An Old Family Friend Passes On…(A Personal Remembrance)

Doug had been sick for some time, complications from a few serious diseases, which finally took his life on November 18th this year; he was fifty years of age.
The man was the father of my nephew, Daniel.

Doug goes back along time. He was considered to be too wild for my sister: hard drinking, a consumer of recreational mind-altering substances, (as most of us were in the 70’s) this boy was handsome, the Johnny Depp of our generation.

Doug was generally a happy fellow but when he drank too much, anything could happen. He loved his alcohol and drank for many reasons far beyond the received wisdom on the subject. Doug was the unluckiest individual that I have ever encountered in real life or in fiction.

Doug was actually hit by lightening, not once but twice, on two separate occasions. The man nearly died in both cases and lived to tell the tale.

In the prime of his life, mid to late twenties, riding his motorcycle along I. 25, a semi truck switched lanes without looking, slamming into Doug at 70 miles an hour. The consequences of this tragic accident were devastating. Most of his bones had compound fractures, but the skin on his face had been ripped off leaving only bone and a little muscle. Entering the emergency room the attending E.R. staffs believed the man was a lost cause, a slab of unrecognisable meat surrounding a heart that continued to beat… working into the night, Doug came through and lived to see the morning.

Physically he never bounced back as the injuries were too severe. After some years and many plastic surgeries, a mere shadow of his original face appeared and remained a miracle, really, but Doug looked to be an entirely different person. The once handsome lad, struck by lightning twice and obliterated on the highway from a semi truck, came back, but looked like a second rate Frankenstein. He wanted to live again, despite the past, despite his face, though his future proved to turn to more tragedy, more negatives, more bad luck.

I can only imagine the man’s feelings and responses to this tragedy. Nothing anyone has experienced, (because we are all different) can accurately understand Doug’s heart and mind in his battle to become “normal” again. Only that individual who has gone through such hardship, really only understands the pain and fears from attempting to fit back into one’s family, one’s friends… society in general.
Nothing was the same.

Doug’s mother, a strong and caring person, raising young Daniel, unemployed and on welfare because she had a slow, lingering cancer, her boy arrives home from the hospital and baby Daniel is crying, and all Doug wants to do is hold him, which he does and feels somehow that life must get better, because it surly can’t get any worse.

But it does…

Life has its major tragedies but mostly it is a series of missed opportunities, wrong choices, the day to day problems and mishaps…cars breakdown, hearts are broken, friends met and lost; the electricity turned off for weeks and freezing in the dead of winter because the bill was paid a few days late, etc.
America is a harsh country if you are disadvantaged and unable to work. Their Welfare and Medical systems, respectively, are disasters, almost fascist in their system and approach, and in the eyes of the rest of the “free” world is an antiquated joke, a creation of right-wing elites.

Doug and his mother including little Daniel felt the brunt of this system: life was a daily struggle against impending disaster, a fight, on a daily bases, for basic needs.

On this side of the world, my mother gave what she could and when she was able to give more, she would, but at that stage of the game, the dye had been cast.
Doug’s mother died soon later of her lingering cancer and their world changed again as the two boys’s had lost their anchor, their carer, their mother.

Rather than plunge into the details over the next fifteen years, let me just say that Doug tried and tried hard to provide a “normal” home and an existence without strife. From little information I have, he accomplished this noble goal in various ways. He was not always successful and at times contributed to the strife, (he missed his mother) but his intentions were pure.

The last time I talked to Doug was in 2000. We were in Denver visiting a good friend who lived in the mountains close to Breckenridge. The rendezvous time was made to meet my nephew, Daniel, and my wife at the time and I travelled down the mountain to a suburb in Denver. The rendezvous place turned out to be a rocken cowboy bar next to a trailer park. It was around dusk, and Daniel was thirty minutes late. Just as I was about to call the show off, a strange looking man pulled up on an old bicycle.

“Hi Craig. It’s me, Doug.”

At first startled, then looking into his eyes, I knew it was the father of my nephew. He did not in anyway look like the boy I knew before: his face disfigured, scarred and uneven, but those deep brown familiar eyes remained the same.

“Daniel is always late. Had a big night last night and just now got home. Hope you two haven’t been waiten long.”

I responded, “No, mate, all’s fine.”

He smiled and back peddled on the bike, “You don’t have a very good Australian accent after being there so long.” he laughed, continuing to move back and forth on the bike as if wanting to say something important to me.

Right then, Daniel arrived and had an expression on his face exactly like my father would when up to something troublesome. I was astounded how the boy had the same demeanour and cheeky smile like my father…

Doug reached over and shook my hand. He was about to bicycle off, when my wife stopped him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Doug smiled, seeming to like the affection, and peddled off and that was the last time we ever-laid eyes on the man again.

Life was never meant to be easy.

When I begin to winge and complain about how “awful” my life has become, wishing for something better and wallowing in self pity, I only need to become aware of my friend, my next door neighbour, a disadvantaged student in my classroom, the young girl crouched on the ground like a Dickens character in the pouring rain with a little umbrella, soaked to the bone, selling flowers on the edge of the highway on Christmas afternoon.

I believe Doug did it hard but managed to maintain a focus, although not a “pillar” of the community, he showed me that no matter what happens, life is a gift and truly worth fighting for.

Farewell old boy.

We’re all proud of you.

Written Christmas Day 2006