Red Room Where the Writers Are

            I was unable to go to the funeral and that nearly broke my heart. He was the first person I had ever loved outside of family. We had been friends since seventh grade and it was sometime after college that we went our separate ways. Not that we had forgotten each other because that could never happen, but life took us to different places with different partners on different paths. We had each married someone else and even had children. He had a son; I had a daughter and was pregnant with my second child.

It was not that we were supposed to marry each other, we weren’t. We both knew that. It was not that kind of love, but it was love nonetheless. We had spent hours together sharing our hopes and dreams, the dysfunctions of our individual families, and our dating woes with the opposite sex. He gave me insights into the male psyche and I like to believe that I did the same for him. 

He was always there for me and I was always there for him even at two o’clock in the morning when he called to tell me his nightmares. He had a recurring dream that he was driving down highway 61S in his 1964 falcon. The radio was blaring out a favorite song when the engine caught fire. He fought to put the windows down or to stop the car but nothing worked. The brakes failed, the handles fell off the doors and windows, the steering column would not turn and he sped down the highway on fire with no way to escape until he jerked awake in a panic.  He called me at least once a week to share the dream and that he was certain that the message was a warning he would never live to see his 25th birthday.

As it so happened, he was doing some survey work the last day of his 24th birth year when he was suddenly struck with a sever pain in his head. He grabbed the top of his head, told a co-worker that he felt as if he was on fire and fell to his knees. He was dead.  The autopsy reported that he had died from a hemorrhagic stroke caused by the bursting of an aneurismal artery in the brain. He did feel as if his head was on fire because the blood supply to part of the brain had been cut off and the hemorrhage caused tremendous pressure and damage to his brain.

I received the news from my sister who still lived in the same hometown where we had grown up. My due-date was only three weeks away and I had already been to the hospital twice with Braxton-Hicks contractions.  My husband frowned and paced when I told him I wanted to go to the funeral. To get there I would have to travel about 200 miles and I knew if I insisted on going that this moment would be an apex in our marital discussions forevermore. With obvious disapproval and a reminder that I was married with children, he stressed that I should call my doctor to discuss the trip with him. He was not subtle in his objections to the idea and let it me known in no uncertain terms that he was against the idea that I would be traveling to an “old boyfriend’s funeral.” The idea that we were close friends and had been for many years escaped him completely.

The next day I called my doctor. He checked my chart and recommended that I not travel this close to my due-date. He reminded me that I had already had two close calls for an early delivery and given the history he could not stress enough that it was foolish to take the chance of being away from my husband and doctor if I went into labor.

I resigned myself to being outnumbered and cried myself to sleep for a week. It was my husband’s belief that grief had sent me into labor the third time. Our son was born two weeks early and even though the lungs were not fully developed, he was a fine, healthy boy.

New responsibilities forced me to put that grief aside then but as the 30th anniversary of his death draws near I want to take this moment to let it be known that I will always think of him today, tomorrow, next year, and forever. I cherish the memories of us sitting on the river bank with our feet dangling in the cool water as we discussed life and what it meant to each of us individually. His acceptance of me was unconditional and for that I am truly grateful. And although I could fill a book with the things I loved about him, I wish to now pay my last respects, by offering these memories as a tribute to my dear friend, Howard.