SKYE stephenson

Loss is a natural part of life, of all life. It is the other side, the necessary complement of birth and creation. But sometimes loss, certain kinds of loss, can feel raw and chaffing, unresolved and aching, painful and disconcerting. We may try to put a band aid upon this wound, hoping to cover it, conceal the pain from ourselves and the world. But oftentimes the wound will fester in unresolved aches and hidden despairs that can then spread out and infect other parts of our lives: individually and as a community.

So it is, or has been in recent years, for many of us around people we have known and cared about who we have lost (either physically or emotionally) due to substance abuse. The word epidemic has sometimes been brandied about concerning the impact of substance abuse upon our communities in the Monadnock region, and in a way this feels accurate. At least it does to me today, as I write this column.

I have decided to put aside what was to have been a continuing column about the topic of stones and us, because my heart is heavy with a story, and with the loss of a young life I learned of recently.

Like many of these cases, the family of this young male seems to want to keep his death quiet and private. So, I know no details of what happened, or why this young man whose name I cannot share publicly is no longer living. May be his recent death was not tied to substance use at all. This is what my son mentioned as a possibility when he broke this sad news to me. He was calling from Boston. This man had been his best friend throughout my son’s junior and senior high school years in Keene.

This man who would be almost thirty now was sensitive, and also very funny. And sometimes insecure about his identity, as most teens are. The two of them – this person and my son – would wrestle in the living room of the condominium where I used to live for hours. They would walk back and forth from school together. One day, a man with a baseball bat jumped out of his car and started chasing them. The two were terrified, but they eventually brought this man to court and testified against him. This young man was brave. And he loved plants and flowers. And his parents.

I wonder now what happened – how these two once upon a time best friends could have ended up with such different fates. In retrospect there was nothing that marked this young man for a life any different than what my son is now living: working full time, enjoying weekends with friends, being a twenty-something young person with a positive future to look forward to. If anything, my son could have been the more challenged of the two.  At that time, I was a single mother and away quite a bit from the house. Sometimes I even travelled internationally and left him for a good stint of time with a caregiver or his older sister. And my son missed his former home in Latin America always, and never quite felt that he fit into the life in Keene.

Fate. Randomness.  The unexplained and unexplainable. The unpredictable. The downward spiral of substance abuse of some. Why?

My son and this young man had not communicated for several years. The once-upon-a-time-best-friends were no longer in contact due to the paths that drug use had taken this young man down. His name comes up in the Sentinel for stealing; another time for hurting a family member.

Once I passed him in downtown Keene, and I could tell that he recognized me, but he looked away. Maybe he was ashamed. Maybe not.

-Published in The Monadnock Shopper News, March 30-April 5, 2022