Last night I spent a good portion of the evening talking with Abe about the years I had with Jessie. It's almost a tradition at this point, sooner or later she comes up in conversation enough that I need to give some sort of coherent explanation for the subject that my friends often seem semi-compelled to avoid. Honestly, thanks to a lot of work with my wonderful friend and shrink, Julian, thinking of her brings me almost as many smiles as tears, these days. There's enough distance that I can enjoy the good times we had, a bit.
In any case, whenever I come to this point with a new friendship, there are always details that get glossed over or can't be brought to mind at all thanks to my shattered memory. Thus, several years ago, before Myspace turned into a morass of ads and glitter, I started adding memories and pieces of my life with her to my blog there, so that I could share such things. Of course, since then, I've had to abandon the platform. Thus, I'm posting a copy of the relevant posts here, such that I can share them with new friends.
Those of you that have heard my stories, and possibly even been there for some of the events herein, may find new perspectives. Even if you don't, I hope that you find something of value, here. Each time I speak of Jessie, things get a little easier; each time I share what she meant to me and what I treasured in her, it gets easier to see those qualities in the rest of the world.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Extract - Jessie’s Eulogy
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Blogging
Hello and welcome. We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and passing of Jessie Fay Byram, my wife. My name is Josh Byram, and I'd like to share a little of what I know about her. I don't know as much as I'd like to about her life before we met. I know she was born on May 4th, 1974, a birthday that she shared with her daughter, Paige. I know that she had a hard home life, and spent much of her youth bouncing around from place to place. And I know that she had many friends, some of whom are here, and some that weren't able to make it.
Some of you may not know exactly how Jessie passed, or may be recieving the information third hand. After Tuesday night's Narcotics Anonymous meeting, Jessie decided to go home with a friend and just talk for a bit about common experiences. She called me later that night to say that she'd be staying over, and so that we could exchange "I love you"s before going to sleep. Those were the last words that we said to one another, and I'm glad for that.
When I came by the next morning, neither I, nor Claire, could wake Jessie up. Since they'd stayed up until 6 the night before, we didn't take it as a warning sign, as we probably should have. Claire had classes that day, so we decided to just let Jess sleep it off, with me staying to check on her every once in a while. About 2 and a half hours later, she simply stopped breathing, and nothing I or the EMT team could do would bring her back.
We still don't know why Jessie died, and probably won't for several weeks. It seems likely that her body just stopped, from the damage that chemicals had done to it in the past. She may have died from an overdose, but all of the evidence we have so far seems to indicate that she died the way she would have wanted to: peacefully and clean.
Jessie's drug use was a complex thing. It originally started during difficulties in her prior marriage, and eventually led to their separation. She tried to hold herself together for her daughter, Paige, but soon realized that she couldn't give Paige the life she needed with these problems. Her ex-husband's parents, Harold and Tina, adopted Paige and allowed Jessie to remain a significant part of her life.
Jessie spent the next year or so bouncing around, leaving one bad situation after another, until she finally met a man named Barry, who became one of Jessie's best friends. He allowed Jessie to make the right decisions for herself, giving her a place to stay and never taking advantage of her, no matter what condition she was in. He helped her in many ways, but I think this was the most significant, because she left his apartment clean.
She stayed clean, too, for about a year and a half, until she found out that the lining of her uterus wasn't growing like it should, and was invading the surrounding organs. This was incredibly painful for her, and the doctors ended up putting her on a prescription of Vicodin, a narcotic pain-killer, for almost 5 months while we waited for the Navy to transfer us back to the states so that she could have a hysterectomy. Once we did get back, and the operation was preformed, she was primed to have a problem. She had a spate of medical problems over the next year that resulted in more painkillers. I don't know exactly when she started using again, but on January 16th of this year, she checked into the Hooper Detox Center in Portland to try and get herself clean again.
You wouldn't have believed how earnest she was about beating this thing. After she got out of the detox center, she seemed to bounce from one thing to another; from AA meetings to NA meetings to outpatient treatment centers, trying to get help in staying clean. She seemed so abruptly happy, and it was easy to see why. She wanted to be clean for herself and for our relationship, but most of all, she wanted to be clean so that she could have Paige in our lives again.
