I'm basing this totally, well almost totally, on the comments on the previous blog: The Cowboy Kid.
The sad part about that old ramp was that the Cowboy Kid used to be the one doing the tricks, before we had to take over the show. When he got too sick he let me ride his amazing bike: slick white with trick pegs. For a while, in his very early teens he was even well enough to play hockey. This all ended too soon.
The arc of his life was brief; just 17 years. He knew and I knew it. CK squeeze a lot into his life: riding that beautiful bmx trick bike over his ramp, ripping down the ice and potting goal after goal, and he was popular...he was the prince.
Over all this his disease hung over him: medicine, treatments, isolation and scaling back sports.
The Cowboy Kid died young. I begged off work for the funeral...then didn't go. I was 19, but too scared to go. I made up a lot of excuses for not showing up, none of them good. French did show up - Bruce Fish drove him and even attended; and Bruce Fish never even knew him.
French's bad moments were highly visible: blood, fists, waving from the back of a police car. Mine are less visible, but there all the same.
5 comments:
shit Ollie. i have booked off for funerals and just couldn't go. something about keeping them the way you have known them. man the celebration of death keeps me quite and alone.
remembering and writing later is for me the best way. you have brought CK back for us today.
thank you.
~robert
It is hard to learn about death in your youth. At 17 you should be immortal, at least you think so. CK knew the truth of life too soon. Such a touching tribute.
i totally understand why you couldn't go. i've never been good at saying goodbye.
Mine are less visible, but there all the same. - shared truth
(((French's bad moments were highly visible: blood, fists, waving from the back of a police car. Mine are less visible, but there all the same.)))
xo
erin
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