Week Eight Open Topic

I knew what my next open topic would be the second I finished reading the novel. I wish it was as easy as me spitting out some historical facts like I did for last week’s topic but I know if I did that I wouldn’t be doing what in my heart I know I must do. I wish I could say that Linda’s story in The Things They Carried was just another sad story to me and that once it was out of sight it was out of mind but truthfully that isn’t the case.

Erin Elizabeth Crowley, a classmate and a close friend of mine, lost her battle with cancer in April of last year. She was eighteen years old, and she was incredible. My graduating class consisted of about 100 kids; everyone knew everyone, and everyone loved Erin. As long as I live I’ll never forget the day they called the senior class together to tell us she was being put on hospice care. She had been weaker than usual for a few weeks and hadn’t been coming to school but no one expected to hear the news. This wasn’t my first experience with death, my aunt had died of cancer several years before. But I never really knew her very well because she lived over seas and I remember the real reason I cried at the funeral was because I saw my dad crying, which I had never seen before. But this was different, she was my friend. She was just a kid, like me.

Several of us visited Erin as often as we could the next few months before she passed away; I always feared each goodbye would be our last. She continued getting weaker and weaker, and so did we. I hated seeing her that way, I wanted her to be like she was before, so full of life and always laughing. But I knew I would never see that again, and that kills me inside to this day.

On our prom night we went to go see her before the dance and her parents said she was going to try to make an appearance at prom but it would depend how she felt. So we left and a few hours into the dance her parents rolled her in on her wheelchair, much to the delight of everyone present. All her classmates, who hadn’t seen her in several months, came by to say hi. That night she was named prom queen, and no one ever deserved that honor more than her.

Several weeks later, I pulled into the school parking lot and walked towards my girlfriend’s car as I always did to say good morning and walk in with her. About halfway between my car and hers she sent me a text message telling me that Erin’s mom had called and that she had passed away in her sleep. I stopped for a second, letting it sink in, and rushed into the car. We didn’t stay at school that day, we simply couldn’t do it. Our councilor told us that they were having a service for her and that we should stay for it but that wasn’t an option. If I had seen people whispering to each other or laughing or anything besides how I felt they should be reacting I would have just gone off on them.

I was much older than Tim O’Brien was when he lost Linda, but that doesn’t mean I understand why my friend had to die anymore than he did. But when I read what he wrote it really inspired me because it’s something I’ve always thought. “But in a story I can steal her soul. I can revive, at least briefly, that which is absolute and unchanging. In a story, miracles can happen” (236). There aren’t many things I know for sure in this life, in fact there’s almost nothing. But one thing I do know is that Erin in not truly dead and she never will be. She’s always with me, she’s with everyone she ever touched and ever knew. As long as there are people to listen, I’ll tell Erin’s story. And as long as there are people who love her, and people who hear about her, she can never really die. I won’t let her.

Maybe this was too much; maybe this was more than any of you cared to read and maybe I’m too far off topic. But this was something I felt that I had to share, for better or for worse. She won’t let me keep it to myself; she always tried to boss me around in life, why stop now?

Here is a link to her website.