Jessie had two very special jobs while we were together. While we were in California last year, Jessie worked at the Home of Guiding Hands, which is a collection of group homes for the developmentally disabled. After being interviewed, they decided to assign her to the Cedar Springs house, because the people who reside there are in the less functional range, and need caretakers who will be able to make allowances for them without taking out their frustrations on the residents.
She really loved working there; woke up each morning raring to go, came home each evening exhausted, but happy. Even after a hair-pulling incident wiht one of the residents that landed her and a co-worker in the emergency room with missing hair and neck injuries, she still couldn't wait to go back. It was a paradox of sorts, because she was eager for me to get out of the Navy, but really didn't want to leave her "kids" when we moved on.
After we arrived in Oregon, Jessie looked for work with the disabled again, but ended up stumbling across a listing for a job with the Heartland Humane Society. She interviewed for the job and landed it immediately. She loved being there, even though it meant hard work and endless cleaning. On one of the harder days, she came close to moving a litteral ton of cat sand, both used and unused. She cared a lot for the strays there, cleaned up the new ones no matter how dirty or grizzly they were. She was compassionate when someone had to go, always held them, quietly crying, until it was over. And of course, despite every protest,
she did end up sneaking one home. She said she didn't have a choice, that Gracie was a special cat, and it was only until she could find a home. Gracie was her favorite at work; an ultra-friendly cat who only wanted to ride Jessie's shoulders as she cleaned.
For being someone who always claimed to be a dog person, she sure ended up with a lot of cats. I remember when we first decided to get a pet, when we were in Japan. We went to the local adoption center, and had decided on a beautiful black and white cat named "Wild Thing", who later became Theodore, because after we got home, this cat wasn't wild at all, just the shyest cat you ever met. In any case, as we were about to leave, this little black bobtailed kitten stuck his paw out of the cage and grabbed Jessie by the sweater, as if to say "Take me too!" Of course, we did.
That cat turned out to be a real terror, at first. Jessie called me at work one day in tears, and told me that she was about ready to murder him. Turns out that he'd spent the morning dashing around the house, knocking over everything and making a mess. When she finally caught him, he slashed up her arms and peed all over her. Thus, he became known as "the Pirannha". He calmed down a lot later, and became her favorite. She used to call him her "nurse-cat", because he always seemed to know when she wasn't well, and would come and lay with her to make her feel better.
Jessie had a lot of energy, always seemed to be full of life and vibrant. She could make a person feel that she'd been a friend forever in a matter of minutes. She had a lot of talents, too, in addition to her compassion for others. She liked to draw and write and paint and just be creative in any way she could think of. At one point, she decided to try using Piranha's paws as paintbrushes. That didn't work out quite like she planned. Unfortunately, she was very self-critical as well, so I only have a few of her pieces left to remember her by. I guess that's really not important, because she changed my life in a million different ways and I couldn't forget her if I tried.
Jess and I had a very whirlwind romance. We met on the trolley in San Diego while I was assigned stateside for a naval school. She was sharing some snide Marine jokes with a Marine that was sitting across from her, and I just had to laugh. It turned out that we were getting off at the same stop, and she asked me to walk her on base. We ended up at the local country bar, waiting for one of her girlfriends to get off work. We talked all night, and found that we had a lot in common.
The next night, our second date, was spent mostly talking as well. We walked all over town, talking about anything and everything. We finally ended up down at the piers sitting on a bench, looking out at the water, and somehow we both moved towards each other to kiss for the first time. At that exact moment, about a hundred yards out on the water, a tour boat began letting off fireworks. It was just such an appropriate metaphor for how we were feeling. That memory has always been our most special, and this Sunday I am returning to that pier to release her ashes there in honor of the memory.
The rest of our dating days were short and equally wonderful. We knew that what we had was special, and weren't about to give it up. 19 days after I met her, on July 28th, 1998, Jessie and I were married at city hall in San Diego, and I have never once regretted that decision.
1:38 AM
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Man, does it echo in here?
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Blogging
Well, so far this morning I've done nothing besides reorganize a bit of my hard drive storage. With more than a terrabyte on 4 different drives, it's gotten out of hand. I've cleaned out nearly 60 GB today in dupes and stuff that I no longer need.
