Plant a Seed

Really glad to read that last post of yours Seed. I agree with all of it, except that I'm not sure how hot you'd be as a woman ; )

You take care and keep that promise. We'll be here.

Doing my best to stay safe, but just something about a war that doesn't do it's best to keep you say.... Strange I say

Hey, Seed. So nice to talk to you in chat w/ the other a2kers. Take care of yourself, and like the duck said, we're here for you.

First off, I would like to say, sorry for being gone for so long. A lot of things happened lately. Things that have taken serious time to get over. One I dont think i can talk about right now, the other is written below, i apologize in advance for the sadness it might bring you.

Not quiet sure where to start this off. I guess background is needed to be told before the purpose of the journal is written. So I guess that is where I will start.

Junior year. New school, new friends to make. I meet a girl, Erica Stain. Most bizarre woman I have ever known. But also, the most driven woman I think I have ever known. Her brother, who was two years younger then her, was diagnosed with cancer at an early age. He had been given a time frame over and over of when to expect to die. Erica and her brother, Josh, were best friends. Everything Erica wanted to be and do in life stemmed from her brother. She wanted to become a doctor and find a cure for her brother. It's all she wanted out of life from the moment I met her. We became fast friends. Never nothing more. One time we kissed to see if there was anything there, but it was like kissing my sister. Just felt wrong wrong. For some reason my mother never liked her. She didn't like me hanging out her all the time. It was crazy, I never understood why, still don't. But anyways.

The summer between our junior and senior year, Erica got sick. Come to find out she had leukemia. It was bad. Though her family had heard it many times before with her brother, they didn't expect her to live much longer. Chemo was an option and that route was taken. She spent a lot of time in the hospital. I of course was always up there. I had just learned how to play guitar and was doing my best to make her happy and comfortable. As my skills increased quickly at playing, I would take the poems and song she wrote and give them a melody. As the chemo became worse, and took a harsher toil on her body, she got to where she couldn't sleep at night. I would stay late at the hospital and it got to where I could get her to sleep by playing and, although I have a horrible voice, sing one of her songs to her. Even when she wasn't in the hosptial I was at her house playing guitar and goofing off with her, trying to make my friend forget about everything. Well school started up and chemo was done. She was back to school herself and had a new goal. She had found out that she was in the running for valedictorian. She pushed herself very hard. The harder she pushed herself, the more her doctors worried. She was still being given a death sentence and they feared that at the rate she went she would walk herself in the grave even sooner.

Through out the year, with sports and what not, we didn't get to spend that much time together. Her pushing hard for her grades, me doing my best to keep up in school and play two sports along with worrying about my friend was taking its toil on me as well.

Erica had done, it, she was number one, and she had gotten into Duke, which was just one more step away from Duke medical and doing what she always wanted to do. But seemingly with every good comes something bad. Three days before we graduated, she took a horrible turn for the worse. I got the call just after graduation practice that she had been taken to the hospital and that things didn't look good at all. I got in my car, my guitar always in the back seat, and drove straight to the hospital. Her parents met me in the hall and gave me the run down. Her body had started to shut down and she wasnt going to be with us much longer. I started to cry, I was scared, it was the first time someone so close that wasn't really family was going to die. Her mother was playing the strong one, and told me that crying wasn't going to help her daughter. She told me Erica was scared and needed company. She asked me if I would go and play for her. It always seemed to calm her down and put her to ease. I composed myself and went into the room. It was the worse thing I had ever seen. She knew i was there, but there were to many tubes and wires for her to do anything other then kind of smile. I sat down beside her bed and started to pay the first thing that came to mind. But only my mind wasn't working and the only thing I could think to play was the star spangle banner. I started laughing and looked at her and said the first thing I could think of, and that of course was the lyrics. The night went on and played various stupid songs, made up songs about subjects she wrote down on a piece of paper. It got pretty late and I was being told I had to leave. Of course, before I left I played her, her song and gave her a kiss on the head, telling her I would be back the next day.

I left and by time I got home, my mom was waiting for me. It was late and still officially a school night. I was expecting my mom to yell at me, but instead she hugged me and told me that Erica had died not long after I left her room. I was destroyed. It was very hard for me. It was as if my flesh and blood sister had died. After that night I swore I would never play for anyone ever again. Its been 8 years now and I can pretty much count on my hands the people who have heard me play. I still play fairly often.

