And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues

I was listening to Jordan Peterson the other day, and he said something which had stuck with me. “You need to be the strongest person at your father’s funeral.” The idea – which Dr. Peterson didn’t come up with himself, but found in the pages of Stoicism –

                A philosophy I greatly enjoy –

                                                                Thanks to my friend Matthew –

                States life is full of tragedies, some great, some small, but all lived by us. Life is suffering … is what they are trying to say and the best thing you can do is be strong in the face of the suffering –

                Face the storm -

                Yell to it … “I’ll do my worse, you do yours.”

                And if we are blessed by the angels, we might find a harbor in the storm for a while. I have found, and maybe wrongly found, most of the harbors or havens we take root in from the storm are other people. After all isn’t every person in the same stormy sea as we are?

                Indeed, we are going to face the tragedies of life together, and if I were wiser man in my younger years, I would have seen a few of them come marching down from the hills. One of the greatest tragedies in my younger days was the time I said goodbye to my friend Catherine.

                I sat on the steps outside my front door sucking down cigarettes after cigarettes knowing what I had to do but –

                I didn’t want to do it, not to her, not in that moment. I didn’t want to stop being her harbor, but she couldn’t stop kissing her demons, running with her ghouls, and swimming deeper into the sea of bad medicine. If I didn’t break away from her –

                I would drown with her

                Sink or swim

                Was the cast of the die.

                And I hated saying goodbye.

You see, Catherine knew I was safe. I had been the only person in her life to be safe. I never touched her. I never hurt her. I only open my arms to welcome into a haven of my life. I went out of my way never to be like anyone else around her.

                If a boy got her drunk –

                I did not.

                If a boy talk ugly to her-

                I won’t allow it.

                I was safe, and I was about to break her heart. Her father – God rest his soul – was a hard man who liked pills a bit too much. He would take some went he got home from work and on good nights pass out before the sun dip under the world.

                On bad nights, which would happen more often than not, Catherine would call me trying not to cry but begging me to come and get her. I would shrug, jumping into my car, dashing to scoop her up from the yelling of a drugged-out man. She would meet me at the end of the road, with a bag hanging from her shoulders, and tears dried on her pale face. She climbed in smiling not saying a word about her father, and we would head back to my house.

                She would tell me about her day, not saying a word about him, but I knew – I knew –

                When we would pull into the driveway, the tears would break out, screaming about what he had done to her. She didn’t understand his demons –

                                                I see the irony in that now –

                                                                They shared the same ones –

                She didn’t understand why he couldn’t be a father to her. I had no words to ease her pain. I, too, did not understand, so all I could do was be safe for her.

                I don’t remember how I meet Catherine. I have a feeling it was at Steve’s house during a party, but I don’t recall the moment or the night. I do recall the first time she needed me, and the first time I came to pick her up from a party that had gone wrong. She wasn’t sober, but she knew something had gone wrong. I drove around with her until she was thinking straight.

                I stood on the edge with her –

                                About to step over –

                                                Fall into the waters where the ghouls all waited, but instead –

                “I can’t do this anymore.”

                “Do what?”

                “Be around the drugs.”

                “I understand.”

                “I’m sorry but –“

                But – goodbye.

                We didn’t talk for a long time, but every now and then she would hit me up. We would chat a bit here and there. We told each other how much we changed. I saw the lies of her words, she had only been pulled deeper into the waters. I heard the rumors of the people she surrounded herself with, none of them safe, not one of them a haven.

                Soon, my life catches up to me, and I lost track of her. Every now and then, I would think about her, wondered what had happened to her. After the death of her father – he hung himself I believe, or took a handful of pills – I reached out to her. We talked for a few hours but when back to our lives never planning on doing it again.

                She had moved out West, got clean, didn’t need anyone to be safe because she was safe for herself. It made me smile. I felt oddly proud of her, but life marched on.

                “I’m coming back to North Caroline for a few weeks.”

                “We should get dinner then.”

                “Yeah, let’s do it after Christmas.”

                “Sounds like a plan, I would love to see you.” I would still love to see you.

                A week before the New Year – a rough year, I would find out – I got a phone call I didn’t want. I was asleep in my bed, not thinking about Catherine but wondering what I was going to do with my life. The school was close to being over, and I needed to make a move for the future.

                My phone rang –

                                Steve was calling –

                                Odd, it is three in the morning.

                “Dude, Catherine is dead.” She met up with some old friends who were throwing a little party. None of them knew the fentanyl had been used to cut the heroin, one hit, and she was dead before she knew what happens. I didn’t get to go to her funeral to set her ghost to rest. Her family – and I can’t blame them – didn’t want any of her friends there. After all, some of them had killed her.

               

                I’m watching the shadows grow long as the sun started to set, and I don’t know how to end this one. I have an idea for two endings, so I’ll give you them both, read them if you wish.

                The first one, the one which fits the theme and tone of the story better is –

                I remember Catherine walking down my driveway at night while I sat outside waiting on her. She had been dropped off by her boyfriend – the fight had been bad – and the tears set on the edge of her blue eyes as the tragedies of her life were crashing into her in real-time. I watched and smiled at her letting her know it was safe here.

                The second one and maybe, the one I like more –

                The car windows are down on some hot summer days with no time stamp in my mind. It is just a lazy summer day like all the rest, and Catherine is sitting beside me, petting the wind as we raced down the road. She is wearing big sunglasses, and we are going nowhere with no plans for tomorrow if we had them for the next few hours. ‘1979’ by the Smashing Pumpkins hangs on the memory as I look over at her. She smiled back at me … it is all good, it is all safe.