An unlikely reflection

CONTENT WARNING: I wasn't sure how else to do this, but I talk a lot about death in this, specifically about the death of a child that affected the whole community where I grew up.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

It was an 8th grade reading assignment, and to be honest I wasn't enjoying it at first.

Blasphemy, I know. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

It was just a book I was reading for class. One boy is mad at another boy. Angst, anger, whatever. And that's how it sat with me until Christmas vacation.

My family took a trip for Christmas, we usually did, we'd go to see my grandma who lived about a five-hour drive away.

On the way home I remember it was snowing outside the car, which was weird and felt scary, exciting, or something like that. We lived in southeastern North Carolina, and my grandma was in Virginia. I wasn't used to seeing snow, so it was quite a novelty.

My dad was driving, my mom next to him, me in the middle row of seats, and my brothers in the back. We drove everywhere, it was just another long ride in the car, and then my parents got a call on my dad's cell. A student had died over break. A student in my grade. Did I know him?

I didn't really. I knew of him, everyone did. He was my teacher's son. My English teacher, the same one who had assigned A Separate Peace.

I liked her. Overall, I thought she picked cool assignments and was generally fair. I knew above all else she loved her boys. She had 2 who went to our school. The one in my grade, who was... and a younger son, in 6th grade, I think.

I felt a little numb, and thought it was a strange reaction. I really didn't know him well. Not like some of my classmates who were his best friends. But I immediately felt empathy swelling in me for my teacher, this mother who lost her son over Christmas.

The details began to emerge when we got back to town, and I got back to school. We were told it was a skiing accident. He was on a more advanced slope, as he was indeed an advanced skier. Apparently, his family had been regularly skiing since he was born. An adult who was a novice on an advanced slope ran into him. I think he died on impact.

It was just one of those completely strange, unbelievable situations that for a long time I couldn't really believe it was happening. And then things started changing.

Looking back as an adult it breaks my heart because I think of how much she probably needed more support than our community knew how to give her.

We had an assembly at school where they showed a PowerPoint of photos of him set to Sarah McLachlan's "Angel". I know most people think of those save the pets commercials when they hear that song. I think of an 8th grader who died over Christmas break.

It's blazed in my mind. Not the pictures of him, though I still remember his face, but rather looking around the auditorium at my classmates, some crying freely, some clearly struggling to keep it together in front of their peers, and my teacher always with this expression I still don't know how to define. Maybe it's a face only another parent could understand. This look of unspeakable loss.

Things started to change in class in the weeks following for the rest of the school year. She would do these poetry Fridays we all loved where on Friday a whole block of class would be dedicated to reading a poem or listening to a song, and then taking time to write our initial thoughts and feelings, and then we'd discuss. I freaking loved it. The poems and songs used to be quite varied. After he died here are just a few of the poetry Fridays I still remember in detail:

Because I could not stop for death - Emily Dickinson

I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack

Live Like You Were Dying - Tim McGraw

Are we seeing a theme? It's an honest to God miracle we made it through the rest of that class without any major hiccups. Every week I was waiting for the thoughtless 8th grader to ask our teacher, "are you depressed because your son died?"

I know, we were kids. It's not as if anyone would mean to be cruel but sometimes, we all speak without thinking, especially as kids, and I lived in fear of this happening.

But we'd made some unspoken pact as a class to not go there, to let her grieve however she needed to even if it was right in front of us, bearing her emotions through the work she gave us to analyze.

Meanwhile, we were still working through A Separate Peace, and it was the one part of class that didn't feel touched by her son passing, and I think for most students it stayed that way.

Except for me.

I grew up with two older brothers, they are 8 and 5 years older than me, and I love them so much.

We bonded over some rough moments in childhood, and I know we'll always have each other's back because of it.

But it wasn't always easy.

When I was a baby, my oldest brother did the typical oldest sibling thing and felt I was his baby, while my middle brother I think wished I was a boy.

