The best way to describe both Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth (Liz) is to imagine a nice sunny 68 degree day outside. As your back is turned toward the sun, you feel the warmth and the suns rays beaming onto your neck and entire back, thus it makes you feel so good and it feels like all the problems in your life and in the world are gone. During my childhood and teenage years, and still to this day. . anytime this occurs, well. . you know who I think of. No more hugs like those from the previous blog pages, but. . I still have the sun.
Today, March 14th 1995 would've been my Cystic Fibrosis (CF) friend Margaret's funeral. As I colored the image above, I thought about when my parents told me that she'd passed away. Liz (her twin sister) wrote and addressed the envelope and letter to my parents about two weeks after Margaret died at age 26. Margaret and I knew each other for 6 years. I didn't know that she was sick or in the hospital. Margaret married about 5-6 months prior to her death, which I believe was the last time I heard from her. Liz and Margaret weren't writing to me as much as they had in previous years.
The day I found out that Margaret died, I'd been helping a neighbor down the street. I remember coming home around 4 or 5 PM. I had no homework that day, but my plan was to come home, eat, and then study. Anyway, drizzle filled the air during that cloudy day, making the ground very damp.
I remember walking inside and taking my boots off. My Mom had told me that I received a letter from Liz. I remember being happy, as I was anytime I heard from Liz or Margaret. My parents told me to sit down that they had something to tell me. My Mom handed me the letter and told me that Margaret had passed away two weeks ago. I still remember saying.
"HUH?"
To say I was shocked was a huge understatement. I didn't know that anything was wrong. How could this be? I remember at that moment I felt like an absent memory. I felt lost. I remember sitting down and reading the one page letter that Liz had wrote. I must have read that letter 20 times that week. I remember my Mom asking me (after I read the letter) if I was ok. Margaret was the first CF friend that I knew that died. There was another person that I knew of (but wasn't as close as I was with Margaret) named Joel Rabideau who passed away in September of 1991, whom lived in my hometown.
I remember walking inside and taking my boots off. My Mom had told me that I received a letter from Liz. I remember being happy, as I was anytime I heard from Liz or Margaret. My parents told me to sit down that they had something to tell me. My Mom handed me the letter and told me that Margaret had passed away two weeks ago. I still remember saying.
"HUH?"
To say I was shocked was a huge understatement. I didn't know that anything was wrong. How could this be? I remember at that moment I felt like an absent memory. I felt lost. I remember sitting down and reading the one page letter that Liz had wrote. I must have read that letter 20 times that week. I remember my Mom asking me (after I read the letter) if I was ok. Margaret was the first CF friend that I knew that died. There was another person that I knew of (but wasn't as close as I was with Margaret) named Joel Rabideau who passed away in September of 1991, whom lived in my hometown.
After an hour in my room without making any noise, I sat in disbelief because I didn't know anything was wrong. My Mom came into my room and asked how I was doing. For that entire hour I never put down that letter. I grasped it like I was holding on to a last memory, like if I let it go, my life would change. I remember getting up and hugging my Mom and just balling my eyes out for the next five minutes.
I remember after my parents went to bed, I didn't. It was a school night and I usually went to bed at 10 PM. That night I stayed up until 2 AM, something I had never done on a school night or weekend. I stayed up reading all of Margaret's letters that she had wrote from 1989-1995. I cried until I couldn't breathe. I was filled with so much anger and pain. Truthfully, I just felt like I didn't matter and it was very selfish for me to think that way at that moment. I always sent her my school pictures, but never received a picture of her since the last time I saw her at Camp 1990. I always got good grades for her and Liz, but for weeks and months I continued to think. . . did I even matter?
That night I had wished I was a 10 year old boy again with her arms wrapped around me at CF camp and never wanting to let go. She and Liz always paid so much attention to me it was the best feeling in the world. Them two could have told me to hop on one foot for 5 minutes and I would have done it and never stopped. They could have told me to run 5 miles without stopping, and I would have done it. They were my flame in life. They kept me going.
Anyway, I didn't attend Margaret's funeral because I wasn't notified of her passing until 2 weeks after she died. Liz did send me a memorial card, which I still have to this day. Somehow, someway, I woke up the next morning (5 AM) with very little sleep and took my breathing treatments and meds. I put on a pair of pants, slipped on a lime green hoodie, and left for school, without a care in the world. I didn't feel like eating, I didn't feel like talking, I just went to school, sat in all my classes and did nothing. That was the only time in 4 years of high school that I didn't do anything during class.
It took me 6 months to just be able to look at her picture or say her name without crying. After reading 8 chapters of my memoir on Margaret, you now see why it was so difficult to move on, but gradually I did. Visiting Margaret's grave helped me a lot.
So here I am 20 years later and at times it feels like yesterday. I'm not sure what it would've done to me if I did attend Margaret's funeral, which I would have. There I was at 10 years old saying hello, and there I was at 16 saying goodbye.
(click image to enlarge)
"In Your Eyes" (1986) by Peter Gabriel
