Pretty much throughout my five years of high school my "best enemy" was a guy named Kevin. We tormented each other regularly and were barely civil to each other but that was what we did best. The Christmas of Grade 11 (our last year) I had this really weird feeling and I went up to Kevin and hugged and kissed him Merry Christmas. He basically pushed me off and said "What the heck are you doing??????" but I just carried on and felt better for having done it.
We were told on January 7, 1981 that Kevin had become ill over the holidays and earlier that morning they had turned off the life support machines and he had died. I don't do funerals very well and I didn't attend Kevin's. We all spent the rest of that year waiting for him to walk back down the hall.
The February following his death, my best friend Mel and I were walking home from school after an activity so it was dark. We were about to cross the road in front of the church when suddenly I was pushed hard by my shoulders and landed on my rear end. I jumped up and said "What did you do that for???" - just then a van went by with no lights on and had I been crossing I would have been hit. Mel said she never touched me but I thought she wasn't being truthful.
Then that June I was up on a friend's roof - which is nearly impossible to believe anyway since I am terrified of heights - and I was about to take a step when I heard clear as day Kevin's voice say "Watch out!!" and I felt like I was pushed to the other side. I thought I'd fall but I kept my balance like someone was holding my hand. When I looked down where I had nearly stepped there was a loose piece of shingle that wasn't visible against the dark roof and I would have slipped if I stepped on it and fallen off the roof.
Before I moved away from my hometown that summer, I went to visit Kevin's grave and say my goodbyes. To this day I believe that everyone has someone who watches out for them and I believe that the person who watches over me is Kevin.
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