ToCreate.Art.blog

I went visiting gravesites a couple of days ago. I drove a solid 40 minutes one way to visit my grandparents in Weyerhaeuser. The military had finally placed a plaque honoring my grampa for his service in WWII. That was nice to see.

I also drove to visit the gravesite of — well, I’ll just say it — an old flame from when I was 18.

We met through (memories flooding back) my great-aunt, with whom I was living at the time. She had a boyfriend who was the friend of the man she wanted me to meet. I will call him Dave, because that was his name. She insisted that I go with her to visit one late afternoon/evening.

Dave had an on-again, off-again girlfriend where they were currently on-again. In spite of this, I got him to dance with me that first night, in his livingroom. I remember he was somewhat reluctant, but then gave in when I kept coming on to him. (I was brazen in those days.)

That visit resulted in additional get-togethers between us, with and without my aunt and her boyfriend. At some point, his on-again became off-again, and I was a concealed witness to her verbal attack on him one sunny day, after he apparently broke up with her.

He was living in a house that his family wanted to have torn down. It was dilapitated and had no running water, but Dave was, little by little, rebuilding it. He worked a day job at a feed mill and also worked on a farm after his regular hours, so he didn’t have a lot of time left over for construction and a new girlfriend.

My aunt’s boyfriend – Dave’s friend – was staying with Dave at some point. I remember we had to go out to one of the construction areas of the house just to make love.

Because there was no running water at the house, his showers and grooming were done from a hose on the farm. I so wanted him to touch me with his hands, but he wouldn’t. He was gracious enough to respect me and keep me clean from his hardworking hands.

It came down to him needing to spend more time working at the farm — weekends, too — so he told me he couldn’t spend time with me much, anymore.

Eventually, I restarted dating other people. It was several weeks since I saw Dave. I was going into a bar with another guy when Dave rode by on his motorcycle. He saw me, came and picked me up, and we rode to a nearby park. I don’t remember the conversation, but I know he wanted to get back with me.

We rode back to the bar and he came in with me, sat next to me on the other side from where my current “date” was sitting and we all had a drink together. The three of us. I don’t remember either of them being too prickly about the other being there.

To remember that now, it was just another part of my life, the way my life had been going that summer. The Summer of ‘89.

Dave was the one to eventually give up on me in that bar, and left.

I was left with a man who was a recovered alcoholic until that day, and was now on a bender. Apparently his live-in girlfriend was upset at him because he couldn’t pay the rent.

Oh, what a convoluted time. I am ashamed of my teenaged self, except that all roads from my previous 18 years lead up to this exact moment. I don’t know if I even knew how to change the course of my life as it was headed over the next few months.

I ended up that Fall getting together with the man who would be my first husband. This was just after I was out from a recovery center for being an alcoholic, myself, though I denied it. At best, it was situational. To this day, I am actually slightly averse to alcohol.

My first husband and I were married on March 9, 1990. A few days later, I was waylayed by a funeral procession. It was not uncommon, but not too frequent, either, to have to wait for a funeral procession to pass. I respect those who respect the dead and exhibit patience and a condoling thought for the deceased’s living.

A few days after that, my mother told me that Dave had died. That he shot himself, in the feed mill where he worked.

The funeral procession that passed by me that day was Dave’s.

She also told me that in the weeks prior to my marriage, she had talked to him and he specifically told her to tell me to not get married.

He ended up killing himself by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the hours just after I got married.

I have thought about him from time to time. At one point, I looked up his public records and found the record of his first marriage and divorce. I searched FindAGrave.com for his burial location, and I left him flowers. Both digitally as well as physically.

The other day, I heard the song, Someday, Lady, You’ll Accompany Me, and my thoughts took me back to Dave.

He was 27 years old.

Twenty-seven years old, and so upset about something that he would take his own life over it.

Yes, I do feel responsible. I have always felt responsible. I’ve told myself that if I could have prevented it in some way, I would have. But now I remember I did have that chance.

That day we rode to the park. I still liked him. Why would I then choose a man bent on some form of revenge on me over simple and caring and hardworking Dave? That one day was my day to change the course of the future. And I blew it.

I went to see Dave’s gravesite a couple of days ago. The same day I visited my grandparents. He was buried not far from where he lived.

The painting I was working on during the song that brought me back to him – I named the painting after that song. I brought it with me to his gravesite, to show him. To have it touched by him in some way. I picked up dead leaves from around his headstone and put them in my jacket pocket. They’re still there.

I’ve never forgotten Dave after he died. I don’t think I ever will. He comes back to haunt me, and now 30 years later I grieve the most.

He was just 27 years old. He’s been gone longer than he was alive.

Whenever I pass that one bar, I remember the day he picked me up on his motorcycle. Whenever I drive past the exit to Canton, I remember his life. Songs and other things remind me of him and his death. My heart grows heavy for him each time.

After the gravesite visit, I was crying so much that I had to tell my husband. He held me. He told me that it isn’t one thing that causes a person to take their life. It’s a culmination of things, as well as a propensity for mental health issues. It wasn’t my fault. It was likely a domino-effect.

Knowing that has helped this haunting to a degree. But I still have regrets.

Dave, I did not deserve your love. And you did not deserve my absence. I did not love you as you should have been loved, and it was my own fault.

This post is dedicated to the memory of David Kent Hensel, August 2, 1962 – March 10, 1990.