Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

Okay, I said I’d explain the wristbands…

There is a local non-profit organization called Rebound:

Sarnia-Lambton Rebound is committed to supporting young people in reaching their full potential. We support youth who are experiencing difficulties at home, school or with the law. Our unique program design incorporates trained community volunteers to act as mentors and positive role models to youth.

At Sarnia-Lambton Rebound, we are committed to developing evidence-based services and programs. We stay current with the latest literature and research to ensure our programs are delivered in the most effective manner. Rebound provides a series of six youth and three parenting programs that focus on building confidence, making healthy decisions and improving communication.

Now, Tristan never used the services of Rebound but he went through a rough patch where he might’ve actually found them pretty useful. As it happens, when it was decided that the family would ask for charitable donations be made instead of flowers at his funeral, T’s big bro Mike suggested a couple of local youth-support organizations that he thought T would like. Rebound was one of them.

Tristan was an avid golfer. He could hit that ball straight and he could hit it a mile. He played every summer–for years in the youth program at Greenwood Golf Course (where his grandma and grandpa had taught him to play) and then, later, in a similar program at the Sarnia Golf and Curling Club, where his parents got a membership. A few months ago, one of Tristan’s golfing buddies mentioned to my sister that it would be kinda neat to hold a golf tournament in T’s memory. That got the wheels turning…

So, on August 21st, Greenwood Golf Course will host a memorial golf tourney, in Tristan’s name, which will raise funds for Rebound. Lunch & registration is at noon, Best Ball shotgun start at 1pm, dinner at 6-ish, and there will be a silent auction along with prizes and raffles and gifts. A representative from Rebound will join us to tell everybody about their organization. $75 for golfers (incl. lunch & steak dinner, along with the golf), $25 for non-golfing diners. The field is pretty much filled up, although, as I write this, there is room for one more foursome and there are a couple foursomes that have a spare spot. There may still be a few dining-spots open, too. But it certainly looks like we’re going to sell out.

We really didn’t know what to expect when we first started to plan this (honestly, I have done little–my sister really took the bull by the horns and she’s had lots of help from my brother-in-law and our parents and many friends), but I don’t think any of us realized what kind of response we were gonna get from people who wanted to take part and people who wanted to chip in any way they could.

Local and national businesses and organizations have been stunningly generous when family & friends have approached them about donating items for auction or prizes. Folks would approach friends or family they know in the company or actually do cold calls and it’s amazing to see the response. Area papers have covered the story and the local radio station K106 is sending its Rockpatrol. RBC Dominion surprised us a couple days ago by offering to sponsor a hole-in-one contest in which someone could win $10,000 if they get a hole-in-one on the sponsored hole, and Rebound would get a thousand bucks, too. Holy shit! One of Tristan’s other aunts works for Hockey Canada and she has procured some pretty cool Team Canada swag for the silent auction–including a stick signed by all members of the gold-medal-winning 2008 World Juniors (including Maple Leaf Luke Schenn and 2009 NHL #1 draft pick John Tavares). Local restaurants have chipped in gift certificates, local businesses donated services and gifts, and local professionals–from Tristan’s tattooist Pete St. Marseille (that’s his “Carsy” tat on Pete’s portfolio) to his dentist Dr. Guy Kohlmeier!–have been so eager to help! He is fondly remembered far and wide, which is wonderful for us and such a great comfort.

As the lone non-golfer in my family, I will be helping with other volunteers to register golfers, sell raffle tickets, monitor the RBC-sponsored hole, and any other kind of running around needed while folks are golfing. I’m really looking forward to the day, although I know that it will be a very emotional one for me.

Most days are like that, though. Still. I don’t foresee an end to that for a long time. I miss him desperately.

The wristbands? I had those made up for the tourney. They were originally suggested by Tristan’s friend Casey, who thought a lot of T’s friends would love to have something like the “Livestrong” bracelets (which T wore) to remember him by. The colours–also suggested by Casey (a clever young woman who should go into the field of marketing!)–are the colours of T’s team, the Wallaceburg Lakers. My sis suggested the text Carsy 16 1989-2008–“Carsy” being his hockey nickname, “16″ his jersey number, and the dates self-explanatory. I added the ankh in the middle because of the silver ankh he always wore on the chain around his neck. It has kinda become our little symbol of him. Eternal life.

Many thanks to John Sakamoto for the tip-off on this beautiful version of MGMT’s song, Kids, by Ben Lee.

Oracular Spectacular is one of my favourite albums from the past couple of years but, honestly, I pay more attention to music than lyrics these days so I never really thought much about what they were singing. I’d blahblahblahblah along with what I thought they were saying, but without thinking about it. Ben Lee’s solo acoustic version turns the song on its head for me–with the lyrics front and centre.

When I listened to it for the first time on Saturday morning, I burst into tears.

I have found that music is a real trigger for sorrow in recent weeks. It doesn’t even have to be something as complex as lyrics that set me off–sometimes, it is just a chord progression or the key the song is in that is enough to squeeze my heart.

For the first week or two after Tristan died, I didn’t dare try to listen to any music. Gradually, I started to allow it back into my life. At first, just a little–listening to the radio (which is unheard of for me!) during my commute.

Then I listened to a few disks I’d picked up at a local record store–feeding the nostalgia that had been hovering around me since last fall when I reconnected with some friends from university… music from my past.

