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brightrosefoxI have today and Monday off work, and Adam has today off. Good.
And I just realized something important -- you know how these realizations often feel like a bucket of ice water in the face.
I just realized that around this time in 1999, David Damar Baldwin had died of a brain aneurysm. He was 20. He was eight months younger, twelve inches taller, and ten pounds heavier than me, and his skin and eyes were the color of the darkest chocolate. He had been my on again, off again boyfriend between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. He had been one of my dearest friends and confidants, the first boy I think I might have loved, and the first person my age to ever look at me as though I were a goddess.
Damar had been living with the brain aneurysm for a year, but I hadn't known. I guess he hadn't wanted me to worry. Right before Christmas 1999, after we had both been in college for a few months (me in New York, him in Tennessee) he called me to see how my holiday was going. He had a girlfriend named Anna; she apparently was a blond version of me (he always said that if we didn't marry each other, he would wind up with someone who was just like me anyway). He was very popular in school; he was in a jazz group. His nickname was "Sexual Chocolate". He was taking medication for severe headaches for the past year but he was fine. He was very happy to hear that I had a boyfriend too. We wished each other well.
About a month later, I was in my dorm room checking my voicemail. There was one. It was from my mother. She was crying. I called her immediately. This was how she said it: "Joanna, I'm so sorry. Damar... he passed away."
I remember whispering, "What? What?" over and over, and then yelling it. Because of course it couldn't have happened. And then I cried, and then I called my boyfriend and cried some more. Later, when Mom and I talked again, I learned about the aneurysm. Damar had been taking medication because he'd already had a small aneurysm a year ago and had been given a year to live. The kicker? He had died in his sleep, in his dorm room. His two roommates had been gone for two days.
They found him after two days.
This had been right before Christmas.
The entire school had held a memorial service. An entire wall decorated with pictures and words for him. There had been a memorial at his parents' house when I came home for spring break. I got to meet his college friends, including his girlfriend. She did look like me.
A few days after I returned to school, I began having visions of Damar in my dorm room. Not dreams -- visions. Him trying to say goodbye. Every year since then, I look for him.
I am starting to be on the lookout. He knows where I live. So if I seem unusually moody maybe angry, sad, scared, upset... this is why.
And I just realized something important -- you know how these realizations often feel like a bucket of ice water in the face.
I just realized that around this time in 1999, David Damar Baldwin had died of a brain aneurysm. He was 20. He was eight months younger, twelve inches taller, and ten pounds heavier than me, and his skin and eyes were the color of the darkest chocolate. He had been my on again, off again boyfriend between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. He had been one of my dearest friends and confidants, the first boy I think I might have loved, and the first person my age to ever look at me as though I were a goddess.
Damar had been living with the brain aneurysm for a year, but I hadn't known. I guess he hadn't wanted me to worry. Right before Christmas 1999, after we had both been in college for a few months (me in New York, him in Tennessee) he called me to see how my holiday was going. He had a girlfriend named Anna; she apparently was a blond version of me (he always said that if we didn't marry each other, he would wind up with someone who was just like me anyway). He was very popular in school; he was in a jazz group. His nickname was "Sexual Chocolate". He was taking medication for severe headaches for the past year but he was fine. He was very happy to hear that I had a boyfriend too. We wished each other well.
About a month later, I was in my dorm room checking my voicemail. There was one. It was from my mother. She was crying. I called her immediately. This was how she said it: "Joanna, I'm so sorry. Damar... he passed away."
I remember whispering, "What? What?" over and over, and then yelling it. Because of course it couldn't have happened. And then I cried, and then I called my boyfriend and cried some more. Later, when Mom and I talked again, I learned about the aneurysm. Damar had been taking medication because he'd already had a small aneurysm a year ago and had been given a year to live. The kicker? He had died in his sleep, in his dorm room. His two roommates had been gone for two days.
They found him after two days.
This had been right before Christmas.
The entire school had held a memorial service. An entire wall decorated with pictures and words for him. There had been a memorial at his parents' house when I came home for spring break. I got to meet his college friends, including his girlfriend. She did look like me.
A few days after I returned to school, I began having visions of Damar in my dorm room. Not dreams -- visions. Him trying to say goodbye. Every year since then, I look for him.
I am starting to be on the lookout. He knows where I live. So if I seem unusually moody maybe angry, sad, scared, upset... this is why.
