Looking Back

        It was just a few weeks ago that Kelly, a good friend of mine, and I went out to a backroad outside of our dinky hometown of Woodhull for the first time since one of our best friends, Wyatt, was in an accident there. Of course we went out there the night it had happened, but this time was much different. Obviously all of the debris scattered across the road from the accident had been cleaned up, and most of the marks on the road had also been removed. More than that, though, it felt different to us in a way. As teenagers living in a such small town like ours, Kelly and I used to get bored and cruise down the back country roads with our windows down and our music turned up as loud as it would go, singing at the top of our lungs when we had nothing better to do; that road in particular. Now it seemed almost morbid to be there. Not only was it sad, it hurt in ways I am still not able to put into words. 

We got out of Kelly’s bright blue SUV and sat in the big, cold ditch where the car Wyatt had been in that night landed after the accident. I suppose that we seemed to think that if we sat there long enough and talked to him, that he might talk back. As we sat together in the wet, dewy grass, we talked to each other, and we talked to Wyatt for what seemed like hours. 

“How’s our WyPie? We miss you like crazy! I bet you’re raising hell up there. I hope and pray every day that you’re having fun up there in the clouds with your dad. I know how much you two have missed each other,” Kelly said up to the darkening sky as the sun was setting.

“Yeah, I bet you’re glad to have him back, Wy. Kell’s right. We miss you so much. You know, everyone told us that this would get easier eventually. It hasn’t though. It’s so hard to go to Cambridge and know that you’re not there anymore. But, what have you been up to? We’ve just been doing what we always do: working and stressing. School’s been pretty rough without you here, bud. Being in college so far away doesn’t feel right anymore knowing that you won’t be there when I get home,” I said, looking up towards the clouds.

“High school hasn’t been any easier either. It’s been a couple months now, but it isn’t getting easier. Seeing all of our friends is still hard. But, we have each other. We just all hope you’re having a good time up there, Wy.”

After that we seemed to lose track of time that night just like we used to when he was still here to talk with us. We laughed and we joked while we spoke up to the clouds in the darkening night sky, in hopes that he was listening. As silly as it might sound, after talking to him for so long, telling him how our days were, how work was awful, and how much we miss him, it seemed as though we could feel him sitting in the sticky grass right between the two of us. After it got too dark, we started to head back to Kelly’s car. But, as we got up, pushing our hands into the soft grass next to us for support, we each felt a sharp pain in the palm of our hands. We looked at what had pushed into our hands. Whatever it was seemed to be covered in mud, dirt, and grass, but a strange, bright neon orange color shined through all of the mess. They were pieces of the taillight from the car that Wyatt had been in that night. Since then, Kelly and I have cleaned the mess off of the shards, and we both carry those broken pieces wherever we go as a reminder that Wyatt is always with us. Although it may seem crazy, I believe that he put those there while we were talking to him that night. I don’t remember seeing the pieces before we sat down or while we first started talking to him, but as soon as we got up to leave, they were there. Part of me feels like he knew that we needed them. I am almost positive that when the two of us began to cry and let Wyatt know how much we miss him that he put those in the grass for us. 

When I was younger, my father owned his own roofing company, Morrison’s Roofing. But he also did work for my school district. He used to drive a school bus for our co-op to United Township, meaning that he knew a lot of the older kids that went to the same school that I did. So, when he needed extra help with roofing over the summer or over longer breaks during the school year, he sometimes hired high school kids to work with him. I was probably about nine years old when my dad hired this tall, beautiful, dark-haired boy named Derek. Derek had just graduated from the high school I would eventually attend. He was special. Everyone was his friend, including me. Derek Luallen was, what I thought to be, my one true love at the time. Of course this was unrealistic as he was almost twice my age and had a girlfriend of his own at the time. But I didn’t plan on letting something like that stop me. I knew that I loved him and that was all that mattered in my nine year old mind. It wasn’t all that hard to spend time with Derek, either. My father absolutely adored him. And after working for dad a while, my mom came around to him too. Our families got to know each other pretty well over the course of millions of lunches and dinners and the occasional, but more typical, weekend barbeque. I may have been way younger than him, but Derek quickly became my best friend. I told him all my secrets and he told me, his secrets too. We talked about anything and everything all the time. He even made time to come see me at school and at home when he wasn’t working with my dad. My friendship with Derek made all of my girlfriends jealous. 

