this it would make me good. I was wrong.

So after the pastor laid his hands on me that day in Michelle's church, and I was "born again" for the third time in my life, we set off for home to steal more cigarettes. Michelle lived just down the street from me. If you turned on our road you went up a big curvy hill. You could see my house straight ahead as you crested it. It looked like the road actually dead ended into our house but it curved around it to the right. Michelle lived on the right hand side of the road about an eighth of a mile away from me. As we were pulling into her driveway I noticed there were tons of cars parked in my yard. I said "Someone is dead." Why I would say that, I have no idea. We went inside. Kay (Michelle's mom) called the house to see what was going on. I remember her silence just before her hand covered her mouth, and then the short choppy sobs of disbelief. I just kept thinking, "If I don't go home then none of this is real." Kay said "Marty is dead." I asked if I could stay at their house. She said our mom wanted us to come home. All the way out to the car I was screaming inside for God to take it back. Make it not real. Take me instead. Whatever. I didn't care. I just knew he didn't deserve to die, because he was good.

When we got to the front porch my mom came out. My little sister took off running. My mom chased her. As I stood there I thought I saw Marty walking toward me. For a brief second God had answered my prayer. My heart swelled. I couldn't wait to tell him that everyone thought he was dead. As he got closer I could see it wasn't him after all. It was my cousin Perry. He had on a shirt exactly like one Marty owned. My brother died twice that day.

I remember someone taking me into the T.V. room. I had gum in my mouth. I remember thinking how absurd it was for me to have gum in my mouth, because if I hadn't have gone to church and been baptized my brother wouldn't be dead right now. Maybe if I never chewed gum again, this would all stop. It's funny how the mind actually loses touch with what is real in it's feeble attempts to try and grasp it. All these thoughts ran through my head as I demanded the details of how he died. Evidently someone had pulled over to pick some flowers in a little gully betweeen two hills. They were parked in blind spot on a country road. He died for flowers?

Nothing made sense.

Something got extra broken inside of me when he died. During this whole process, the viewing and the funeral, I would hear people talk. They would come up to me and say things. I've comprised a short list of what not to say to a grieving child. The list differs if it is an abusive parent who dies. That one is especially grotesque, but this one isn't much better:

1) "You are so strong!"
2) "It won't always feel this bad."
3) "God wants the good ones with him."
4) "Marty can see everything you do now."

Number one is a sore spot for me to this day. They were stupid and wrong to say those things, but people do stupid and wrong when they don't know what else to do. I was absolutely fragmented inside, and I can still feel that initial ripping away of a part of me when he died, like skin coming off with the band-aide of my soul. He was my brother. He was sixteen. He taught me everything from riding my very first bike, how to hit a line drive, how to jump rope, how to wrestle, how to climb on top of the school next door and jump back down, how to swim, and most importantly how to throw a punch. Whatever he was doing I wanted to do too. It didn't matter what, because he was always proud. He always told me I could do it. The "it" I was doing was not relevant. He believed in me. He never gave up on me. It didn't seem to bother him that I was around. He grew up in the same house as I did, and suffered the same things we all did, but somehow, in my eyes he was untainted by it all. I didn't know what I was going to do without him.

Nine months later my mother died.

When I was sixteen I was a passenger in a car that crashed on the same road Marty died on. The police said we all should have been dead. I broke my ankle instead.

Two years later my brother Matt died two days before my nineteenth birthday in a drunk driving accident on the same road. He was twenty three.

When I was doing the research to support my opinions for my paper I was kind of taken aback. There are volume after volume of case studies of the effects of trauma on children in the developemental years. I'm pretty sure I got stuck. At fourteen I felt like I was 40 years old. I'll be 40 this summer. I don't feel like I am a day over 14. Although my responses to trauma and abuse were horrific, they were absolutely textbook. My picture could have been in every article that I read. If I don't learn anything else over the next 2-3 years, my education has been worth this small bit of information. I didn't expect to learn so much about myself. It's very freeing. It's another step toward love, whatever that is.

I'd say this is a particularly hard time of year for me. It is riddled with death anniversaries and dead peoples birthdays. I've spent much of my life trying in very unhealthy ways to "Get over it." It is a struggle to not be defined by it all. Maybe getting over it means finally telling the truth about my experiences and the shitty things I did in response to them; not to excuse my behavior, but to be able to see it for what it is. Inspite of the counselors and psychiatrist I have exhausted, I still hurt. I also still believe in Christ. I still want to be good. I still cry every Sunday in church, and I haven't stopped being reborn, which is a good thing because when I was young I was far too old. And every spring when the flowers bloom along side of the road, I think of my brother and how he died for them. The miracle is this~I can't think of anything better to die for.