When I was in high school one of my close friends was in a
terrible motorcycle accident. Jason was young, a member of the stage crew for my theatrical production of No Exit and was in my communications class. He was a bit of an "outsider" at school, just like me- not a preppy nor a jock. But he had lots of friends and was pretty happy go lucky.
The motorcycle accident happened on the way to Westfield, on the old two lane highway. His motorcycle (which he had begged his parents for since he turned 16) was a bit much for someone of his slight frame. Too big, too powerful- and one spring night on a dewy road he lost control and slid into an oncoming 18-wheeler.
Jason's best friend- riding as a passenger, was decapitated and killed instantly. Jason lie on the highway, conscious, his left arm and leg crushed and mangled beyond repair.
Driving home and coming upon the horrific accident minutes later was Jason's mother, a nurse at the regional hospital. Stopping to give aid, she had no idea she would find her own son- weeping and screaming, staring in stark horror at his friend's head lying two feet in front of him, unable to get away nor look away.
Jason survived the accident and I visited him the hospital as he was slowly and painfully healing. He was in constant pain for the first month and sometimes delirious from his pain killers. But he would often joke in the dark, dramatic manner of teens of the day.
"This hospital is great, but it costs an arm and a leg!"
Weeks later we were informed that Jason had died of complications from his injuries. People closer to his family told some of us the horrible truth. Unable to bear the pain and unwilling to face adapting to life without his left limbs, Jason tied a sheet around his bedpost and hung himself by rolling out of his hospital bed.
Jason's parents were mortified. Their house became a shrine to their youngest son, who had died on the motorcycle they had given to him. They never forgave themselves and their marriage faded away- and they became emotionally distant to their elder son, Eric, who had returned from university to be a grip for local production companies and the CBC.
I met Eric years after high school through my friends in the local theater. He was just like us, in his early twenties, still reading comic books and living in the artsy South End of the city. He maybe drank too much, but that was a common complaint of young people in the Maritimes. Eric seemed distant sometimes, and as I got to know him better, a bit manic. I had not made the connection between the two brothers yet.
One labour day our group of friends was invited to a house warming party for Eric and his girlfriend. In retrospect, I guess, no one went. Two weeks later we all had received late night calls or voice mails from Eric. And the next day we were told, he too had taken his life.
Buried next to his brother, his parents had treated him as a painful reminder of the departed son, and he withered into a shadow of himself. Unable to get the attention he needed, he choose to die, too, to earn the endless love of his mourning parents; to get his share.