One of the most prominent memories I have of Derek is the weekend we tried to make each other friendship bracelets. We tried to follow the directions on the back of the big purple box with all the different beads and string, but we messed them up so many times that we gave up and decided to just make bracelets with our names on them for each other. Derek looked at me and said, “You know, Kellea… No one has to know that we did this wrong. How are they going to even know? They’ll probably think they’re perfect. They’ll even be jealous. And even if they do find out, who cares? Ours will be way better than the ones that other people make anyways. Ours are special. They’re made with love!”

The bracelet he made me was way too big for my tiny wrist because he had made it to fit himself first. I didn’t mind at all, though. In my eyes it was the most beautiful and thoughtful thing I’d ever owned. It was like a gift. He even said that it was personal and made with love, which of course gave me heart palpitations. The one he made for me was made of thin, soft string the color of yellow tulips in the spring. It had his name spelled out in small, round, pale white beads. Each letter was a warm shade of lilac. When he slipped in onto my wrist and it was too big, he just laughed and apologized and offered to make me another one, probably one hundred times, but I said no and that I liked that it was too big because he had made it to fit him. He made it for me and that was what mattered. The bracelet I made for him was just small enough to leave small circular marks from the beads spelling out my six letter name. He didn’t mind. He said he liked that it was the perfect size for him. His bracelet was the same color as mine, only after my name I had slipped on an extra bead with a heart on it. He loved it.

A couple weeks after that, June 11th to be exact, Derek got into a car accident. They told my dad that he had been drinking and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He swerved off the road and apparently couldn’t get control of his car again after that. That night when my dad called my mom to tell her that Derek had died in an accident, I didn’t believe her. I sat on our ugly green couch by the picture window and watched our dogs out in the yard. I kept thinking of how much I hated that stupid couch. It was so horrible. The only reason we ever had it in the first place was to replace our much nicer, newer couch that our new puppy, Payton, chewed up the previous Mother’s Day. I remembered that day, too. We got home and it looked like it had snowed in our living room because there was so much big white fluff from the torn up cushions from the dismembered couch. My mom threatened to put our brand new baby German shepherd pup up for adoption when she saw what he did. After thinking about that horrible Mother’s Day for so long, I remembered reality. It was late, so late that I needed to go to bed. I couldn’t because I could not get the tears to stop spilling from my little eyes while I thought about Derek. Although I had told my mother I did not believe her and that she was wrong, I knew in my heart that Derek was gone and was not going to be coming back to visit me at school anymore. 

I was always told that my dad was one of the first people to get to the scene of Derek’s accident. While he was there he made sure to pick up the empty beer cans from the back of his car so his parents wouldn’t have to see how much he had had to drink that night. My dad was also able to get the bracelet that I had made for Derek just a couple weeks before. I remember how it meant everything to me that Derek had not only kept that bracelet, but continued to wear it. I cried for a long time after that night, especially when my parents took me to see what Derek’s car looked like at the shop it was taken to and when we drove by the road where he had gotten in the accident. But because I was only nine years old, it was hard for me to comprehend this whole event and why I was so sad about these small things. I wasn’t able to completely understand what it meant to lose someone who had meant so much to me.

It wasn’t until recently that I fully understood the harsh reality of losing a best friend. Just a little over two months ago, I lost one of my closest friends. I had known Wyatt since I was younger. He was also in a car accident, similar to Derek’s, only it was not his fault. He and another one of my good friends, Clint, were hit by another car coming home early on a Tuesday night in February. Wyatt was ejected from the car due to the impact. Since Derek’s death, I had not experienced the death of another friend, which made Wyatt’s death that much harder for me. I never quite learned how to deal with death, especially that of a close friend. His death hit me harder than anything. I had no idea what to do, how to act, or how to talk about it and try to comprehend it. The most I was capable of was crying. For quite some time after his death it was hard to even get out of my bed. I spent almost a week at home trying to be with the people that I knew loved Wyatt just as much as I did. I thought that maybe if I spent time with people who understood the kind of pain I was in that it might get better, but it didn’t and still hasn’t. 

