A few days ago I wrote a poem for someone who is dying. I have never met Sneezy and I never will because he is beyond the ability to speak--and when he is able to manage sound those precious seconds should be preserved for those who love and know him best.
But I sat at a table and wrote a poem about him. On the back of my first draft, when I had a few blank moments to fill, I began a list. A naming of the dead. In a matter of seconds I had fourteen names. Fourteen souls who, for a variety of very sad and very personal reasons, had no longer been able to tolerate life on this earth and had chosen, in that last split second of darkness, to move on.
Then I added more names. People who had tried, but failed (or, depending on one's prespective, had succeeded, by staying on earth). Those whose struggle had at least been enough to reach my own ears.
The list is varied and complex, just as the lives reflected are varied and complex. But one constant is there, a steady stream of sorrow, a dull abiding drumbeat of pain. There, in every name.
One name is still raw. My neighbor. A boy two years younger than I, now a middle-aged man, who came home to his parents' welcoming arms, who fought, who worked, who tried really really hard. But who in the end just couldn't stay with us. I never knew him as a man. I never even really knew him as a boy, any more than I really knew anybody else in high school.
But I remember his eyes--they were big and beautiful under a thick fringe of long dark hair--even then it seemed he was trying to hide those beautiful eyes behind that beautiful hair.
And I thought about Sneezy. He had fought hard for many months, for long days in and out of hospitals, rehabs, operating and recovery rooms. His refusal to give up, to let go, to miss a chance to tell one more joke, to get one more laugh, was still palpable in those who knew him best. His will to live was with us in that room, even though I never saw him open his eyes or heard him utter a single word.
Two men. Two lives. Both bumping up against mine. Neither of whom I knew. Both I will never forget.
