Saying ‘No’ Gave Me My Life
My ( embarrassing) Senior Prom photo a year later.
For many years I’ve felt that I once escaped death. I’ve never even uttered the words until now. I buried my emotions because the guilt was too difficult to process. Perhaps he and his prom date would be alive if I had said yes, or perhaps I would be dead. There was no way I would have attended the junior prom after declining Mark's invitation. I was an empath even at the young age of seventeen, always more concerned with someone else's feelings rather than my own. I've never adequately processed the loss, the nearness to death, or the failure to save their lives.
I don’t think about the accidcent much, and I don't think about Mark much, but sometimes he pops into my head and I wonder how things would have been different if I had uttered yes that day standing by our faded green metal lockers. I wonder if there was some other force which gave me the instant answer of a firm no when he asked me to the prom.There was no pause in my words and no contemplation. I made up an excuse on the spot as to why I couldn't go to the prom in general, but in my gut I knew my lies were in an effort to not hurt his feelings.
The morning after the prom, our house phone rang and I casually lifted the wall mounted receiver in our family’s kitchen. Even with my eyes open I can see the details like a scene in a movie I had watched so many times, that I could recount every finger lift and head tilt. The clothes I wore, the exact spot where I stood, and of course, my reaction. I can see my back sliding slowly down the edge of the kitchen cabinet until I was sitting on the floor with my heels glued to the floor and knees pressed into my chest. My lungs caved as if rocks were being stacked one by one, heavier and heavier and heavier.
My stomach churned each time I approached our lockers nestled beside one another. Etched in the metal door were messages from schoolmates and I squinted my right eye hoping to blur them out of sight. It remained full of books, a few photographs wedged between the framing and a jacket he left behind. His potent cologne lingered for weeks, and I sucked in tears that I didn’t want to feel on my face. School would be over soon, as spring descended on the landscape, flowers in full bloom and final exams commencing. I counted the days, ready to never return to that locker, the locker where we hung out several times a day, the locker where he asked me to prom.
At the time, I didn't want to believe I was different from any of my friends grieving Mark’s loss. I hated attention and much preferred to blend in, but I was different. I was entirely different, yet I never felt comfortable admitting that I was in a different category. As quick as the thoughts would enter my head about my own possible death that day or the possibility of them being alive due to choices I may have made that early morning, I pushed visions away before they could fester. It was agonizing to face the litany of what if’s, and not much to gain,so I filed it away. Far, far away.
I have often wondered if life is planned out for us and we are just fulfilling the screenplay, or does each decision lead us on a path, like the choose your own ending books I loved when I was a kid. I’m reminded of 9/11, and the survivors who missed their train, or those that were unexpectedly in the buildings that day. Were there spirits or angels that protected me? Why do some suffer such tragedies and others are spared? Why was I spared? Why was my answer and emphatic no that day? I guess this is why I’ve not examined my feelings, what difference can it make now? My ruminating can’t change the past.
Subconsciously, I’ve carried this memory with me and I believe it has focused me to live fully. I say I love you frequently, and I consciously make time for those I love. My awareness of the fragility of life is heightened and certainly helped me find the courage to proceed with a difficult divorce. Mark helped me understand that our time is not endless and that we all deserve to live life feeling loved,respected and appreciated. At seventeen, I understood clearly that my tomorrows were not a given and neither were anyone else's.