Chapter One: When Doves Cry
Is it weird I can't remember the date? I remember the song on the radio “When Doves Cry” by Prince. I don’t remember the month or day of the week, but I remember every detail of the day, the week after and the funeral. It plays in slow motion sometimes, even all these decades later.
The Big Chill was a movie we had all seen. Eighties movies weren't all about teen angst. In fact, we, as a group, preferred to see a variety of films, a few of us were inspiring film makers and were in search of a voice, our own unique style. Now television shows in contrast: what we watched, were mostly kitschy, typical, goofy shows that were popular at that time: Robo Tech, Knight Rider, the A-Team and above all else, Miami Vice. We even filmed a few episodes of our own show, Laguna Vice, theme song, local tourist sites in the opening credits and all. We lived and breathed that show for a few years. Looking back on episodes now, it may seem very dated, but the music, the music was very current and meaningful in the 1980’s.
Laguna Canyon was a death trap many called it. No streetlights, a rural twenty-minute, winding road that connected the 5 Freeway and Main Street in the hometown of my adolescence. About halfway through from the bustle of the freeway, you could turn on El Toro road and travel inland, but the initial expanse was dark and virtually abandoned, except an occasional car speeding by in the twilight. It was a great place to play pi-diddle (one headlight shout out) but not a great place to run out of gas or run off the road, for if you did, it could be hours before someone found you. We didn’t have cell phones; we took our chances. Some of us crashed but lived to tell the tale. That was not the cause for a funeral, for our group at least.
Our funeral was by choice. Not of ours, but of his. No matter how much we felt like a community, things still shook us at our core. It doesn’t matter how much you love, trust, connect- some of us got lost. The weeks that followed we were interviewed by many, questioned by therapists, pitied by many who never gave us the time of day. I remember every glance, every concern, every silent accusation. “How well did you know him? Was he acting weird recently, not himself?” Repeated answers, “very well and no, he was acting normal, perfectly normal.” Looking back purposefully now, I feel the same way. I think when you make the choice, you really make it, you either want to be convinced against it, or you don’t. He didn’t. Thus, we saw him every day, laughing and smiling as always- interacting normally. We never suspected a thing.
Suicide has always been a taboo topic. Some feel if we talk about it, it might inspire people to do it. Recently this has begun to change, at least a little. By talking about depression, we bring it from a place of shame, to a place of hope. But in the 1980’s, it was a topic never discussed unless in the aftermath of one. The conversations did not feel comforting, they felt accusatory, these distant adults were concerned we would have a chain of them and thus they kept us under lock and key. But we were not unhappy teenagers. He wasn’t an unhappy teenager, at least not around us. We were kept in the dark because being such a big group, one of us would have noticed, one of us would have said something, and he decided to take his life.
The floor of the car was covered in broken cassette cases, Tiger Bar wrappers and Diet Coke cans. They crunched under my feet as I turned to climb out from the passenger seat. I didn’t have a car- I was 17 and decided why should I get a license when everyone else in my group had a car and could drive. This day we were supposed to pick him up, we honked for ten minutes, but he never came out, no one did, so we left. She made a three-point turn in her Honda Civic and we headed down the hill a little faster than normal, the bottom felt like it jumped up and bit us in the ass, as we hit the speed bump in a frenzy. Her soda tipped and splashed all over the dash, floor and my lap. I was wearing pink shorts but had to change into a pair of her jean shorts, soda dripping down my legs as I attempted to change while the car was still moving.
The sky was cloudy, I remember because we were all in shorts and the forecast was sunny and warm. It turned out to be anything but. Rain creeped in from the ocean and drenched us, as we ran from the car to campus. I remember laughing because Sam’s hair turned curly and frizzy. She looked ridiculous and she got angry because the weatherman got the forecast wrong. Back then it wasn’t that accurate, it was wrong more than right, but we decided to trust his instincts, so no umbrella in the car, we decided to just take our chances in the beginning storm. My hands were still sticky as we ran to first period, just at the bell. I giggled as I licked the Diet Coke from my fingers.
