A Favor for the Dead

As a child, I grew up with a boy who was known as the terror of our neighborhood (let’s just call him Brian). He was the bad boy, the guy who had been accused of just about every single crime a 12-year-old boy can commit...and then some. Parents warned their children not to play with him, he nearly burned down his own house once, was known for doing drugs, and he apparently broke another boy’s arm with a baseball bat once.

But, there was just something about him…

I remember watching from my yard one time as he saved a little boy from being run over by a car. Another time, when I had been struck by another child, Brian came to my rescue and gave the other boy hell for hitting me. Sometimes Brian would play with me when there was no one else to play with; he would play house, pour tea with me, and make pretend soup out of wild onions and dirt. Then there were the times when it came to being picked for teams, and I was always picked last because I was the worst player of them all. But Brian always picked me first.

He had my loyalty because of it, and in some way, my childish heart cherished him, despite what everyone said he was like, or what they said he had done.

Brian moved away a couple of years later and I heard very little of him from that point onward. And what I did hear wasn't good. He had hard life, and few people were willing to give him much of a break. Then there was one day when I happened upon his obituary online. He had been found dead in his home from a drug overdose. And then I read the words that really touched me. He had a two-year-old daughter, and she shares my name.

I didn't think his death would bother me that much, but it did. Not long after finding the obituary, I had a dream about him. He came to me, and we stood in the same spot where we once used to play out in the yard. He told me that he was in hell and that I had to save him somehow, because he was in such pain. In the dream, I tried so hard to somehow help him, but in the end, I was unable to.

I've never really gotten over Brian’s death, or the dream where he begged for help. I wish that somehow when he was alive, that I could have done something for him, shared God with him or helped him to get out of the mess that he was in. But, what can an eleven-year-old girl do?

So recently, I found his younger brother on Facebook. I’m sure this guy doesn't remember me at all. But today I wrote to him. I just wanted to reach out and tell him that I still think of his big brother often, and to just share a bit of hope.

Part of me is frightened that Brian’s brother will be mad at me, a perfect stranger, for reaching out at such a random time and in a random manner, but I get the feeling that it’s not only something that I need to do for myself, to let go of Brian, but that it’s what Brian would have wanted.