Absolution

A classmate of mine died just the other day. And he’s resting with a little more peace thanks to social media.

I wouldn’t have known about his passing otherwise, and little did I know that the tiny degree of contact we shared recently would have made any difference.

We all grow up

I did most of my “formative years” in southern Idaho. The landscape there shaped my thoughts, the people shaped my speech pattern, and my classmates for a long time shaped my self-image.

I was smaller than my classmates, for a good reason: I was more than a year-and-a-half younger than any of them. My 9th-grade year in Twin Falls was my last, and I was a 13-year-old in a land of 15-year-olds. I had always been smaller and less-physically developed, and the target of bullying. Lots of bullying. After years of taking the abuse, I was right on the verge of overcoming it and breaking through. Then we moved to Alabama and I had to start over — but that’s another story.

The bullying took just about any form you could imagine. A little bit of physical mongering – a lot of name calling – and a great deal of intimidation. I was blessed with very intelligent and creative classmates, who saddled me with the worst bullying nickname of all time. (I-suck Pig-nuts.) I laugh about it now, because any future attempts to make fun of my name fall woefully short.

Kids are kids, and if it weren’t for all of that, I wouldn’t be who I am today. The physical abuse wasn’t that bad. The worst was the day Scott C. kicked me where it counts. Hard. Not quite “go to the hospital” hard, but it was “spent the day with an ice pack” hard.

Two paths diverged

The next year I was in Alabama. I visited Idaho twice in the next three years, and my classmates had grown up quite a bit. So had I. My last trip in 1986, I was made an honorary Bruin by a small cabal of kids who didn’t have the authority to do so. But many of them were ones who had grown up, and instead of picking on me were well on their way into adulthood (in a world where adulthood has become defined by age instead of actual maturity.) I saw Scott C. briefly then, and he rarely entered my thoughts afterward.

It turns out that Scott would go on to battle a number of demons in the last 22 years. He openly shared his struggles with bad choices and addictions, and he proved himself a generous enough person that he had a strong support network to cheer him on.

I know all of this because I connected with him on Facebook a couple of months ago. I started fleshing out my junior high years, and was getting a kick out of seeing where everyone ended up. Scott looked older, and looked as though he’d aged a little more than most. Hard living will do that, but he always had a smile. Every picture I’ve seen of him has a smile that jumps out of the pixels and into the room. It was the same smile he had back then.

Three weeks ago, Scott fell and hit his head. He had a concussion and some other related injuries. I’m told that he developed some pretty severe complications while he was in the hospital, and an infection ravaged his body. Given the toll his previous living had done to his organs, things were not looking good at all. Two days ago the doctors told his family that his liver and kidneys had completely shut down. Early Thursday morning, not long after signing the Do Not Resuscitate order, Scott passed on.

Friends everywhere

Scott did not go alone. His family and his closest friends were there. He was aware and mostly comfortable to the end, I am told. Debbie was one of Scott’s closest friends and was there at the very end. She did an admirable job of keeping everyone informed.

She also told me something important.

Over the years, she and Scott had talked often about the things he’d done. She heard it all. Last week, she told me that Scott wasn’t proud of the way he treated people when he was young, but that I was the one person he wished he could apologize to more than any other. Maybe it was for the kick. Maybe that’s just the only incident that comes to mind. Maybe he was behind more than I ever knew. I just doesn’t matter.

I told her that there was no need for him to apologize, that I had let go of any anger or resentment a long time ago, and he needed to know that. I wouldn’t be who I am without the experiences that shaped me. None of us truly triumph until we conquer those ghosts. You can’t help being affected by the things that happen to you in life, but you can make a conscious choice to not be defined by them.

Scott’s past choices might have caught up with him physically, but he was determined that he would define his legacy, and not cede that job to his past actions.

Long-distance lessons

Scott’s Facebook page is still up. His status message still reads “Scott is resting in peace.”

That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a death notification on Facebook. But there’s much more to that message.

I can’t speak for him, or Debbie or anyone else. But I know for a fact he and his family were checking his Facebook from the hospital bed. And I know they saw the messages of support coming in. And I know that if it weren’t for Facebook, he wouldn’t have passed with the knowledge that he got the absolution he wanted from Isuck Pignuts.

Yeah, this social media stuff can be pretty stupid sometimes. Check that, a lot of the time. But when real people connect in ways that are truly meaningful and lasting, you can’t ignore the power. People use phones for stupid things too, but a call from the right person can change your life.

Scott – and to all from Scott’s family who read this – you brought a lot of joy to a large body of people.

Peace out, Scott.  Peace out…