We went our separate ways, making our way to our first period classes, shouting “Later loves” to one another. Her’s AP Lit, mine Biology. Mr. Reich gave me a glare as I skidded, wet sneakers, into my seat, right in the front, as he sat us alphabetically. I turned to see if he was there, I was going to give him a glare of “where were you?” but his seat was empty. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, conversations started, as Mr. Reich shifted from attendance to handing back our quiz. The dreaded Circulatory Quiz. As he got to my desk, Mr. Reich asked “So where is your friend, Miss Jahant, he is never absent?” This was the moment, the moment I remember feeling dread for the first time that day. Then I looked at the clock and it seemed like it wasn’t ticking at all- each hand frozen in place, as the door swung open and our principal walked in briskly. The rain fell heavier now, and the skies were grey, nothing like a warm and sunny forecast.
My principal looked at me, then down at the floor. I remember thinking to myself, he doesn’t even know me, why is he looking at me? I didn’t do anything, for once, I hadn’t done anything that would have gotten me looked at twice. He walked up to Mr. Reich, who pointed at me and said, what seemed too loud for the occasion, “Take your things Miss Jahant, go with Mr. Owens please.” The conversations silenced and all eyes were on me. This was the second time I felt dread, I was wracking my brain all the way to the door, it slammed behind me. “What’s going on? Why am I in trouble?” He sighed “You are not in trouble, just follow me please.” The eventual answer to all my questions, was so unexpected, I still look back and remember not crying for what seemed hours because it literally felt like I was in an episode of Miami Vice.
All my friends were in one room, the choir room. Crying loudly. Sam was there- frizzy hair and all- she had given up on trying to contain it, it was sticking straight up in spots. She looked at me and mouthed, he’s dead. I looked around the room, counting all my friends, he’s here, there he is, and then- it dawned on me, all my dread compiled- I dropped to the floor. I still wasn’t crying; I was in shock. “Did he crash?” I said. My band director helped me get up and walk over to a chair, he knelt beside me, no sweetheart, “He killed himself.” I laughed out loud. “No, he didn’t, he wouldn’t- he was happy.” Everyone fell silent, nodding in unison. “You don’t need to be unhappy to choose to take your life,” a stranger said.
We all turned to see someone in the doorway, they looked very official. Later, we found out they were a district grief counselor. There were a lot of conversations over the next week and then a funeral. Purple and green balloons, hundreds of them, each with a message attached, let go at sunset over the beach. I remember waiting until the last balloon was gone. A few messages had come loose and were strewn across the sand. I gathered them up and handed them to his little brother. I remember this vividly, his ten-year old face, with the same look of disbelief, yet an undertone of understanding.
This event rocked our world, created a fissure that never completely healed. But it also made us stronger, we paid more attention to each other, were more aware of how one another was feeling.
He was our friend. A suicide makes you doubt. Makes you ask questions, you otherwise wouldn’t. It makes you say things you would otherwise leave unsaid. We listened a lot to Peter Gabriel those next few weeks- San Jacinto, Biko, Don’t Give Up and Red Rain are still my go tos for a quiet remembrance. It took a while before Prince was our go to- but eventually he was. Then our musical selection changed, and Paul Simon, Phil Collins and other more contemporary artists made there way onto our mix CD’s. But our music, the music of Prince, U2 and Oingo Boingo remained our cadence.
There was no social media to share our feelings on, we only had one another. People who never knew our names, after that day, knew our names. Our group somehow changed from a quiet, off-beat, basically ignored cohort to almost popular. This we rebelled against, in every way imaginable. It made us isolate ourselves even more. Unlike today, we could do that. We didn’t have Instagram accounts or Facebook streams. We graduated a year later, while a few of us ventured off to campuses across the country- most stayed close by- at least for a while. Then my departure took me to another country- I was England bound and the University of East Anglia was the farthest from a community of friends I have ever had, in fact it was a lonely year indeed.
Post Editorial
I have written a few posts on depression. This is a topic very close to my heart. The more we talk about it- change it from shame to hope, the more we can address the roots of it, which are extensive. Some are easy to spot, while some are not. To this day we do not know why our friend killed himself.
Let’s talk about our feelings and share them so others feeling the same way, feel like they are connected and are never alone.
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