Jack

When I first met Jack, we were at Longhouse. My aunt, his Grandma, was giving me a ride home. I'm not really sure why we called him Jack, well rather why my aunt did. His name was David Wayne. He was named after his father and his uncle, Dave and Wayne. He was a normal kid. He hung out with his friends and always seemed to be smiling, and then something happened. He didn't smile so much anymore. he didn't talk to anyone as much, and always seemed like he was thinking. After about a year or two of this he finally started to talk to me again. He told me that he could hear people in his head talking to him. At first, he told me, it was faint and he could just barely hear them, then it was louder and they all seemed to be talking at the same time. Slowly he began to fall deeper into himself. My aunt always seemed to be the one that took care of him. No matter where he was or how far away he always made his way back to her. He walked everywhere. From his dad's in the US to his Grandma's on Six Nations, from Hamilton to Uncle Pete's. He never came to visit anymore, but I went to see him wherever he was. Near the end my Aunt told me I had to look out for him but I wasn't really sure what she meant. She died of cancer in November 2004. Jack seemed like he didn't know what to make of the whole thing. He just went about like nothing was wrong. I noticed he was talking to himself more and laughing to himself alot. I asked his dad if he had been taking his medication and was told that no one could get him to take them. So I had to bribe him with ciggarettes to get him to take it. He moved back in with his mom and she was getting a bigger place and he was visiting his dad more often. One day he decided he was coming home. He never told his dad where he was going, but he had called Uncle Pete to tell him he was coming back to visit. He told one of his friends he was coming home to take care of his Grandma. He started to walk home, but he never made it. He walked over the Rainbow Bridge. Got to the Canadian side and I guess it just got too much for him. He climbed a fence and jumped to his death. When I got the call I went numb. You know the type of feeling when you get hit with a shock and you can't feel yourself, you can't hear right, can't think staight, and emotion takes a while to hit you? That's what I felt. I hung up with my mom and called my dad. He had been friends with Jack's dad for years. When I told him what happened, when I heard myself say it, is when the emotion hit. I was so hurt and sad to think of what he went through. I tried to get a hold of my cousin, who had been good friends with him. By the time I reached him a small bit of hurt was gone, enough that made the tears stop flowing. I was good through the viewing of his body. I cried but not alot. I guess I was trying to hold up for the sake of his dad and sister. my cousin showed up on the second day and we went to the funeral together. The funeral is where I broke. As I got up to look at him one last time I could feel the sinking in my stomach. The type of ache that gives you an empty feeling, not hungry empty, sick empty. I got to his side and I looked at him and I couldn't leave. I could see where his jaw had broke in the fall, where his finger had snapped and how his wrist couldn't quite bend right. Then I thought of the pain he must've felt, but what if he didn't get a chance to feel that pain. All I could do was stare at him. Saying goodbye had never been this hard for me. He was my friend. I had known him since we were in diapers and now he's gone. When it came time to bury him and they closed his casket I couldn't even watch. We walked back to his grave site and the Chief was talking and I started to feel a little better. He was better now right? He didn't have the voices in his head. He wasn't sick anymore. When it came time to bury him and I had to go put a handfull of dirt in his grave(the last step of letting go). I realized he was really gone. I wasn't going to be able to go to my aunt's house, or my uncle's house to see how he was doing. I felt like I had failed my Aunt when she told me to look out for him. How could I let this happen to him? Why didn't I take the time to call him and see how he was? When I went to his Grandma's house afterwords, I got things to remember him by. I took two of his shirts, a hackey sack, (he taught me how to play when we were kids) and a few CD's (because he told me I was "uncultured"). I miss him alot, and sometimes I feel a huge weight on my chest when i think of him, but everyday makes it hurt a little less, and when I think that he's with his grandma again it makes me happy.