I woke up on Tuesday with a feeling of dull pain. Nothing physical, mind you. And yet it was there. My friend messaged me before nine and I already knew she was feeling it too. We discussed it at length, and a few things about our conversation stood out. One was this quote: "I think I do this every year, just longer this year I suppose....cuz think about it, its been ten years. In that time we went to school, got jobs, found love, you got married, have a son. I'm engaged. And Kyle is like frozen in time."
Of everything there, only one thing sat in my brain, candle burning away the darkness. Ten years. A long time by anyone's standards. At this point more than a third of my life. However, the phrase 'remember it llike it was yesterday' has never been more applicable.
Kyle Caesar, or "Tweez" as we called him, was trying to make it back to class at school when his car malfunctioned and slid off the road. He made it to the hospital, but died on May 1. Looking into that coffin was the last time I have ever looked into a coffin, outside of my grandmother, and that took some doing. He had died in the car he had always wanted a scant three months after getting it, and it felt and feels very unfair. One of the more memorable moments was at his parents' house, when my friend Charles looked at me and said, "Why don't we go out and rob banks and beat people up and stuff?" When I asked why, he responded bitterly, "Because, nothing will ever happen to US...". Yet, I feel that it would be a disservice to his legacy if all that I took from my time with him was how it ended. Today I choose to remember the things about him that made him so memorable all these years later.
When I first went to secondary school as the poor kid from the small island and the people who would later become my best friends made fun of me, my skin was thin to nonexistent, and I was very upset. Kyle was the one who defused that situation and let me know that there was no need to overreact to good-natured ribbing. From then on, we were in classes together, Sea Scouts, swimming on Saturday. I remember him telling us about adjusting to having glasses, and how he took a shower with them on multiple times. The craving he had to drive that his father would later tell us was in his family. Going fast was in his blood, and his family raced quite often. I remember his father giving him a pickup truck to drive when he so badly wanted the Mazda RX-7. A normal kid craving racing cars would have blown up or sulked or reacted in some negative fashion. He drove it everywhere, making it do 180s on grass. I cannot think of a person quicker to laugh, and he rubbed off on everyone. When it was just us in school and I told him how I was stressing out about my SAT score, he cheerily told me about his lower one and laughed about it. He talked me through my stress, and by the end of that day I had adopted his views on it, and was much more casual.
Ten years later, so many things have changed. I don't even live in Trinidad anymore. I have matured slightly. Memories don't change, though. I think the most significant thing I have done since then is learn not to dwell on the negatives. I can now use him as inspiration, use the fact that I still have a chance to go on for him as a motivator. I can smile because I know he would want us to, and so I will.
As I return to the heat and squalor of my room
I reflect once again that I am for once
Seriously, blissfully happy to be alive
My stomach hurts from playing with friends
The leather and cloth ball, once soft and friendly
Becomes a screaming meteor, shattering the world that is my ear
Pride surges like a tide, even as I stumble like a newly born bird
I shake off what I can and rejoin the battle
It seems that time stops for those brief moments
When the people I respect and look up to
Have their most cunning efforts thwarted by my actions
Even as I slide in the mud and taste the earth that supports me
Even as my muscles protest their unusual workload
I reflect in idle moments that many I love are under this earth
And would rend the dimensions asunder
To be able to feel a cramp, a bite, a cut
Would weep with happiness to have a scar to touch
So I accept the pain, my body and my place in the world:
A defender, sworn to carry on the hopes of my friends and teammates
As far as my body will let me, and then my soul must push forward...
Yes...today was a good day to be alive.
I wonder and wait for tomorrow....
Of everything there, only one thing sat in my brain, candle burning away the darkness. Ten years. A long time by anyone's standards. At this point more than a third of my life. However, the phrase 'remember it llike it was yesterday' has never been more applicable.
Kyle Caesar, or "Tweez" as we called him, was trying to make it back to class at school when his car malfunctioned and slid off the road. He made it to the hospital, but died on May 1. Looking into that coffin was the last time I have ever looked into a coffin, outside of my grandmother, and that took some doing. He had died in the car he had always wanted a scant three months after getting it, and it felt and feels very unfair. One of the more memorable moments was at his parents' house, when my friend Charles looked at me and said, "Why don't we go out and rob banks and beat people up and stuff?" When I asked why, he responded bitterly, "Because, nothing will ever happen to US...". Yet, I feel that it would be a disservice to his legacy if all that I took from my time with him was how it ended. Today I choose to remember the things about him that made him so memorable all these years later.
When I first went to secondary school as the poor kid from the small island and the people who would later become my best friends made fun of me, my skin was thin to nonexistent, and I was very upset. Kyle was the one who defused that situation and let me know that there was no need to overreact to good-natured ribbing. From then on, we were in classes together, Sea Scouts, swimming on Saturday. I remember him telling us about adjusting to having glasses, and how he took a shower with them on multiple times. The craving he had to drive that his father would later tell us was in his family. Going fast was in his blood, and his family raced quite often. I remember his father giving him a pickup truck to drive when he so badly wanted the Mazda RX-7. A normal kid craving racing cars would have blown up or sulked or reacted in some negative fashion. He drove it everywhere, making it do 180s on grass. I cannot think of a person quicker to laugh, and he rubbed off on everyone. When it was just us in school and I told him how I was stressing out about my SAT score, he cheerily told me about his lower one and laughed about it. He talked me through my stress, and by the end of that day I had adopted his views on it, and was much more casual.
Ten years later, so many things have changed. I don't even live in Trinidad anymore. I have matured slightly. Memories don't change, though. I think the most significant thing I have done since then is learn not to dwell on the negatives. I can now use him as inspiration, use the fact that I still have a chance to go on for him as a motivator. I can smile because I know he would want us to, and so I will.
As I return to the heat and squalor of my room
I reflect once again that I am for once
Seriously, blissfully happy to be alive
My stomach hurts from playing with friends
The leather and cloth ball, once soft and friendly
Becomes a screaming meteor, shattering the world that is my ear
Pride surges like a tide, even as I stumble like a newly born bird
I shake off what I can and rejoin the battle
It seems that time stops for those brief moments
When the people I respect and look up to
Have their most cunning efforts thwarted by my actions
Even as I slide in the mud and taste the earth that supports me
Even as my muscles protest their unusual workload
I reflect in idle moments that many I love are under this earth
And would rend the dimensions asunder
To be able to feel a cramp, a bite, a cut
Would weep with happiness to have a scar to touch
So I accept the pain, my body and my place in the world:
A defender, sworn to carry on the hopes of my friends and teammates
As far as my body will let me, and then my soul must push forward...
Yes...today was a good day to be alive.
I wonder and wait for tomorrow....