Along the way, I came across a digital copy of Jessie's eulogy. Oddly enough, it really hasn't made me sad to re-read it, and it's re-reminded me of a few portions of her life that I'd let myself forget. It's funny, because I'm actually re-reading "Eon", by Greg Bear, which, among other things, describes a form of meditation called Talsit. The description boils down to Talsit blocking your subconcious mind from accessing disturbing memories and smoothing over the gaps. You can still access the memories by concious will, but they're not bouncing around in your head all day.
This seems to bear a lot of resemblance to the way my mind has handled Jessie's passing. Pretty much all of our life together, and even most of my concious imagery of her, is no longer in focus, and in fact is impossible (or nearly so) to remember without a trigger of some sort. It's odd, and kind of distressing.
In any case, a copy of that eulogy follows; it's another slice of my life that I'd like to keep.
12:43 AM
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Memory: Drugs/Death
Current mood: morose
Category: Romance and Relationships
At this point in my life, 31 years in, I still have never tried an illegal drug, and have only had them offered to me once or twice. Not so for my wife, Jessie. At the point when I met her in 1998, she had been clean for a year after prior problems with crystal meth severe enough for her to have had to voluntarily give up her daughter for adoption. Fortunately, in that instance, she was able to have her ex-husband's parents, who are genuinely good people, adopt Paige and take care of her... but that's another story, for another journal.
In any case, at the point where I met her, Jessie was a recovered drug addict. I knew this and accepted it as part of her history - to my knowledge, throughout most of our marriage, it barely impinged on our lives. The problem is, I was both too close to the problem and too inexperienced with drugs and drug paraphenalia to really realize what was going on.
Jessie also had a couple of other problems going on; depression set in while we were in Japan due to isolation, endometriosis set in during the same time, causing her an incredible amount of pain, and she was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder following a suicide attempt in the same period. Long story short, the US Navy did not have facilities to perform a hysterectomy in Japan, forcing us to put in for a transfer stateside. Of course, with military efficiency, this took over a year to come to fruition. Over the same period, Jessie was seen by a thuroughly incompetent psychiatrist (you know, the guys that are actually supposed to know something about drugs) - the sum total of his contribution to this mess consisted of prescriptions for Xanax and Vicodin three times a day with no therapy whatsoever. If you're at all familiar with either drug, you'll recognize that they're both horribly addictive, essentially never given with that freqency, and certainly not for more than a month at a time, much less over a year.
In any case, we were finally transferred to San Diego, and Jessie had her hysterectomy, which helped her pain immensely almost immediately - I really don't even remember her recovery after the surgery beyond the relief it provided her. Unfortunately, my transfer was from a land base (COMPATWING ONE Kami Seya, commander 5th and 7th fleets) to an aircraft carrier (CTF-72, USS Constellation), which meant that Jessie has some abandonment issues triggered when we went offshore to train (I wasn't on the ship long enough for an actual tour).
We stayed in San Diego for a year, during which time Jessie didn't spend a single week away from the ER for one thing or another; in retrospect I think this may have both been a plea for help and an effort on Jessie's part not to return to street drugs. This culminated in another suicide attempt (fortunately one that I caught early, only costing me the security deposit on the apartment [I kinda broke the bathroom door getting to her] and Jessie having to eat quite a lot of charcoal in the ER). The net result was actually somewhat good; Jessie was actually seeing a therapist who at least cared a little about her. After discussing things with him extensively, we decided to put in for a hardship discharge and get out of the
military.
My command was pretty understanding about the whole thing - even though it took a couple of months to process, they made sure I stayed with the shore detail during the next couple training runs and were very supportive. Once I was actually discharged, we traded our Nissan in for a beater Ford and a BMW, loaded everything we could into those and headed north to my parents to look for a place to live and work.
We were actually pretty happy at my parents, for a while. Jessie picked up a job quickly with the local humane society; I didn't have so much luck - technology jobs are hard to come by in and around a podunk town like Philomath. Christmas came, and with it, the opportunity to introduce my family to Jessie and vice versa. We had a great time in Minnesota; every single relative showed up at one time or another, and Jessie was the hit of the party. Dad even got to be a bit of a hero - Jessie was learning to ski with me and took a rough fall, actually enough to knock her shoulder completely out of joint. She was in utter agony as the paramedics on duty got her down the hill - Dad caught up to us down at the lodge, took about 60 seconds to scope out the situation and talk to Jessie about how it happened, then just popped her arm back into the socket by hand. Her face went from agony to unbelievable pain to relief in a matter of moments. It was crazy impressive.
