Anyway, a couple of songs I hadn't heard in years have played over the past couple of days and I didn't change them. I think even if I had wanted to I wouldn't have been able to do it. And Justice for All reminds me of riding to school most mornings my junior year of high school with my friend Sam. We would crank it so loud the speakers in her little Ford Escort were blown, not that they were fantastic sounding anyway, but I think it's part of the reason I'm partial to old Metallica.
The Frayed Ends of Sanity and And Justice for All were two of the songs we played on repeat. Of course, in those days that meant you had to rewind the cassette and risk the car's tape deck 'eating' the tape. We often took the longest possible route from my house to school (a whole 1.75 miles) just to hear more than a couple of songs.
Sam was tiny but fierce. You didn't mess with her. She was all attitude up front, but she could back it up - she was a scrapper and I was happy to have been on her good side in those days. She died at 19, St. Patrick's Day 1991; just ten months after we graduated high school. While there are many mixed opinions surrounding the days before her death, the official cause was a massive brain aneurysm. She'd had it her whole life and one day it just burst. It is my feeling there were extenuating circumstances that led to that end - circumstances that were brought about by an abusive partner.
When she died, we were not on speaking terms. That is something that will weigh on me the rest of my life. Prior to my leaving for school in Pittsburgh, she had reached out to mend the fence. The falling out we had had was due to me speaking my mind about the guy she was seeing. I didn't like how he treated her; I knew he was abusive, both verbally and physically. I saw her as strong and I couldn't understand why in the world she would stay with someone who consistently gave her bruises and fucked with her head. I was so rigid in my perception of the world around me that I rebuked her attempts to smooth things over. She was still with that asshole, after all, and that I just couldn't watch him continue to hurt her and chip away at the friend I loved.
Seven months after her death, I moved to Virginia. The night I was raped - nearly 3 weeks after I arrived, the one person who stayed in my mind the entire ordeal was Sam. In my mind I was sort of praying to her, apologizing for not being a better friend. Wishing I had been more understanding and willing her to give me strength to make it through a nightmare I knew she had lived through once. Even after she had left this world, she didn't let me down.
Along with my innocence and sense of self, my wallet had also been stolen that night. The only thing I had of Sam, her senior photo and a heartfelt, handwritten note on the back was lost. Of everything that wallet, the only thing I gave a shit about was that photo. All of the photos I had, actually, but that one in particular. It was the last thing I had of her, proof that we had had one hell of a friendship, and I'd never be able to pull it out of the plastic holder and read her words again.
When I say that I have been blessed with amazing friends, it is for reasons like what happened when I came home for Thanksgiving, weeks after the rape. Knowing how upset I was over Sam's photo, my friends Chris and Kim had a copy made and gave it to me. I burst into tears. I'll never forget what Kim said when she presented me with it - she said she knew it wasn't the same because it didn't have what Sam had written on it, but she wanted to at least replace the picture. I still get overwhelmed with emotion when I think about it. At a time when I was vulnerable and couldn't keep anything in my head straight, this act of kindness reminded me that the people who were in my life hadn't changed and would always be there with whatever I needed.
Between hearing the songs that take me back to my time with her and the upcoming anniversary of the worst nightmare of my life and knowing her birthday follows just a couple of weeks later, well, she's been on my mind a lot. I think, were she still here, she'd likely think Metallica is just as lame as I do these days. It kind of makes me laugh, imagining what she'd say because her presence, sense of humor and loud personality are things that have never faded from memory. I miss the fuck out of her, but I am grateful I learned to appreciate and treasure the people I call friends regardless of the ways we might disagree. They mean more to me than being right and sometimes standing strong next to someone you love is the absolute best thing you can do.
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