This is a story I have been working on for about fourteen years now. I would really like some feedback. This is just some of what I have written so far. P.S. The idea that I had for even this ever gets published is for each chapter to go back and forth between today's time and the memories.
It has been fourteen years and a whole century later since my world was shaken upside down and sideways. I will never forget the day my best friend died and all of the events that have happened since then. I was very young, 13, at the time and looking back I realize that a lot of my own thoughts will nothing more but a jumbled up mess. I think back to that time in my life with fondness now. I have a better understanding as to why we must suffer before we can truly understand the gifts we have been given.
I, myself, have been truly blessed in the last fourteen years. I am married to the most wonderful man I have ever met. I have known the joy of giving birth to two wonderful children. However, though all of this joy I can not help but wonder where the mentally comes from we people decide to take their own lives. To this day I wonder what kind of mother Erin would have been like. I wonder what kind of man she would have married. I also know that many of the mistakes I have made in the fourteen years since her death she would have tried to stop me from making.
True friendship is very hard to find and even harder to hold on to. There are many obstacles in the way of staying friends for a lifetime. I believe I can count the number of friends that have stayed with me though these tough years on one hand. However, it has been said that it is not the quanity but the quality of a friendship that makes it divine. I truly believe this. Erin was my best friend. We were as close as sisters but without the fighting. We had many wonderful experiences together and when those came to an end so suddenly I emerged from it a different person. My thoughts and values were forever shaken and anybody that interacted with me after that faithful time new not the person I was before, but the person I was afterwards.
Many of the people that knew me though my grief were silently, if not, greatly confused with a few gestures of such. I celebrated Erin’s sixteenth birthday at her grave with a party, complete with a cake and everything. Those that attended with me did so because they cared, although many of them thought I was just mad. I felt an overwhelming desire to have Erin with me though every milestone. I would talk to her or write her letters with every gift or tragedy that the good Lord decided to give me. I would introduce her to my new boyfriends, and my new friends. For the first few years I would take a trip to her graveside at least twice a year, her birthday and the anniversary of when she died. I felt a huge hole in my heart for a long time. It will never completely go away but I now know that I must move on. After all, it was the fear of such that made this wonderful young person decide that she had to breathe her last breath.
I stay in contact with her family a bit. Things have greatly changed for them too. Erin would have a younger brother and sister. She would be an aunt to two wonderful children. Her nephew is very proficent in the art of karate. Her older sister has settled down in her own life and more then likely looks just as Erin would had she gotten a chance to age. Methods of communication have changed since I was a broken teenage sitting by the phone. Where as Erin and I had to keep in touch with the phone or visits to each other’s house, now I can just see updates about her family on Facebook or though email. The things she never got to see still catch me breathless from time to time.
So I write this, reflecting on the fourteen years that have come to pass. I seed to remember the shattered dreams of a teenager while embracing the blessing I have had since then. I have learned many things through my journey. I have learned how to keep a friend. I have learned how to listen to my friends and family. Most of all, I have learned how very lucky I am to still be on this earth with all of those who love me. Some teens will not get to feel this sense of gratidue for they too will decide to take their own lives. It is my hope that somehow, I can remind them that there are things to live for. Whether it be friends, family or even as simple as a favorite cartoon there are many things that a lost teenager needs to remember when they feel that there is no way to move on.
When I was thirteen I woke up to her my mother utter the words that my best friend had committed suicide the night before. I remember being stunned and a bit confused. Up until this point I honestly had no idea what suicide was. After a few moments I realized that this word, as strange as I was to the concept, meant I would never get the pleasure of seeing my best friend alive again. I saw tears in all of my family’s eyes and felt very much alone. Of course, like any understanding parents would, my mom and dad told me I could stay home from school that awful October morning. I choose to go to school. Why? I believed I had a great mission to tell all of those that were close to her. I believe at the young innocent age I was at I thought things still were not real.
Going through the motions at school seemed to make me numb to the idea of grieving. I told quite a few of people about the sudden change of events. Quite a few of my fellow classmates decided to leave school with their parents escorting them out of the building with loud sobs. I saw the strain on every parents face and heard the cries of others, yet for some reason tears did not reach me. I could not bring myself to cry for the great friend I had lost. I felt some sort of guilt for not expressing the feelings that were hiding inside, but a lot of me questioned those events. I wondered inside my simple teenage mind if this situation was only a dream and/or a prank of some sort.