But as we grew up that started to change. My brothers let me hang out with them, and despite our age gap I felt so equal to them in every way.

I think as I got older, and they did too though it began to create some tension. Particularly between my oldest brother and me. He was the oldest and in charge, but I was so very mature and didn't need his help or advice. We began to fight a lot.

After my teacher's son died, I thought a lot about her, but having brothers myself I also thought a lot about her younger son. Being the younger sibling of a big brother, how much you could love them and look up to them, and at the same time still want to smack the crap out of them.

I thought a lot about how we were all so focused on her grief I don't remember anyone even asking her younger son if he was okay. I'm sure she had him speaking to a counselor or something, I don't know, I just mean no one was talking about him and he'd just lost his brother.

It bothered me, and something about A Separate Peace and this tense relationship between these two boys, one completely inventing in his own mind this need to fight for dominance, it reminded me of a sibling type relationship.

And yes, I know there is a vastly different interpretation of this book that was not on my radar at this time. This was just how the book was speaking to me at this specific moment in time. If I reread it today maybe I'd feel something else.

But somewhere between the sad poetry, and the songs about living life to the fullest, and the constant analysis of the look on my teachers face day-to-day, and my fear for her son, and the daily exposure to the work of John Knowles, the fights with my oldest brother were getting worse, and my subconscious was about to release everything I'd been holding.

To this day it's one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had. My brother was dead. I was sitting in this chair in my grandma's house with the family assembled, walking around like we'd just come back from a funeral. I was crying. I didn't know I was dreaming. I didn't understand what had happened or how. I didn't know I was dreaming, but in the dream, I willed it to be a dream. Very meta I know.

I was so struck with the tragedy of it all. This brother who I loved so much, but let my impatience and anger get the best of me, was now gone. It was so unfair. He'd never know how sorry I was. How much I wanted him to be around always, no matter how mean I was sometimes. I cried out for God to make it not real. Over and over again. Please, please this can't be real, let it be a dream. Please let it be a dream.

And then I woke up.

It was sometime in the very early hours of the morning. I had school. I got out of bed and walked over to his room and stood at the doorway until I could be sure I heard him breathing and could see his chest rising and falling slowly in sleep.

I went back to my room, but couldn't go back to sleep, so instead I said a prayer for the boy who had lost his brother. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know him. I didn't know how to help him, but I laid there hurting so bad for him. If for only a second, I felt like I had tapped into some understanding of the absolute hole that must be in his chest at the loss of his brother.

I know in many ways A Separate Peace has nothing to do with what I'm talking about, but in other ways it has everything to do with it.

I actually wrote my final paper on the book discussing similar themes, while obviously trying to code my words delicately knowing my teacher who had just lost her son would be the one grading it.

I felt a lot like Gene sometimes. Impulsive, and prone to lashing out in an attempt to protect myself from perceived threats. Especially when I was younger, I think I was living on the defensive.

My brother's not like that. I'm happy to say he's alive and well, and after I made it through my teenage years our relationship greatly improved into adulthood. Not that we don't still argue like we are 10 and 18 sometimes, I guess that just goes with the territory of having siblings, but we are much better.

I began to see my brother as a Finny. He didn't have anything to prove. He rarely got mad. He looked at me and our other brother like we hung the moon. To this day he's always bragging about his sister and his brother. I wanted to be more like that. A Separate Peace made me reflect on how dangerous it was to sit with my anger.

Not because I might cause an injury that might inadvertently be renewed in a second freak accident eventually leading to someone's death, but because accidents happen every day regardless of what we do.

People get sick. People get hurt. And somewhere between the text Knowles had put on the page, and staring at my teacher every day, and watching in the halls for the little brother, I realized that I too could lose the people I love without warning. I wanted to try to be better so if and when inevitably that day came, I wouldn't be left wondering why they were gone, and why I couldn't be better while they were still here.