Staff Training 2010: an incomplete account.

And after the library, I organized Beth's file cabinet, Beth's office closet, and some bits of the equipment room. I found sunscreen from 1989, and an old-timey snorkel mask. DIBS.



Living on the same plot of land as David is not easy, but is (usually) not as unbearable as I had feared it might be. Although I did write some depressing poetry the other night while he played Ninja Burger with some of the other staff. //emo emo, yes. But I manned up, thanks to lovelybeautifulwonderful Victoria, and Alkulana Challenged--the smallest ever, with just the two of us and Kelly, but also my first time sans cheating/bathing suit--and then did puzzles in the dining hall and acted nonchalant when questioned by incredulous new staff.

"Did you streak into the water?"
"You don't streak in the water, you skinnydip."

The water at night is so beautiful, so lovely and just warm enough. The smell is so clean and summery and delicate. The fireflies are magical. There really are few things I love more than night swimming in the creek. I need to do that a lot more often.


Last night Emily and I lay in our bunks and talked after turning the lights off--she is so sweet and always asks me how I'm doing when I fake like I'm fine--and at one point she told me, "Don't worry. You'll find your Jesse."

It was another of those nearly-crying moments. Way to worm your way in and punch the (poorly) hidden button, Em. For reference, Jesse is Victoria's super awesome, perfectly matched, high school sweetheart boyfriend. The only reason they aren't married is that they haven't graduated from college yet. They've picked their wedding colors and kid's names. It's sort of crazy, and anyone can tell you that I'm not a big fan of marrying young, but with them, I trust it. So yes. Emily assures me that I will someday find my Jesse, and I look forward to that, but for now I'm still pasting my tattered heart back together. Construction is, I suppose, progressing roughly on schedule. I really miss David's family though, sometimes. I saw a picture of his nephew today on his sister-in-law's blog, and I just want to hug that little boy so badly.


I talked to my dad tonight about Chris Duncan, and how Nick and I have been talking about him a little. I don't really know what to say I guess, except that I wish I could do more for Nick, and for Chris's mom Rhonda, than just ask how things are and talk about memories and how many ass-kickings Chris is going to get once we all die and join him up there in the clouds. That's really how the conversations go, so far. Today Beth (the boss) had us write promises to God, things we might be able to hold each other accountable to this summer, and share them if we were willing at the worship service we held this morning before heading home. Nick's was to be more honest about how hard it is for him to be without Chris, and when we prayed for everyone up there, he cried. I cried too. I couldn't even say anything--I just leaned my head against his back and cried. I asked him after the service how he was doing, and he said, "That punk keeps making me cry. It's making me all stuffy." And then we both said at the same time, "He's really racking 'em up"--'them' being, of course, ass kickings, as I stated earlier.
And I don't know, it's just so weird for me, though weird is utterly the wrong word. Chris and I were buddies when he was little, but we hadn't been close in years. Mostly I just remember his little-boy goofy smile, huge ears, huge teeth. Even now I sometimes hope it's all just a horrible dream, even though he's been gone for nine months. Chris was Rhonda's firstborn. Paul and Philip's star big brother. Nick's best friend. I can't even imagine what it's like for him. I can't even bring myself to try to imagine what Rhonda is like now, on the inside. Sometimes I wonder whether there could even be anything left of her, after all this. She's hardly slept since he died. She's only cried maybe a handful of times. She's been stuck in PTSD mode since she found him, and only in the last few weeks has she been able to begin to actually grieve. She'll be at Camp tomorrow or Tuesday.


I'm sorry for all the downers! Things really have not been all bad. It has been so great to get to hang out with Emily, with Ellen and Dan, with Victoria and Jesse, Nick, and with so many new and returning staff. To get to know Shane better. To go camping and actually sleep. To spend whole afternoons organizing, or to facilitate the staff group on The Wall element of the Challenge Course. Let me tell you, it is a whole new experience being senior staff. Suddenly there is no one around, with the exceptions of the cooking staff, who has been at Alkulana longer than I have. Suddenly I am the expert. People have honestly told me that I "seem wise," and that there is "no un-knowledgeable bone" in my body. In the cave, Steven kept saying that I had "crazy leg muscles" whenever I lead them through a section where we had to crouch down and maneuver. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's awesome to be complimented and (usually) appreciated. It is just really, really strange to walk into Camp this summer and suddenly be the wise one.

The weekend was not always easy, but it was good. I got to spend some time with Sean and geek out about Wheel of Time. I got to be there for Rhonda (mother of Chris), for a little while. I gave her massages Friday and Saturday night, and talked to her a little. She had so much pent-up tension and energy in her shoulders that I could feel my hands buzzing when I put them near. She hasn't been able to grieve for Chris yet because she's still trying to deal with the trauma of having found him hanging in the family garage. I can't even imagine the horror of it. It must be like an unending nightmare. I love her and her family so much. I wish there were something more that I could do than rub her back and hands and feet. She's lost so much weight.

