Journal

Ben. I remember you now, Ben.

5 Comments

In writing that last journal entry, I remember that one of the people who helped us move the drafting table was my neighbor’s son Ben. I barely knew him, but he sure was helpful, and genuinely enjoyed carting the table into our home and down two flights of stairs. This is the same Ben who later committed suicide. I couldn’t call up my memory of him at the time I learned of his death, but now I’ve stepped right into the middle of it.

I’m not sure whether to think of this as a landmine or a forgotten patch of flowers, here in the untracked forests of my mind. At least now I know where it is.

5 thoughts on “Ben. I remember you now, Ben.”

  1. It’s Flowers–Trust me

    It’s a pleasant memory of better times, just like many of the ones I have of my Dad, ages ago, and the many others who I knew then, and are gone now.

    Be glad it was a happy one, instead of the ones that wake you up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night occasionally.

    (Thought I was flashback-proof, somehow)

  2. Ben. I remember you now, Ben.

    Howard,

    I lost a childhood friend a couple years ago to suicide. He was a Marine in the first Gulf War. I think that and the marital issues he was having led him to it.

    I am very happy about my childhood memories of him, hell teenage ones actually. We had a lot of fun back then. Those times were good, but we got distant after high school.

    Just before he killed himself I found out he was a cop in the next town over but I didn’t have a chance to look him up. That is the only thing that taints my memories of him.

    If you had no way of knowing that it was immenent AND know that you had no way of potentially changing it look on it as a patch of flowers.

    Jim

  3. It’s always the little things that catch us by surprise when we turn around, isn’t it?

    But be it a minefield or a warm patch of wildflowers hidden away in a little clearing in the woods, it’s still a road that time will travel sooner or later.

    I’m sorry. Not because there’s memories, but because life’s path unfolded in such a way that there won’t be any new ones to add.

    One thing I’ve learned though… even in the middle of a minefield… flowers can still be found growing. Explosions only happen once. Flowers can be pressed and saved and still retain a faded sort of beauty even as the years go on. And the flowers are worth it.

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