Free Bird

March of 1983 I hiked Kent Falls in Litchfield County with my friends Brett Pryor and his best buddy, Don Gismondi. Classmates, we all turned twenty that year. Along the trails we chatted about our upcoming epic trips, theirs to California and mine to Arkansas. Back home by June from our adventures, Brett called to invite me to a summer toga party. His twentieth birthday was nearing. He assured me, “Don’t worry Tammy Sue, you can wear more than just a sheet.” Relieved, we laughed.

In the meantime, now that my parents were divorced, Mom prepared for her epic move to California with our ten-year-old brother. They would leave come October. However, my Irish twin sister, Cyndi Jo, and I clung to what familiarity, brokenness and comfort we knew with our Connecticut relationships.

No longer a family home, I slept at the friends house where anyone could find a bed, couch or floor space to crash, full ashtrays, grow lights in the closet, six-packs in the fridge and Red Carlo Rossi in the cabinet. Me and the other girl took on the role of playing house and making meals with lots of salads for the guys when their mother was sleeping at her boyfriends house. Although we kept the house clean, it wasn’t an ideal situation for me, but it was where I was. A place to land after my waitressing shift at Villa Pizza or the counters at Andrea’s Bakery.

Labor day weekend, someone hung up the wall phone and reported that Brett died. Dred washed over me, not only because he died, but that he had been in the hospital for three days after a horrific car accident. I felt so detached from life, like how did I not know he was in the hospital? I would’ve visited him like everyone else who heard the news. Mad and hurt I wanted to blame someone for not telling me, but who would that have been? I decided…

I didn’t know because how does one ever know when or how grief might swallow us alive when we are in the middle of our unique and personal loss?

Brett and I had become good friends, however, he couldn’t bring many people home due to his father’s specialized job managing the Newtown Fish and Game club. So I stood in line at his funeral and when it was my turn, I introduced myself to Brett’s parents. They lit right up and said, “So you’re Tammy Sue? Our son always talked about you and your friendship with favor. We’re so glad to finally meet you.”

Mr. and Mrs. Pryor’s comforting voices and gracious hugs wrapped me in their familiar. Without hesitation it was clear who Brett got his good manners and qualities from and why he was always a gentleman with me.

On one of the saddest days of my life, my first friend funeral, I was meeting Mr. and Mrs. Pryor for the first time. And they wanted to know about me, what was going on. I shared briefly about my mother moving away. We were both experiencing loss, different kinds, but loss.

Here is an excerpt from my memoir Wounded Song:

Brett’s grief-stricken parents invited me to live in their log cabin, perhaps to fill their void. Mr. & Mrs. P. was what I called them. Because my mother was preparing to move, I accepted their heartfelt offer to stay in my classmate’s room, whose home I’d never been to. She brought me upstairs to help situate me in his bedroom and introduced me to their intimate world of loss.

Mrs. P. gave me her son’s Boy Scout aluminum frame backpack along with his mess kit which had his initials B.P. engraved on the bottom. Maybe she thought I could use these because I’d recently returned from three-months of living off the land in the Ozark Mountains. I had stayed with my Sunday school teachers who had moved there to build their solar home. It was an exciting adventure where I milked cows, chopped wood and syphoned water into the house from the upper pond so we could bathe and do the dishes. In fact the last time I’d seen Brett was when I hiked with him and his best friend, Don, at Kent Falls before I left for my twenty-two hour bus trip to Compton, Arkansas.

After we went through the backpack, she picked up an envelope, “When going through my son’s things, I found this letter he wrote to you but I guess he never had a chance to get it in the mail.” We stood at the foot of his bed where she clutched the letter in her hand then held it to her chest. “I think it’s only proper for you to have this. After all he wrote to you.”

Stoic, she handed it to me as if it were a fragile baby bird’s egg that had fallen out of its nest.

We took turns holding it, then read it and surmised that this was the last letter he ever wrote. Knowing he was dead, it was surreal to look at his hand writing. After the Kent Falls hike with him and Don, I had left for Arkansas and they left for their big epic trip to California. The letter and the enclosed photo of them detailed the fun they’d had. It was weird. I tucked the letter into an old green ammunition box where I kept my special memories.

Mrs. P. then looked over at a potted plant on a windowsill and explained how her son loved this spider plant. “I’d like to give it to you if you’d like to have it.” She was a proud mom who was sad. I accepted without hesitation. The thought of having a piece of life from a dead friend offered a different kind of comfort. (end of excerpt from Wounded Song)

Sometimes we don’t know when we’ve been guided and ushered through by our Shepherd. Only when we have time to breathe and reflect might we see His divine intervention.

I lived with Mr. and Mrs. P about one year, long enough to learn what it’s like to live in a home that wasn’t fraught with tension. That when I squeezed the middle of the toothpaste tube it drove Mr. P crazy so he would playfully kick my clogs to the door and with a twinkle say, “Isn’t it time to leave yet?” Mrs. P giggled, “Oh Chet, don’t tease her like that.” They loved me through their loss and mine. Then they moved far away from what broke their hearts. I missed them terribly when they left, but I understood. I wasn’t their kid. They say I filled a hole. I hope so. They sure helped me.

In the year 2000, Curtis and I worked out of state to put a photo kiosk together for a new woody rollercoaster, which allowed me the opportunity to reconnect to Mr. and Mrs. P and introduce my husband to these special people. Boy how I missed the smell of his pipe and her demure giggle. Now reconnected, we make random check-in phone calls. It’s been twenty-two years since our visit, but age and time doesn’t distort the comfort of their voices that I’ve loved from day one. And how I’m transported back when Mr. P answers and says, “Barb the kid’s on the phone.”

Brett liked the song Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. After I met Mr. and Mrs. P at the funeral, they asked if I would help sketch out bird ideas so they could have something engraved on his headstone. I did. For years to follow, Free Bird played every Labor Day weekend.

How do I begin to thank someone who invited me into the most painful loss of their life?