An Appeal to the Masses

Below is a very rough draft of a piece of nonfiction I wrote last night. I am in need of suggestions regarding how to improve it. Comment away, please, and I shall be everso thankful.

My Life Closed Twice Before I Graduated High School

I wonder sometimes if God takes us away from this earth when we have done all He meant for us to do. If so, does this mean that those of us who are still here have fallen short in some way? It isn't after all, only the old who die. Young people – people my age or younger – die every day. Faulkner abruptly reminded me of this by having Shreve of Absalom, Absalom! state that more people have died than have been twenty-one. As can be expected, the character to whom Shreve speaks does not live to see his twenty-first birthday.

I knew Marvin from the time we were in third grade until we entered high school. The only time I can remember when Marvin was not attending the same school as I is when we were in middle school. Our parents chose to send us to two different magnet schools, but I still saw Marvin during the summers between the terms because we attended the same science camp. Since our families lived so close to each other, my father would often pick Marvin up when he got me in the afternoons, and we would drop him off at home.

My younger brother – who was usually with Daddy when he picked us up from day camp – had taken to calling Marvin "the mailman." I think maybe this was because the first thing he did when dropped off every day was check the mail, but I cannot confidently state the way my brother's mind worked then. After Marvin and I had completed our first year at the same high school, Marvin died suddenly. He was playing basketball with his father when he passed out. Marvin's heart stopped beating, and he was gone before any of us could wonder why. His funeral was packed. I saw friends I had not seen since elementary school. His mother wailed. I cannot imagine a pain greater than outliving one's own child. Marvin is survived by his mother, father, and two younger brothers, both of whom idolized him.

I remember that when we were in elementary school, someone heard a member of his family call him "E.J." From then on, everyone knew Marvin had two middle names, but all he'd ever say was, "If you guess, I'll tell you." Of course, no one ever guessed, but we all secretly suspected the "E" was for "Earl." Marvin's two middle names remain his eternal mystery. Maybe I'll ask him about them when I get to heaven, where I know he is because of the faith he exhibited while he was alive.

I wonder where Robert ended up, though. I try to console myself by believing it is possible that while he lay in his hospital bed in a coma, he was making his peace with God. But I really don't know for sure. When I got to school that Monday morning, everyone outside the hangar – our crew's morning hangout spot – looked grave. As I approached to ask what was wrong, Lori went through the double doors, hiding her face. Lucia, or Megan, or someone, then told me that Robert had shot himself in the head over the weekend. It had been a while before anyone found him because their family – Robert, younger brother Randy, mother, and father – had been on their land in Wills Point for the weekend, and Robert was in his trailer when he pulled out one of his father's guns and shot himself.

Robert was in a coma until late Thursday evening, when Randy finally worked up the nerve to visit his hospital room. Right after Randy left him, Robert died. I cannot remember if Robert left a note or if maybe we all just suspected his suicide was because of Alexis, an ex-girlfriend who had taken her life the year before. Robert's suicide rocked my world, and I didn't even know his last name. I felt the profoundest of guilt for a long time, wondering if maybe my attention or more dedicated acquaintanceship could have changed his fate.

The school wanted to keep a close watch over those of us who hung out at the hangar every morning with Robert, so we were required to attend group counseling sessions with a shrink and one of the high school's counselors. They asked us if we had ever tried to commit suicide, asked us how we felt about Robert. We didn't know how we felt; we were kids, and one of us was dead. Some of us admitted to having contemplated suicide, but none of us would consider it again, not after Robert. His death showed us what suicide could do to the survivors of its victims. We have mostly lost touch. As time separated us from Robert's death, we agreed to keep our eyes on Randy – who had meanwhile started attending the same high school we did – but we stopped needing to watch each other so closely. We grew up, we grew away from it, but we remain forever changed – scarred – by Robert. We cannot forget him, even if we have forgotten each other.

There is a point in all our lives where we begin to lose our innocence. We do not usually see it coming, and we do not usually welcome it. It comes, though. Just as surely as we all live, we will all lose our innocence unless the Lord should call us home before the dreaded moment. Before my fourteenth year, I had known death. I had seen it take my great-grandmother and my father's father. But they were both distant, far removed from me. Marvin and Robert were real. They were people I knew. I saw them all the time. They were my friends, and then they were dead, and I didn't know what to do. Sometimes, I still don't. Had Robert and Marvin fulfilled their lives' callings? Does the Lord have a longer list of things for me to do or am I just slower in getting them done? I do suppose I won't really know the answers to why the loss of my own innocence had to come at such an already tumultuous time in my life or why God takes some earlier than he takes others until I am face to face with my Creator and can ask Him.