Surely Erin was going to appear beside me and tell me it was all a joke of some kind. It was all a misunderstanding and they had the wrong kid. She was suppose to show up to the party I was having at my house that following weekend, ok I got the joke now. Halloween was in two days and that was the whole joke. Ha Ha! When I saw her again I would tell how not funny this whole thing was. She would have to call many people and apologize for being so inconsiderate. Really!?
Of course while these thoughts swam in my head, I was watching more and more students leave school from the shock of the news. For some reason the reality of the situation did not seem to be hitting me. I spent my entire school day trying to reach another friend of mine. The one I had become close to since Erin had moved to a town about twenty minutes away. Although she had moved away about a year and a half ago we had kept in touch just like always. We had spent many nights on the phone and still went to each other’s house for sleepovers. I had developed a great relationship another friend named Amanda. She was my hometown friend and Erin was my out of town friend. They were my two best friends.
I spent the entire day trying to reach Amanda to tell her what had happened. Looking back at this about fourteen years later I realize that while I was doubtful about the truth of the claim of Erin’s death I was still telling everyone the news. I realize how silly this sounds now. I found out from the school staff that Amanda had stayed home sick that day and between every class I tried to call her at home. The line was always busy each time I tried. I don’t remember much else about that day. I went through the day like any other day not paying much attention to anything that the teachers were trying to say. I think a lot of them, including that teacher that Erin and I had shared the year before, were just wondering why I was still at school.
I remember getting picked up from school by my father and not saying much in the car on the way home. I had every book with me; I had not gotten any homework accomplished that entire day. The weight of all of the books gave me the physical weight on my hands that I carried inside of my chest. My soul was hollow but had a huge rock resting on it. I felt like my body was empty but full at the same time. An incredible urge to throw up waved upon me and I quickly swallow really hard and dismissed it has carry such a heavy weight of books.
As I walked into the front room, I noticed the paper was sitting on the dining table. Unknown to me, my mother went out to buy the local paper to keep the obituary announcement. I took a simple glance at the opened paper to see a picture of Erin right beside her name.
Erin Lyn Melvin
(1983-1996)
I quit reading at the second line where the year was presented. I remember then I had yet to contact Amanda and felt like I had to right then. I picked up the receiver to the phone in the kitchen and dialed the number I had been calling all day long. It rang and I took a deep breath and thought about what I was going to say.
“Hello,” the voice on the other end said. It was Amanda’s mom and I had to keep myself from just blurting out the news and hanging up.
“Hi, it’s Holly, can I talk to Amanda please”
“Hi Holly, sure no problem”. There was a moment of silence as I heard Amanda’s footsteps coming to the phone. I could just picture where she was coming from. I had been to her house numerous times prior to this phone call. For a moment my thoughts went to her dogs wondering if they were outside since I did not hear them in the background. It is amazing the type of thoughts you have when you are trying to avoid a conversation.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Not too much. Hey you weren’t at school today.” I decide to prolong the conversation just a bit more no quite sure what I would say. How was I going to explain the situation when I myself had no idea what exactly was going on.
“Yeah I was sick today.”
“I tried calling you all day and the line was busy every time.”
“That is strange; I guess my mom could have been on the phone for a bit. Wait a minute did you say you were trying to call all day? Why? What is the matter?”
“Uh, Amanda, are you sitting down.” As soon as those words left my mouth I could not help but realize how ridiculous I sounded. Everyone knows that when you are asked if you are sitting down that bad news will always follow.
“Why? What is wrong, Holly?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Ok, What?”
“Erin committed suicide last night, she is dead.” I said straightforward. I hear her grasp for air and I later found out that she had to concrete not to drop the phone. She had not been sitting down until I said those last words. I hear tears well up on her side, and I had to fight back my own tears. I wanted to cry but I did not want to cry over the phone to someone that was having a hard time too. Amanda did not need my grief right now. She had her own thoughts to process through. “Look, I will talk to you later. Are you ok?” I asked wincing at the last question hoping that she would let me go with realvity little problems. I had so much homework to do I could not spend very long on the phone. She assured me that she would be ok and that she understood I had to go.