I know it was a sad story and Im sorry. But I needed to tell it so you could understand this next part. I called home this morning and talked to my mom. She said that Erica's mother had called looking for me. Of course my mother gave her the spill about me being in Iraq, that I was living in Missouri now and all that jazz. Erica's mother gave my mother her phone number and asked that the next time I talked to her, that she ask me to call her. So I called her this morning after talking to my mother. It turns out Josh made it longer then anyone ever gave him credit for. He died two days ago, and after some digging his mother had found my parents number and was trying to get in touch with me to see if I could come play Erica's song at his funeral. This news hit me like a bomb shell. All day today I have walked around in a kind of haze just thinking about old memories. And a complete and total want to be there right now, and playing.

Thank you for telling us. Deep feelings are tough. I know that's an understatement but it's a fact. And they beat the hell out of not feeling anything at all.

Oh sweetheart....

I don't know of any words that would give you comfort...

but I'm thinking of you...

play Seedling... for you and Erica and Josh

holding your hand young man... xox

That is a tremendous story. You're a great man, Seed.

What an emotional story, Seed, and how sad that you have experienced such
pain early in your life. Play the guitar for Erica and Josh, they will hear you,
no matter where you are. My heartfelt condolence.

Hugs, Gene, what an interestingly deep man you are.

Stay safe, package to follow...

RH

Seed, I feel blessed to have met you here. Truly.

You are somebody special. You bring a real richness to your friendships and communities. Your daughter is going to be very lucky.



(youtube your music for Josh's family)

Good idea, ehBeth..

and thank you, Seed.

Seed, from what I know of you here, I have to say that your friends are very lucky to have you.

So had me a nice long mission that started saturday at 11 am and ended sunday morning at about 7 am. Oh the fun times, let you tell you. We had to dismount and do some crowd control. It was pretty fun actually. There were some kids out there. They want EVERYTHING you have. Like seriously, everything. They saw our pens, like ink pens, and were begging for them. My other gunner friend, Brattin, had 3 pens, the kids were all "Give me one, you keep two" over and over.

I just happened to have a blue sharpie marker in my pocket and I pulled it out, kind of baiting them with it. It was great. I was drawing smiley faces on the kids hands and they saw my tattoos on my arm. Oh boy, let me tell you. Do one thing to one kid, and just like any other kid, they want it done to them. They knew who Mario was and wanted me to "tattoo" their arms like mine. It was great. I'd give them a "tattoo" then taught them how to give high 5s. It was totally awesome. I ended up giving the sharpie to one of the kids, and he suddenly became the most popular boy in the world. It was to funny.

The area we were in, there was no threat of anything happening to us, so we could be relaxed and intermingle with the locals. I was still a bit stand offish with the adults. Doesn't matter where you are, if you are in a bad city, even if you are on a "safe" street, you are still leery about the people walking around. Know what I mean?

So question for you all. How have I changed in your eyes since we first started talking on this site. What is one thing that you have learned about me?

One thing? you care about other people.

How have you changed? you seem a bit more cautious than you were when we first met you.

cautious? how so?

this comes to mind

I think you might approach the situation slightly differently. Mebbe not. Just a feeling.

I am going to say you seem more serious, more contemplative, more introspective, more focused. I cant really explain -- its just the tone in your posts.

contemplative - that's a great word for the tone

thanks for that! cautious didn't quite get it (that's the joy of ESL)

Sorry, just getting up to speed. Just read about Erica & her family. I want to say, like others have, thank you for sharing that, Gene.
I didn't know you at all until about a month ago, I guess, but I can say that you are a very caring and sensitive individual. That you share it and can show others and can make them feel cared about is a truly rare and wonderful quality.

This is why I have been hella busy the last two days. Been changing out the engine and transmission in an M88.

.

Oh man was it a long two days. I'm not much of a mechanic so this has been a learning process for me but here are just a few pictures to show you how massive this thing is.

The white part is the transmission and the rest is the engine.


Just an idea how big it is next to people


My room mate standing in the engine/transmission compartment of the 88


So yea. covered in grease and fuel from head to toe the last two days been so tired.