I also talked to David while I was there. Friday night it was okay--a little hard, but manageable I guess. We didn't get to spend much time together. I mean, I suppose we could have, but either I could follow him around like a lovesick little girl, like a puppy, or we could not spend much time together. I wouldn't let myself, so we didn't. Saturday Kelly and I took JP and Kate caving before lunch, which was nice. Sweet, in a more traditional (aka not "sweet" as in "awesome") sense. Kate is seven, and cried last time I took her caving. I asked whether she'd be alright this time, and she said that yes, she would be fine--she was in kindergarten last time. After lunch almost everyone went canoeing, but Kelly and I (and a couple of other people) stayed behind. We put some books away and did a puzzle. I love canoeing, but I didn't want to go. I suppose I didn't want to be looking at or looking around for David the whole time. At dinner he said he'd be leaving after he and some of the other guys finished their work refitting the rappel tower. I was upset. I had known he would be leaving Saturday, but I had forgotten. I asked whether we could hang out a little while before he left, and he said I could come help with the tower, which wasn't at all what I had meant. I said okay, but couldn't go. I felt too much like a puppy. I waited for them to finish. I hated that I was waiting, but every time I tried to go do something else, I couldn't because I was afraid he would leave without saying anything to me, and I couldn't stand it. So I waited, tried to leave, waited, tried to leave, cried, paced, waited. It was pretty terrible. I ended up sitting in the kitchen, afraid he'd leave but refusing to move, until he came in. We talked a while about how we felt, about life and family and us and depression and work. It was still sort of okay, though harder than before. Then he got up to leave and stood there talking to me, and I looked up at him from the bench and was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that David, my David, was standing there and looking at me and was not mine. I can't explain what it was like. I couldn't breathe.

I begged. Or at least I came as close to begging as a person can without saying the words "I will do anything if you will be with me."

Last night I dreamed that my house was repossessed while I was away. When it was time to go home I asked my mom where we would go, but she didn't know.
We packed our things and went back to the house, but it was shut up, and the power was off. We were trying to find a way to turn the power back on, but the house was slated to be burned down.

Sometimes "we don't understand each other very well" seems like a pretty weak reason for us not to be together. I mean, I think I want to be together, or at least, this weekend I feel like I can't go through with this "not being together" thing, this trial apart-ness or whatever it is. I don't know though whether that means that it's a bad idea. I don't know if I'm even making sense.







Today is Sunday of course, so we did a "Quaker worship" type thing, as we often do at retreats. Sharing as led by the Spirit sort of thing. Several of us talked, and I learned a few things, but I learned as much from who didn't talk as from the people who did.
There's a girl who is a counselor now and was a camper for a long time. She's always been very quiet and when she did talk, she tended to talk one or two things to death. Today though, this morning, I suddenly realized that she has been doing exactly, exactly the thing that I do: she has been telling me difficult things about her life in a very nonchalant, matter-of-fact way. It's amazing what you can fail to hear when things are delivered in that tone. It's the kind of tone a person might use if they have things they need to say but can't stand to feel or really talk about. I'd been listening and not hearing for a while. For I don't know how long. Today I gave her a hug and she held on to me for five or maybe even closer to ten minutes, and still, I was the one that let go in the end. I am so glad that we asked her to come back as a CiT and as a counselor. I really am.

It's like a big secret we all carry around, that we all have some deep pain buried within us. I've lost the words I felt earlier, when I realized the absurdity of it. I have hurts. She has hurts. You have hurts. What can we do? I guess it's just life. I want to learn to live in joy anyway.

Well.

From Momma Bear's (Chris's mom's) status message tonight:

Well it looks like Chris's suicide may indeed have been an accident. You can definitely tell he slipped and fell, there is no denying that. I do not believe the Chris we all knew and loved would think or believe he did it on purpose. Unfortunately when you play dangerous games (like Russian Roulette) you sometimes lose. Chris thought Lacey [his ex-girlfriend, probably the main person responsible for the state he was in in the first place] was on her way over. But because he had been drinking he was not thinking.

The end, I guess.

His funeral was last night, at a place in Knoxville that seats 400. There wasn't even standing room. There were people six deep outside the building. While we were going through the line to hug his family before the service, I was looking around at the flowers and the people and the slide show of pictures of Chris, and fighting against my instinct of denial, trying to get myself to believe what was happening. Then I glanced toward the front of the line and there he was, cold and grey in the open casket. I just lost it a little bit when I saw him. I'm having a hard time really keeping it together now. Even though, even as I write this, I still can't wrap my head around what's happened, when I saw him lying there I knew for that moment that it was all real, all undeniably true, and it was unbearable. It is unbearable. I literally can't bring myself to think about it for very long.


He was in some debt, which evidently seemed insurmountable at that moment.
He and his girlfriend, with whom he was in love and with whom he was very angry, had broken up.

He had been out drinking.

He hanged himself in the garage after he came home, and was found by his mother when she returned from the gym in the morning.

I think his youngest brother (Paul, 14 and normally effervescent) put it well when he spoke at the funeral: "Chris William Duncan would never do this--" but the alcohol messed with his head, I guess. It was just so completely out of character that it seems almost impossible, even in retrospect. I don't think any of us knew a friendlier guy. He made everyone feel like they were valuable and special. I wish he would have done the same for himself.

He was cremated this morning, at 8:30. He was wearing the same beat-up khakis he always did, and his basketball shoes--the ones that matched Paul's and his dad's.

Chris's death

Even after all this crying, calling, planning, and aching, every one more minute I live is just one more confirmation like a kick in the gut that it's true, that this isn't a dream, that I'm not going to wake up and find him still alive, smiling and laughing like always. I want to vomit. I want to vomit. I want to vomit.

Obviously I was never an advocate for suicide, but as someone who's considered it in the past, I've always sort of defended the idea, a little bit. I can understand the constant rollercoaster of emotion, dipping down further, longer, steeper than it climbs up. I can understand the feeling that life just isn't worth it. I can understand feeling as though you're less than nothing--feeling like a negative space, a waste of resources, a drain on everyone around you.

But when Chris killed himself yesterday, it wasn't about that, at least as far as I know. All I know is that our hearts are smashed and running all over the floor.


What about your life, Chris? What about your little brothers? What about your mom and dad? What about us? What are we supposed to do now? I keep hoping it's some kind of sick joke. I keep waiting to wake up, or for someone to tell me it didn't really happen. I just can't believe that it's true. How can it be true?