EricDylan.htm

I've grown weary. I've tried to compose my thoughts and feelings concerning Eric and Dylan, their situation and circumstance. But I give up. My words always seem to end up reading like an entry in my own journal, some form of self-analysis, soul-searching, rather than about them.

******* 2nd draft

I spent time at a site and the others it lead to, longer than any one of the other memorial pages. I learned my head has been buried in ignorance of what high school and teen life can be these days.

I searched my memory back through life, high school, teen years, to elementary school in the 50s. I found my own sin against an outcast. There are, for sure, others along the way I missed, particularly the sin of being silent, inactive when I should have been vocal and active.

I looked at the two pictures, studied on them for a long time, trying to do the impossible, look into their minds. Thinking 'What if this, what if that, what if thus and so, what if anything had been just a little different?' All I could see were two young men with a future no better or worse than most any other. I cried for them as well.

Except for a few factors, among them the Grace of Kindness I learned to freely give and receive, I could have been a dropout, a runaway, a radical, a violent activist, an OD'd John Doe body. It could have been me I looked at on the screen.

"Dear God in whom I believe, forgive me, for I've found an old, old sin to confess ...."

************** 1st draft
Eric and Dylan,

Strange how one remembers their teenlife. Mine was a product of the 60s, a different time, a different era, a different world. My head is buried in ignorance about this time, era and world. Mine was a small high school, less than 600 in four grades. Mine was a small town, adults knew me, knew whose son I was, though I didnt know all of them. My head is buried in ignorance about the large here and now. There is no village left to raise a child, I feel.

Someone shared a link, it lead me to pictures, it lead me to other personal stories, sad stories. My head is, no, it was buried in ignorance about such stories. I read the stories, then I came back to study the two pictures. I sat for the longest time, looking at the screen.

***********
[Flashback] Talk from a chatroom Spring 1997.
Him: "If your friend was being beaten to death, would you help him?"
Me: "Yes, I would do what I could to stop it." (Oh man, he's the surviving friend.)
Me: "Would you be dead as well if you had helped?"
Him: "He is dead and I still live."
Me: "We all want to believe and say we would help but we may not live up to our words. The question can not be answered until it happens. I change my answer. I do not know."

[Flashback] TV news.
In the mid 60s, it was muggings that was making the news. There was one such incident reported on, in New York I guess. There were two or three adult muggers beating someone up, trying to steal his money. There were several adult by-standers around, 5 to 10 I think. There were people watching from windows. And they watched. I dont think any even called the police. They stood and watched a man get beat to death. The phrase "Better not to get involved," seem to be used in those days.

[Flashback] TV Images.
The war in Vietnam, the space program, the civil rights movement, the hippie culture, the Rock and Roll music culture, the riots, the anti-war violence, ....

[Flashback]
Me sitting alone at home, working jigsaw puzzles, listening to big band sounds, wondering what parties the in-crowds were having, no license to cruise around, tuning in far away radio stations late at night, doing homework. Me at high school, walking and talking with friends, football games, sitting with the band but not part of it, being somewhere between the totally in- and the totally out-crowd, not even a recollection of a totally out-crowd .... (Mine imaged, perfect teenlife was lost in images from that damn TV. There were no violent video games, there were no violent lyrics in the music.)

[Flashback] Elementary school 1950s.
There it is! Grade school children, an outcast among us. I remember it now. It was mostly just shunning, avoidance. There were no insulting remarks, no outward taunting, that I can remember, not that none were needed to hurt.

**********

My head was buried in ignorance, but not now.
I was the shunner, avoider at school.
I was the by-stander at school.
Some mix of both, I cant remember it all.
It was others who initiated the reconciliation.
I did not.
"Would you help a friend who was being beaten?"
"No," was the hard, cold truth.
The test had already been given.
I failed.