missing thursday -- 22 years now

you can't be what you were
so you better start being just what you are
-- fugazi

it had been almost a decade since i'd heard those words, yet there they were, an echo in my mind -- two years ago -- declaring my outlook from then on. up to that point, i'd spent twenty years trying to at least make sense of what happened on thursday, 26 may 1983. a day i still can't remember.

a personal tradition, i would always get away for at least may 26. when time allowed, i'd camp somewhere a few days around then. some good things came from those times of solitude, but two years ago i sensed it's time to lay it down, let go of what i can't relive. that fugazi song, badmouth, was stuck on repeat in my head. i'd try to decipher my past, there it was. i'd try to envision a future, there it was. i'd go for a walk in the woods, there it was. i'd get a drink of water, there it was. i'd lay down for a nap, there it was. even as i'd rise, in fact, all day 26 may 2003, there it was. just those first few lines.

that night i slept on a root. the next morning, as i stooped to fill my water bottle, my back revolted. never before had i consciously felt such pain. i was done. my retreats were done. two decades trying to piece together the day and/or night that i hanged myself, and where had it got me? to preserve a patch of sanity, i only obsessed on it during the actual anniversary or during the retreat around which it revolved, but this got me no nearer the truth of what happened. like grief ever obeys our parameters.

so i gave up.

in many ways, 26 may had become the height of my year. much more meaningful than any manufactured holiday. more significant, in terms of choice and changes to which i've had to adapt, than the day of my birth. throughout my twenties my sole claim to fame had been that i was born between two of my biggest heroes: m.k. gandhi and saint francis.

for the record, here's what i've gathered thus far. almost none of this comes first-hand, so many, many thanks to many friends. you know who you are;

a musical being, i played drums and a handful of other instruments to a lesser extent. that much i remember, but none of that day or night. only that day and night are gone -- thursday, 26 may 1983. apparently a normal day at school, starting with zero hour (7am) stage band and ending with sixth period english. nice bookends, mr. orr and mrs. boatman, with nothing unusual between. sure, i was prone to melancholy from time to time, but what 14 year-old isn't? oh yeah, i guess we got our annuals that day. i vaguely remember seeing a few candid pictures from one before receiving an annual weeks later in the hospital. that night was our school's spring concert, the entire chorale, orchestra, band and stage band were there. i hear i looked down, but why? many people said i answered, "nothin'" when asked about it. one friend says i was messing with his sax strap downstairs in the bandroom right before we went on. i guess i played a couple songs, then slipped back downstairs. a tune or so later, it was again my turn on the drums, so a fellow drummer came looking for me. she found me. shit. i'm sorry francine. she ran screaming. back upstairs, no one understood her. my friend fred, carried more by impulse than anything, flew down the stairs, across the bandroom and into four rooms, a little bigger than walk-in closets, littered with instrument cases and me. again, i'm so sorry. no one should be faced with such images. apparently, i managed to rig a noose with an extension cord and throw it over a pipe that ran along the ceiling. he freaked out and ran upstairs too, only this trip secured help and called 911. i'm unclear on what happened next, as i've heard varying reports. one said mr. grantham and mr. boatman cut me down, started cpr and what not. one said a paramedic named chris did all that. i believe them both. it's clear i owe my life to all three, plus fred and francine. thank you doesn't begin to cover it. i guess i wasn't resuscitated until on the way to the hospital (anytime you don't breathe for that long brain damage occurs -- ataxia -- which accounts for my slowly becoming more and more palsy-like). when i got there, they had to counter the mounting pressure on my brain, so they drilled a hole in my skull and put me in a drug-induced coma, from which i wasn't supposed to wake. during the coma the food tubes got tangled in my vocal cords, jump starting what ataxia would later claim.

in summary, i remember the night before and a week later waking up in the hospital -- only able to whisper, yet horrified at the suggestion that i tried to take my own life. for the next couple months i was confined to mental wards. a regular visit with occupational/physical/speech therapists and an occasional shrink or two was my only relief.

so there ya have it. i have a pretty good memory. most of the time it seems that's all i have to bring to the table. one day totally absent from that landscape is driving me nuts. especially one so pivotal.

deep breath, let it go.

that helps. kinda.

can't help but feel there are some betrayals that run beyond confession.
thursday, 26 may 2005