Later, at my request, my sister gave me a bunch of Tristan’s music–CDs, home-made mixes, and his iPod. A lot of it is rap and hip hop and metalcore but every once in a while, in one of his personal mixes, I’ll get a surprise–f’r'instance, Stayin’ Alive knocked me for a loop and a laugh one day, sandwiched between a couple of metalcore songs. Listening to his music hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be but the way it is hard is not in the way I thought it might be… What’s hard is hearing one band and wondering, “would he have liked this other band?” Because he’s not around for me to ask.

I keep running up against that subject here–regret, I mean–and I continue to step around it. It is the hardest thing I am dealing with at the moment.

I’ll never have anything to do with computers.

I’ll never go back to school.

I’ll never move back to Sarnia.

I’ll never allow myself to move back in with my parents.

I’ll never get a tattoo.

The “never say never” rule is one that I have learned over and over in my life. Saying I’ll never do something pretty much guarantees that someday I will do that very thing.

Thus, I am inked.

My nephew Tristan used to wear a silver ankh pendant on a chain around his neck. He got it on a vacation in Mexico a couple of years ago and wore it all the time. His mom wears it now. All the time. Without telling her why, I traced its outline after dinner at her place a few weeks ago. Over the next little while, I modified the drawing so that the top loop was reshaped into a heart. Tristan’s ankh was a little lopsided–with one side of the top loop a little narrower than the other–and, after designing a “corrected” version, I decided to leave that “imperfection” as-is. Because, y’know, Tristan wasn’t perfect. And neither am I. A couple weeks ago I took the design down to the tattoist who had done all of Tristan’s tats and had him put it on the inside of my left wrist, facing me.

I look at it all the time and marvel at how much it means to me and how surprised I am at that and how much he would love that I did this.

If only I’d done this while he was here.

I find myself plagued with regrets like that one, and I will try to write about the pain of that soon.

The Wallaceburg Lakers held a pre-game ceremony this week to retire Tristan’s #16. I will just post a few pictures at this point, as I am still trying to work through how I feel about it… Imagine something being both wonderful and horrifying at the same time.

I will write more about that later.

Tristan’s parents Chris & Bob, his big brother Mike, and I were on-ice for the ceremony. His grandpa & grandma declined and, instead, watched from the stands with lots of our friends who came down from Sarnia to Wallaceburg for the game. One of the organizers was the coach’s sister Gail, who spoke eloquently about how Tristan’s smile was what she remembered most about the first time she met him. His smile was something that so many people have remarked upon! I’m glad he was known for it, ‘cause it definitely was a beaut.

After Coach Mark Davis spoke warmly about how the team is family (and if you click the photo below, then click to enlarge the photo that subsequently opens, you can read what he said), T’s dad Bob thanked the coach, T’s teammates, and the Lakers organization & its fans for all the love and support they’ve shown us and told them how much it has meant to us.

After the game, the team and all the hockey families gathered upstairs for the annual potluck dinner. T would’ve loved the cake!

Not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but T’s teammates have worn their hair in mohawks like his ever since he passed away. It is a gesture that touches me deeply. How this experience has utterly changed my opinion about this generation of young people is another topic I want to address at some point. Seems the world is not as doomed as I previously thought.

Next Wednesday (Feb. 4) is the Wallaceburg Lakers’ last home game of the 2008-2009 regular season. The team plans to retire Tristan’s jersey in a pre-game ceremony that night, and I just wanted to mention it here for anyone who might like to attend. Game-time is 7:30pm at the Wallaceburg Memorial Arena (map).

The support we have gotten from the Lakers organization, the team’s fans, and from his wonderful teammates and their families has been amazing.

I am finding that grief likes to creep up and sucker punch me. I will be feeling (what passes for) “normal” (these days) and then, all of a sudden, I will be blindsided by the horror that I will never get to hear T’s infectious giggle again or that he will never get to grow up and have his own kids. It takes my breath away—both figuratively and literally—and leaves me gasping for air. It happens every day. Many times every day. I am often struck while I am alone, like on my hour-long commute to and from work, but it also happens when I am sitting at my desk at the office or standing in a crowd behind the glass at the end of a hockey rink, watching T’s team play, or at the dinner table with the rest of my family.

When it hits, I don’t fight it. I just let it take its course through me.

Back in the bad ol’ days, I’d’ve turned to booze to beat my emotions into submission. I remember, not long after I quit drinking, folks at the meetings useta ask me how I was feeling and my honest answer was “I don’t know”. I didn’t know how I felt because I hadn’t really felt anything in years. Booze is anaesthetic. Take that away and the undiluted emotions are all strange, unidentifiable.

Over the intervening years, I have come to know my emotions and can certainly understand, sometimes, why I might’ve wanted to dampen them back in the day… because they can be keen enough to draw blood.

Facing T’s death sober and unprotected by the cottony padding of drunken stupor, I have discovered that it is possible to feel worse than I did when I had become miserable enough to actually quit drinking. I didn’t know it could get worse than that. It was unfathomable until now.

But I am facing it. I’m acknowledging the horror of this loss. I am not trying to wrap my hands around its neck and push it down under the boozy surface to drown it. The terrible moments of anguish do not usually last long. They rob me of breath and blur my vision and clench my muscles but they fade almost as quickly as they attack. Grief rolls in and then rolls out again. Rolls in, rolls out.

People ask me how I’m doing. I tell them I have my moments.