The Seventh Post: Life Often Times Throws You A Curve Ball

I feel like anything in life can be related to the All-American sport of baseball. We use the phrases so often, we don't even know we are doing it. 

"He's going the distance"

"She's performing light's out"

"Stick a fork in him, he's done"

"He's been relegated to the bull-pen"

"She was caught napping". 

"A Swing and a miss" 

"You can't steal first base"

"Life's throwing you a curve ball"

Tomorrow is that day for me, my curve ball. You know, THAT day. I wrote about much of my experience with 9/11, just a year ago, in this post, The Fourth Post: My 9/11 Story. Whew, 365 days and it’s here again.

Most people diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD, eventually know what their triggers are and they do their best to avoid them or learn to cope. But how do you avoid an entire day? How do you avoid an entire day when everyone else talks about it, posts videos of it, has their own stories about it, and refers to it as the actual date it is? It’s not Labor Day or Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s actually “NINE. FUCKING. ELEVEN”. When my kid asks me the date, I have to say, “it’s 9/11”. Damn. No avoiding this, ever.

Does each year get easier? Yes…and No. In each and every year since the worst day of my life, the worst week, the worst few months- something both amazing, and terribly tragic, has happened to me. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to the highs and lows of life now? I don't know, but it just seems to keep working out this way. 2004 began with my marriage and ended in two horribly painful back surgeries that have left me with chronic back pain; 2006 took off with the birth of my oldest son and finished with the premature death of his paternal grandmother; 2007 brought the death of a friend only in her 20's, who tragically took her own life, while in that same year, many other friends, and myself, gave birth to new life; In 2010, my closest friend, only in her mid-thirties, survived a stroke- both a horror and an absolute gift of life all at once. What does this prove really? As far as I’m concerned, it is actual hard evidence that life does certainly go on, cycles cycle, and life begets life. Tragedy may strike, and yet, so does joy, most times when you least expect it.

But, come on,  does Nine Eleven, that stupid day, named for it’s own date, really ever get any better for me?

My cousin, Karleton, “KDBF”, who lost his life on Flight 11, was such a cool guy. God, I miss him. He was the type of guy everyone felt was his or her closest friend.  Seriously, there are 6 other cousins on that side of my family (not counting his own siblings), and every single one of us thought they were his best friend, or at least one of them. Even the shoeshine guy in the lobby of the building where he worked in Boston for John Hancock, thought he was KDBF’s best friend. 

Myself, my cousins Lisen, Erin, & Kate, my brother Doug, and cousin KDBF, eating a picnic lunch in 1981...obviously someone farted.

Karleton called himself ubiquitous, and the reason I make mention of him using this as his self-description all of the time is because the first time he said it, my best recollection of this being  while he was in college and I was in Jr. High, I had to secretly get the dictionary out and look the word up. It’s stuck with me. And sure as shit, ever since that early tween moment, when I knew the meaning of the word, I have always thought he was as close as a person could actually come to being truly ubiquitous. He was also obviously freakin’ sarcastic, smartass-tic (double-majored in philosopy and economics, who does that?), and hilarious. It’s a fact, everyone thought so.   

This year, on Friday, September 13, my cousin’s widow, Haven, the strongest, most resilient, woman I know [read part of Haven’s story here: The Boston Globe, April 13, 2013, "From Loss To Healing"], will throw out the first pitch at the Boston Red Sox game. They are playing the Yankees. WOW! I told Haven a few days ago, “KDBF would crap his lightly starched khaki’s that you are doing this!” It’s true, he would have been so excited. Holy Shit- Fenway?! Red Sox vs. Yankees?!

Picture above & below were added on 9/11/14 but are from 9/13/13 at Fenway Park, Boston

Then again, he probably would also add that it was a, “real shitty short straw she drew” having to go through all of that loss, pain, hurt, and healing, just to step on the field. And he’d be so right. The shortest of straws.

So yes, for all of us, of course it gets better every year. Oh, clichés that are song lyrics, how I love thee…”Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on”.

Yes, as it happens with each 9/11, when this one appears, I will see it all, right in real time as it happened that day. I will see the planes, I will see the fire, I will see the hanging people and then see then jumping, I will see the collapse of each building, I will see the smoke, I will hear the fighter jets passing by every 5 minutes, I will hear the high-pitched alarms piercing in waves for hours upon hours, I will smell the dust, and I will taste the soot. Oh,  and because of how calendars work and such, I plan to go through it all over again, and again, and again. Once, every 365 days.

And certainly, it could all be irrational (as many people have so kindly expressed to me), but more likely, it’s just the human brain reminding me each year that while the most amazing things can happen in this world, so can the worst. While life goes on, so does life end.

Nine. Fucking. Eleven. We all hate you, but we keep on going.

Guess what I know for sure? Friday is going to be a beautiful day for baseball! No curve balls for this family...throw a strike Haven, right over the plate, and while you’re doing it, know that, because he really was ubiquitous, KDBF’s going to be with you, as he has been these past twelve years, cheering you on, woman!! xoxo

"Karleton Fyfe really lived everyting, applying the same boyishness determination whether he was mastering Steve Martin routines or the curveball as a kid, or tackling projects as a senior analyst at John Hancock." - Thank you Melanie Lopez Paetow, who took this picture at the traveling Healing Garden in Arizona on 9/11/13, only days after I had written this blog about life's curve balls.  A little freaky, but also typical because that's how it was with Karleton, he was always showing you things without actually "showing you" things. An absolutely free lesson on how to live a big life, by a guy who lived life well, smart, and humongous. KDBF, you were a classic.