Dear Doug (It's Been 20 Years)

Dear Doug (It's Been 20 Years)

I know you can't read this but I just wanted to write you and say

that I still remember you

I couldn't forget you if I tried

and I'm sorry that sometimes I HAVE tried

Rivers of alcohol and a landslide of pills couldn't purge you from me

I remember that year in that terrible place with you

more clearly, more often, than I know where I am now

I've been told that's PTSD

but I know it was your eyes

hungry, suffering, pleading, questioning

I wanted so badly, for so long, to be able to do something for you

That desperate feeling never went away, even after it was too late

It is an alarm bell I don't know how shut off

I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I must help you

I must help you

Even though you've been dead now for twenty years

I can still feel you looking at me across all space and time

I can still hear your crying in my soul

And I still have no answers for your wordless questions

Do you remember that one woman named Julia?

The one who didn't just ignore you, but seemed to especially enjoy tormenting you?

I saw her on the outside once

At least one, maybe two years after you were gone

In a clothing store in a shopping mall

I was free by that time and there was nothing she could do to me

but do you know what I did, Doug?

When I saw that woman I ran and hid behind a sale rack in the corner

Pressed my back against the wall and slid down to the floor

I was shaking so hard all over

I couldn't stop even when I wrapped my arms tight around my knees

I peeked out at her from behind some long dresses

She had two young children with her, a boy and a girl, and they were calling her “grandma”

You'll never believe this Doug, but Julia smiled at those children

Smiled

I was shocked her face was capable of such an expression

But she smiled at those two children, and spoke kindly, and seemed happy to be with them

And they seemed happy to be with her

They had apparently never seen the other side of their grandma

Just as I had never seen this side of her either

She was so mean to us Doug, I thought she had no heart

But she did, she did have a heart

She just chose to hide it from us

Why? How?

How could anyone with a heart be cruel to a harmless, helpless,15-year-old boy dying of Huntington's disease with no one and nothing in this world to comfort him except a stuffed green bear with only one eye?

I remember how Julia would take your bear away from you Doug, and how you would cry

She would bring ice cream to work with her and eat it in front of you, reminding you how you would never get ice cream again

Sometimes she would come in and tell security to drag you into the isolation room and tie you down to a bed for her entire shift because, she said, she just didn't like the sight of you

The sounds of you being tortured for hours and days and nights at a time echoed down the hallways and still reverberate throughout my mind

As your body failed you and the food you desperately wanted to eat ended up on your lap or the floor instead of your mouth, Julia didn't help you

She would take your tray away and tell you if you were going to make a mess you didn't deserve any food

I wanted to help you eat

But Julia reminded me how it was against the rules for us to touch each other and she would be happy to call security on me if I tried

I'm sorry Doug, I'm sorry I just sat there next to you day after day

and watched you waste away slowly, not just from the Huntington's

But because you were being starved to death

I'm sorry I was just a witness to all the neglect and abuse inflicted on you

And there was nothing I could do

Except pick up your green bear every time he slipped from your fingers

And wish I at least had a button, so I could replace his missing eye

But I was only fourteen, and a prisoner in that place too

I had nothing, not even a button

It was people like Julia's job to help us and at the time I thought she didn't because she had no heart

But she did, I saw it later

That she could be nice to children; some children; just not us

What was the difference? I wondered

And I wonder still at this common dichotomy:

people can to be so loving to those they consider their own kind

and so hateful those they perceive as different

at the same time

Even I have that split in my heart now

for you see, Doug, I loved you so much

it made me HATE that bitch Julia

and everyone else who had a hand in what happened to you

I admit I have often though I would like to see

that woman locked up

Condemned, despised, and treated as she treated you and me

But oh Doug, those two little children I saw with her!

I know if she got what she deserved those children wouldn't understand

They would ask, “Where did grandma go?

She was always so good to us, we love her, we miss her, bring her back!”

They would cry, and I wouldn't want to see that

I wanted to at least stand up in that store and point her out publicly

Say in a loud voice, “How would you like your grandchildren to know what you do at work, Julia?”

“Would you be proud if they saw what you do to other children less fortunate than they are?

I didn't say that though

I didn't say a thing that day

Just cowered, frustrated and tormented, behind a rack of bargain clothes in a mall

I knew nothing I could do would make any difference

Nothing can bring you back

Sometimes I think you were the lucky one, Doug

You died with your innocence

You didn't have to grow up gutted and twisted and haunted like me

It's still kinda hard to live with the atrocities I've seen

and the knowledge that everyone, everyone

can be a saint, can be a monster

depending on whether they see someone as one of us or one of them

and all these lines, these roots of all atrocities

are actually imaginary

There is no REAL difference between us and them and you and me

There is no such thing as orphans, for we are all family

But you and I Doug, we were singled out and cast aside anyway

And that still hurts so much

even after all this time

Sometimes, to comfort myself, I visualize a future past

Think of how things could have been and hope they might still happen

In heaven, or an alternate universe, or even just my mind

I have to believe there will come a time

When I can go back for you, Doug

I will climb inside my own 14-year-old self

and I will find out who I would be

if I had just been allowed to be me

I will take your hand and we will go outside

There will be no locks, no guards

No human-made divisions between humans

Cement walls and steel bars and doors will crumble into dust

at the touch of fearless, knowing love

We will go get ice cream, or anything else you want

I would feed it to you, but you won't need me to

You will be well and strong enough to feed yourself

And even your green bear will grow a new eye

So will Julia, and all those who abused us

They will grow new eyes and new hearts

They will let you live, and will not plant the seeds of bitterness in me

They will embrace us as their children

And I will embrace them as mine

Anna J Michener

August 29, 2012