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Posts Tagged ‘suicide’

“There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday.” ~Robert Nathan

Posted in Family, Loss, love, Men, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , , , on February 16, 2011| 10 Comments »

Scott and me

This is a week that makes it far too clear that time is not linear as my present drowns in past and future is put off for some days while I wallow.

February 16th in 1985 was a wedding day … my second, and the first as an adult and that didn’t come with a shotgun. It was a lovely, warm Sacramento Saturday, almost too warm for my gray suede wedding getup, and our living room was done up nicely for the event.

It was Scott I was marrying, and after five years of cohabitation it seemed a good idea at the time. My mother, thinking that formalizing the relationship was daft, asked me what the hell I was doing, and my son, a teen at the time, walked me down the stairs that served as aisle and “gave me away”.

The marriage carried on for nine interesting years before Scott and I went our separate ways with no animosity and continuing contact across the globe. We had been through so much together, traveled the world, expanded our horizons both personally and professionally, shared families and occasions and experiences and histories, laughed and cried and fought and loved and lived in each others’ skin as much as those together for so long can.

The well of memories including him is deep, and there’s no little of him left in my corners. I can still easily conjure his smile, the goofy way he danced, his hands on the steering wheel as he drove the “pink” Porsche way too fast, his attempts at false bravado when intimidated. I can see him in an overcoat in the snow in Hyde Park, shooting photos in a temple in Borneo, with a beer in his hand on a boat down the Sacramento River, greeting EVERYONE at Al the Wop’s and Harlow’s and slamming back oyster shooters on our way to Gleason’s Beach.

I also remember him on this day in ’85 looking gorgeous in a new tux as he promised all that stuff one promises when marrying, listening politely when his mother decided to sing along with the harpist, handing around the new video camera for my brothers to record the event (And how I wish that VHS tape hadn’t crumbled in this heat and humidity.). It was a great and hopeful day.

On the 30th of January 2008, Scott killed himself, and although we had talked often on what we’d shared I never properly thanked him for that February the 16th. I’ll do that now: Thank you, Scott.

I am a miser of my memories of you
And will not spend them.
~Witter Bynner

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I hate the turn of the year …

Posted in Children, Family, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , , on January 2, 2009| 15 Comments »

I can’t believe I am composing this post … especially after the last one.

I learned yesterday that my ex-husband, Scott, killed himself on Tuesday. He would have been 60 on the 27th of this month.

I have been in contact with his wife, Lauren, lending as much support as possible as she tries to absorb this shocking turn of events and wonders: WHY? WHY? WHY?

They have an 11-year-old son … now the same age as Scott was when his father died, also at 58, a tragedy he never learned to live with.

Scott and I were together for 13 years through the ’80s and early ’90s .. the formative years for my older kids … and our relationship was tumultuous, some would say toxic, for most of that time.

It was “Life in the Fast Lane” in every way, not unusual for the time … not one bit healthy, but also never dull.

He was an ad man, so we lived in a social whirl, drove fast cars, traveled the world, drank and smoked too much, and fought like caged ferrets … others referred to us as “The Scott and Sandra Show”, being so drama-charged in our interactions that it was hard to miss the “entertainment value” of our dysfunctional team.

He was an unfaithful spouse, a good-looking man-about-town charmer with a smile that lured women like rats to peanut butter. He was self-involved and often cruel … but I loved him for a long time.

In 1993, I bought myself an around-the-world ticket and left for a year. I needed to get my head together, and couldn’t do that while in the same house, or hemisphere, with him. My kids had grown and moved out and I felt I had completely lost the plot.

He threw a huge party for me, and gave me a compass. He pasted a photo of him inside it and wrote, “So you find your way back” across it.

I didn’t. I found Mark instead, so my return had me staying for only 3 months … time enough to pack what I wanted to take of my old life for my move to England, and to get divorced.

For the past 15 years, he would often phone when drunk and want to talk about our life together. I was the repository of memories … him retaining very few details … and he mined that in me when he could, asking for names and dates and places and recollections.

He contacted me two weeks ago, wanting to give some comfort over the breakup of this marriage of mine, and told me that it had taken him four years to get over my leaving. Whether or not that was some sort of “clearing the decks” act, I will never know, but there was no indication that anything was seriously amiss.

He left no note, and the questions fly around the thought of him at a million miles an hour from hundreds of people.

I cannot believe I end another blog with this, but RIP, Scott. You live in my heart, and always will.

I hate the turn of the year …

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