while surfing around for links to reference re: a weblogging foundation, I turned up this. An End to Pain.
stavros (somehow, I can’t write Chris and think of the same person), I am so sorry for your loss. reading about Rick’s experiences, and the experiences of those burned in the Bali blast, has turned my mind to someone I haven’t talked to in a very long time. (must find postcard stamp….)
my best friend in junior high, and someone who has remained a very dear friend since those days, was a severe burn victim. at the age of six, she was in a car accident that killed her father and one brother, and left her and another brother with burns over large portions of their respective bodies. when I met her, we were eleven years old and we were both in special ed gym. (why I was in special ed gym I’ll leave either for another time or as an exercise for the reader.)
we didn’t talk a lot about the burns, not directly anyway. it’s not as though they were something that could have been forgotten, really: the worst of the burn scars were on her face, and they were quite severe. but they were just part of the background, at least for me. we talked about her surgeries, sometimes, and how she felt about surgery & her surgeons; she had surgery at least once a year up through high school.
most of the time, we talked about what we wanted to do with our lives, things in school, our families, books we were reading. we played a lot of Othello; it was something of a metaphor, tho I couldn’t say of what. I loved spending the night at her house, because her family was calm & quiet, her house was clean and cool, and we could stay up really late w/out being disturbed. her mom seemed really happy whenever I came over, and made us great food. I remember playing poker with her and her siblings (who were all much older than we were), and watching Rebecca (still one of my favorite movies & books) with our other two best friends at her house.
(here’s how many times I visited…I wanted to send her a card to let her know about the move, but couldn’t find her address – I knew she was back at home while doing her residency – I asked Mom if she still had the address; she didn’t, but she found it by driving there…by memory from at least 10 years ago.)
anyway…the gist of it, for me, is that through all of my psycho-dramas of junior high & high school, I counted on her to be my rock, to talk me down from my more emotional moments. and while I knew that she’d gone thru a lot, I didn’t know much about it.
then I read that article on stavros’ site, about the Bali burn victims, and in my mind’s eye I could see my friend, as a very little girl, in that place. god, I’d never wish that on another soul. her brother died like that, never leaving the hospital.
I’m incoherent, thinking about it, feeling sorrow for stavros, for his friend Rick’s family and friends, and for my own friend and her family, tho it’s entirely too late for that sort of thinking, and I don’t think she’d appreciate it anyway.