We got back to Oregon and I went back to looking for work, this time in Portland. In mid-January I went up for an interview with Robert Half technology. When I got back, I had a conversation I was completely unprepared for. Jessie had her bags packed; the first words out of her mouth, crying, were that she needed to check into a drug rehab program. Turns out she had spent the entire day calling around and checking into the available facilities. There was a program that operated on a sliding scale fee, no money up front that took new applicants in the morning.
On the way up to Portland, emotions were very high - we didn't get much of a chance to talk about anything that mattered, beyond my trying to be as supportive as I possibly could be. We checked into a Howard Johnson's, dropped off to sleep almost immediately, and pretty much went straight to the facility in the morning. That was the last I saw or heard of Jessie for a straight week - it was a total isolation thing.
At the end of the week, I went to pick up Jessie, we went pretty much straight to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in Albany - they have a 60 meetings in 60 days goal that she was very eager to meet. The meeting actually didn't go so well; the people there were older, 40s and 50s, Jessie really didn't make any kind of connection with them and was a bit depressed about it.
The next day, we went down to Eugene to see about getting Jessie on the methodone program there and to look at some possible houses to rent. The methodone program was a bust - there was some sort of regulation about a doctor's prescription or somesuch - I don't remeber the details at this point. Jessie did meet a girl there, though, who took the time to talk with Jessie and encourage her, told her to keep on trying to apply and how much methodone had helped her.
That night she went to a more local meeting in Corvallis, which went a whole lot better - the people there were largely in their twenties, and she really hit it off with a girl named Claire. She called me to let me know that she'd be staying over with Claire that evening, wanted to spend the evening talking with someone who understood where she was coming from.
The following morning I went to Claire's to pick her up. I knocked and knocked on her door, but no one would answer, for a good 10 minutes or so. Finally Claire showed up to the door, said that Jessie wouldn't wake up. I came in, checked on Jessie, who seemed to just be sleeping so hard that she wouldn't wake. I have no idea what possessed us at this point, but rather than call for help, we decided to let her sleep it off, whatever it was. Claire went to class, and I stayed with Jessie at her apartment, checking on her every few minutes. A couple of hours later, one of the times when I went to check on her, she simply wasn't breathing. Frankly, I flat out panicked - didn't know what to do beyond leaping for the phone to call 911. The operator had to remind me to start CPR, even though I'd had CPR training once a year for one reason or another for something like the last decade straight.
It seemed almost an instant later that the paramedics arrived and took over CPR, then an instant after that I heard them say that they were going to stop. She never did start breathing again.
That's nearly all I know about how Jessie passed away - I still don't know the details of how she got hooked again, nor even what she got hooked on. Really the only detail I have is that she died of methodone overdose and I only have that thanks to the police interrogation (of me, with a damn polygraph.... shows real sensitivity towards the bereaved) that followed her passing. I don't even know how she got methodone at that point, having been turned down by the program for it the day prior.
There's no moral to this story, no short quip that sums up her life in a cute little lesson. All there is me missing her, and missing the memories I used to have of her.
8:12 AM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Memories - Meeting Jessie (July, 1998)
Current mood: mellow
It's odd how the most mundane events and scenes preclude some of the most significant things. I was on the trolley in San Diego, returning from window shopping for a playstation game with a friend from class, a guy from the Coast Guard that was taking the same microminiature electronic repair that I was. In the car ahead of us, I heard someone making a crude joke about Marines; something about a recruit following a horse in a parade. Whatever it was, it made me laugh out loud, which caused the girl telling the joke to turn around. She was a tiny redhead, beautiful and friendly and flirty and WAY out of my league. All the same, she gave me a genuine smile, as if to say thank you. Of course, the Marines she was telling the joke to didn't see as much humor in it, but what can you say for that breed?
