Turning a Corner
Owen had just turned a corner, the day before he went missing. May 27, 2007, was one of the happiest days of his life. He told me so the next day, when I drove him to work.
He said the night before, a Sunday night, was when he realized he had a future that could sustain him. He had just received a wage increase at work, he had friends at the theater, and he recognized his choices as being instrumental in his future.
He had recently sent away for information about going to school at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He was hoping to get into the film program. He was making plans. He had talked with Lea and me just a few weeks before about his plans for a family. He wanted a wife and kids. He thought he would be a good husband and father.
Owen said he had no time for people who didn’t care about their lives, about their futures. He wanted to surround himself with people who cared, who spent their time with thoughts of their futures, and who actually made plans for those futures.
He did just that, for a moment in time. Owen had turned a corner. For a while, almost two years before that night, he’d been sitting on the curb adjacent to the turn, the curve in the road. He knew there was a future out there, that would lead him to a life he saw as rewarding, plentiful, peaceful. And, he talked about it on that last Monday evening, when I drove him to work…he was so full of hope.
The corner I’ve turned is more of the survival sort. I’m living two lives. I have my daytime life: the one where I drag myself out of bed after a couple of hours of sleep deprivation, reliving EVERY moment of my life with my family – and my nighttime life: the one where I relive every moment of Owen’s last hours/moments – I’m in the water with him, trying desperately to save him, to lift him up to the air above the surface of the water, so he can breathe…just breathe, baby. We don’t even know how he met his end. Did he, or did he not drown? The autopsy report can’t tell us.
I see this image, speak these words, and dream these dreams every night.
Song for the night: Turn, Turn, Turn, by the Byrds
Marvellously good, hopeful perspectives. He’ll never lose them, either.
Take them with you, as best you can. Because optimism endures. And hope floats, or so they say.
I don’t know how, but those two together can banish the unbanishable fron our minds. And they will, eventually.
Best wishes from London. All power to that tumbleweed.