Wyatt and I had went to two different high schools that affiliated with each other for sports like track and field, football, baseball and softball. Wyatt had always been a big part of my life, ever since I met him at a friend’s house. I had known that I would be friends with him for as long as time would allow as soon as I met him. Wyatt was one of those people that was so full of life and happiness and energy that it was contagious. Before him, I had never known anyone as radiantly cheerful. Wyatt was always there for everyone, including me, no matter his own mood. There was never a stale moment with him. One night that I know I’ll never forget was his birthday two years ago. He had just turned 18 and decided to throw an incredibly large party for himself, which only he would ever do. I am almost positive that he invited every person that he had ever come in contact with. There were hundreds of people around one colossal bonfire that was made out of all of his used and popped tires from his endless amount dirt bikes. That fire smelled so disgustingly sweet. The smell of burning rubber burned my nose, but I didn’t really care that night. I stood with his arm around my waist while he told me how thankful he was to have me and all our friends there to celebrate his, “BIG 18,” as he called it. I told him I loved him and would never have missed his birthday for anything in the whole world. He got quite and leaned in close to my ear and said softly, “Hey, Kell… I bet you I can jump over that fire!” I immediately smacked him on the arm and yelled, “Wyatt Cornelius! You will not even attempt to do that! It’s your birthday, you don’t need to die on your own birthday! What kind of idiotic idea is that?” After that he looked at me, winked, and said, “Watch me, baby!”

After that, Wyatt backed up about 100 feet or so from the fire, sprinted as fast as he could, took off his ridiculously large cowboy hat, waved it in the air, and screamed and yelled all the way over the fire. I was in arrant shock that he didn’t fall into it and catch fire. He was so proud of himself. Every single one of the hundreds of people that were there lined up to high-five him and clap him on the back for his great “accomplishment.” Wyatt was always one to smile, but I don’t think I had ever seen a smile so big and wide on his face other than that night. He came back up to me after he was done talking to everyone else, picked me up off the ground, spun me around in his arms and said, “I told you I could do it.” After that I laughed myself to tears. He took his grease covered hands and wiped the tears from my face and said, “Glad I can make ya laugh, babe! Sorry I made ya cry, though!” I laughed even more. He gave up on trying to wipe away the tears of laughter after I kept smacking his smelly, oily hands away from my face. So, he gave me the sweatshirt he was wearing before he had to run off and talk to everyone else again. It was way too big, blue, and reeked of motor oil and cigarettes. 

I lost someone very close to me this year. But, it taught me something more important than anything else I have ever learned. I learned what it is like to lose a best friend. This lesson was not an easy one to learn, but it helped me to fully understand the true pain of a loss such as these two. Now that I’m older, I am able to understand more of the little things that I didn’t before. When I was nine and my dad took the beer cans out of the back of Derek’s car so his parents wouldn’t have to see them, I thought he was just helping out. Now I know that it meant so much more than just that. He was protecting Derek’s parents. He knew that they didn’t need any more pain than they were already being put through with losing their son. I also learned why driving past the scene of his accident is hard for my parents and me to do and why going to see is car after it was towed away was difficult for us. I now understand how much these small things can mean.

Even though Wyatt and Derek are no longer here, I feel them everywhere. I have kept both of the bracelets Derek and I had made that weekend all those years ago. To this day I carry one with me everywhere I go. Since then, I have put the one with my name on it on his gravestone so I’ll always be with him and he will always be with me. Those bracelets mean more to me now than they ever did before. I like to keep a piece of Derek with me wherever I go. And now that Wyatt is gone I also like to keep that little something of him close to me at all times too. I carry that piece of his taillight from the wreck in my wallet so I can feel him with me no matter where I am or who I am with.