A few minutes later, the trolley got to my stop. She, I, and the coastie got off. Being a very forward girl, she introduced herself as Jessie and asked me if I would escort her onto the base, as the Navy base in San Diego is not in the nice part of town. My coastie friend rapidly made himself scarce, and we walked to the country bar, one of two on base. Seems that one of her friends was due to get off shift from working there and the girls were going to go have fun. Lucky for me, it turns out Jessie's friend was going to be trapped on shift for several more hours. This being the case, we decided to head over to the other dance bar on base to talk for a while. At this point, I'm considerably out of my depth, having not even been in a bar more than perhaps half a dozen times, and certainly not in any romantic context. Fortunately, the bartender took pity on me and helped me select something fruity and red for the lady, which seemed to help our discourse move rapidly from small talk to more heady subjects.
The rest of our night is lost in a bit of a blur at this point, but a few select points stick out, like watching Jessie and another young lady being the only two people on the dance floor, laughing madly and having a grand old time dancing with one another. By the time we were ready to go, Jessie was a bit sloshed, and the heels she was wearing were not being too very kind to her feet. This led to a very long and entertaining piggyback ride from the bar to the trolley and numerous snide remarks about her showing off her impressively orange panties in the process.
I wanted to be sure that she got home alright, so I rode the trolley back to her apartment. I remember that when we got to the lobby of her apartment, one of her friends, an impressively serious young man of perhaps ten years, greeted her warmly. She told him, "I really like this guy, but I know I'm never going to see him again after tonight." I laughed, bid her goodnight, and silently resolved that I simply had to see her the next day.
That was on July 5th, 1998. 23 days later, July 28, 1998, we were married before a justice of the peace. That's a good story, but one for another day
8:31 PM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Memories - The First Kiss (July, 1998)
Current mood: contemplative
This would be our third date, really our third date in a row, since we ended up trying to see each other every day while I was in school, and made it about two weeks without a break.
In any case, we met again after class at her apartment on 13th street. We spent the entire afternoon walking all over San Diego, since neither of us had a car, and today we really didn't feel like taking the trolley anywhere. We talked for hours, about anything and everything, about favorite flowers, life in the city, life in the country, life in a perfect world. I think we both decided that we wanted to live in the mountains, undisturbed with our children, but with a huge city just over the hill so that we would always have something fascinating to do.
We kept on walking along talking about the people we saw, and what their lives must be like. We stopped at the Baja Grill and had seafood tacos. Needless to say, given our respective tastes, she loved them, and well, I just ate them. But it was still a wonderful meal, because here, finally was someone we could talk to about all the important things, and all the inconsequentials, and have it all mean something.
After diner, we continued our wanderings, ending up down by the piers just after sundown. We sat down together on the bench at the end of the pier and just watched the waves stroll by. I don't remember exactly what prompted it, but at some point, we just turned to each other and kissed.
At that precise moment, about a hundred yards off shore, a tour boat started letting off fireworks. It was so perfect, such a wonderful metaphor for what we were feeling. It's the kind of thing you see in movies, and think to yourself "that never happens in real life." But, for us, it did, and it has always been one of our most cherished memories.
(See also, pics, Memories, San Diego Pier 1 & 2)
8:21 PM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Extract - A last letter to Jessie (January, 2001)
Current mood: morose
Category: Romance and Relationships
Jessie:
Well - I don't know what I'm going to say, but I know I have to do this. I've just arrived home from Claire's, but I guess you know that; if you really are in a position to know anything now. I find myself desparately wanting to believe that all of a sudden - like something theological in me has decided to finally snap, since I can't quite believe that you're gone. No - that's the problem... I know that you're gone, and I don't want to believe it.
My mind is doing some really crappy things to me right now. It seems like I've shoved enough of this down to deal with things, and then it echoes. Somewhere the sound of them saying "We're going to stop now" is still echoing, still playing just for my ears.
If you could talk to me now, I know the first words out of your mouth would be "I'm sorry." Well, it's becoming a chorus, and it really isn't helping anything. We've been sorry to each other a billion times since I met you, and that part really hasn't mattered a bit. We've always loved each other enough to decide that the things we were sorry for haven't been that important.
I guess I can't help saying I'm sorry here though. Unless you somehow find a way to write back, that's my perogotive. Though I must mention that if you are somehow reading this and do somehow answer back, I'd be the most greatful man in the world.
I'm grateful that the last words we said to one another were "I love you", and not any of the inconsequential spiteful things that could have had that honor. I'm glad I got to know you for a while. I hope you know that - just how much you meant to me. God it hurts to use that past tense. There's something leftover that keeps on wanting to say "This is just a bad day. She'll forgive you for it tomorrow." But I know I'll wake up tomorrow, screaming in my head, and this awful thing will still be true.
I'm sorry for not checking on you more often. I know intellectually that it isn't my fault that you died, and I know that my counselors will be repeating that for years, but you know I can't ever fully accept that. There will always be a little demon that says that if I'd treated things a little more seriously, if I'd called someone or started CPR sooner, things would be alright.
The aren't alright now. Everything I've ever wanted for us is gone now, and I don't know where to go next. Something snapped and left your body behind, and now I feel like I'm in some sort of centrifuge. I feel guilty for how scared your body made me, but I know that was just the edge of this leaking through. I know that I've managed to pack most of this away so that it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't work perfectly. And I know that at some point, probably several, things are going to break through, and I'm not going to be able to handle it.
I've thought before that things might be easier without you, but I've always known it wasn't true and hated myself for the thought. I feel awful that the thought sneaked in when I called 911.
Staying with you was a bet, that the difficult times would be more than outweighed by the wonderful times. I think you know that I won that bet. You know that I wanted to keep on winning.
You were trying so hard, doing so well. I thought we were going to make it thought this, like we'd made it through so much before. No one prepared me for this. I guess you really can't. I feel cheated. I paid my dues to have a wonderful life with the woman I love, and now you're gone.
END
8:14 PM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Extract - A first letter to Jessie (July, 1998)
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Romance and Relationships
Jess:
Well, I'm afraid you've kept me up again. But I don't blame you. I needed to do some thinking... I needed to find myself, a little.
The reason I'm trying to say this in a letter is that I always think clearer on paper, especially when I'm emotional. I get nervous, and say things all wrong in person. I know I'd screw this up.
When you called tonight, and said you were starting to fall for me, you hit something. I don't know exactly what it was, but it showed me that I needed to be a lot more honest with myself, and you.
The truth is that I'm falling for you too. Well, really, have fallen. All I know is that when I'm with you, I'm smiling and happy and carefree and the world is just right. And all I want is to know you - who you've been, who you are, who you want to be. When we're apart all I'm thinking about is being with you again. I'm not sure what that is, but I realize what it could be, if we let it.
All I ever wanted was someone I could talk to, that I could explore the universe with, that wouldn't laugh at my heart. You're all that, and more than I could ask for. You're smart, you're pretty, you're the kind of person that makes it worth living through the rest of the world.
I thought I could do this, that I could hold enough of myself back so it wouldn't hurt to leave. But now I know, whatever we become, part of me will be left behind. I knew, right from the start, that we had to be friends. I hope we still can be, whatever happens, because you're a wonderful person.
I don't want to hurt you, or decieve you about this. But I guess maybe we're past that point, aren't we? No matter what we do now, it's going to hurt when I leave.
I don't know what we should do now. I don't even really know what I want to do, because I know I couldn't stand to leave you behind, if we let ourselves be like this. I just can't help thinking that if we keep on worrying about tomorrow, we might miss something really special today. I don't have all the answers you need, but I wanted you to know you aren't alone in this. We can do this together.
-J
Cliffside
The edge ahead can be
so dark,
and deep,
and scary.
The rocks below could
tear me apart,
confuse me,
take me away from myself.
The wind
tears at me,
draws me nearer,
whispers my name.
I feel my hands
sweating,
slipping,
loosing hold.
I feel myself
falling,
time rushing by,
the next page turning.
And now I feel
butterflies,
wonderment,
adrenaline.
The future flashes by
holding hands,
sharing stars,
hazel eyes in the morning.
I'm lost in a fantasy
a dying man's extasy,
beyond all control,
wondering what could be real.
And as the rocks fly past,
I wonder,
Would you catch me?
If I fell into you?
-J
8:08 PM
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