My Summer - a college essay

When I was in HS I wrote an essay, called Death on a Mountain, about Ruben's death. It wasn't a horrid piece, I'm sure, but it was written by my highschool self and deserved a new treatment from a more mature and less depressed Tamra. This was written for my BYU Independent Study writing class.

My Summer

by Tamra Thacker

Sept. 20, 2004

My older brother, Ruben, was born on October 18, 1974. He was a good child: very patient, sensitive to spiritual things, always got good grades, and was amazing at sports. I was born in 1981. He was a hard act to follow, but I only found the spirituality difficult to live up to. My dad tells the story of him going to a party and refusing even soda with caffeine for religious reasons. A little over-the-top, maybe, but eventually his friends offered non-caffeinated things just for him.

***

We were at a stake conference where one of the speakers quoted a church leader that I had little respect for. I didn’t have a good reason for that, I just had heard negative things said by other people until that view of him became my own view. As we filed out of the building, and with disgust in my voice, I said, “I don’t like that man.”

Ruben looked at me—an impressionable young girl—and replied simply, “How come?”

I proceeded with a tirade of insults for the man, regurgitating all the junk I had been fed. I was feeling pretty good about myself and I was impressed that he was listening so intently to my self-inflating talk. I was sure I had found an audience that agreed with my view. I finished my monologue and he was silent for a moment. Then he said, very humbly, and without any argument in his voice, “I like him.”

Without objecting he had let me have my say, and then, in a teaching moment I would value all my life, he took the high road and surprised me with love.

***

Ruben came home from his mission and almost without my approval, I fell in love with him. He was cleaning his room and going through his stuff, and asked me to keep him company. I agreed out of boredom more than anything. He was extremely generous; everything I expressed an interest in, he offered to me. He was just like that. I walked to my own room to find something and got sidetracked, I guess, because soon he yelled out, “Tamra, don’t leave me!”

By the end of those few hours—laughing, sharing, chatting—he was my best friend. I realized there was more to him than I had thought. This pillar of spirituality was fun, caring, and showed me more love and attention than I assumed a sister deserved. Soon we became inseparable. Rather, I was so attached to him that he couldn’t get away.

***

That same summer, I decided to create the new me. I still recall a naive, waif of a girl sitting down by desk lamp light in an otherwise dark basement room, desperately clinging to information as if it might float out of my brain. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and scriptures were strewn across the desk. I remember first sitting down to read all about Hitler, my most recent fascination at the time. Then I would move on to other topics and eventually memorize each encyclopedia in its entirety.

The new me would be smart.

We took a trip from St. Charles, MO, my home town, to Utah. I was barely 15 and too young to drive. Instead, I stuck to my task of keeping the driver awake. We spent two days in the car driving across very boring country. There was not much to do besides talk, and because I was the only non-driver, I got to talk a lot. I learned a lot from the two men I was stuck in the car with: my dad and Ruben. Dad told stories about his childhood, his marriage, and his children. I had heard some, some were new. Ruben talked about his mission, his friends in Utah, and school. Mostly, though, he listened to me talk. He seemed more interested in learning about me than in talking about himself. I didn’t know listening to others could be rewarding.

By the time we got to Utah, he had given me more advice that I actually listened to than anyone else in my life. I soaked in everything he told me.

The rest of my family and some other extended relatives showed up in Utah about the same time we did. My oldest brother, Budge, was getting married in a few days to a girl he’d been engaged to for a year and a half, off and on. We had all come to celebrate.

July 8th, Dad’s birthday. He left that afternoon for a business trip to New York somewhere. He traveled a lot. I wished him happy birthday. He didn’t seem to care about his Day.

The following day, 2 days before the wedding, anxious to keep everyone entertained, we went on a hike recommended to us by Ruben’s “girlfriend.” I remember the dirt and gravel road we had to drive up to get there. It was a long drive, but a short hike that everyone could do, she promised, with a lake at the top to swim in.

Ruben’s girlfriend started up the trail walking very fast. I could tell Ruben wanted to be with her, but for some reason decided it best to let her go ahead. I walked up the mountain with Ruben, arm in arm, chatting, thrilled at the opportunity to be alone with him. Our conversation settled at one point on a certain cousin I found annoying. I went off about her being rude, self-centered, and, worst of all, uninteresting. I saw no way in my 15-year-old mind for her to be able to change. Of course he listened attentively and characteristically replied, “She’s young. Give her time.”

Somehow, without saying anything offensive, he had not only told the truth—she did change and grow—but had given me to know that maybe I wasn’t perfect either. He had found a way into my heart and mind and gently pleaded for me to re-evaluate myself. Every moment like that my heart stopped and deep inside, though I didn’t quite understand why, I knew he was right.

I was out of shape, Ruben wasn’t. He went on, after a while and with approval, without me. I sucked in less air than I was used to the rest of the way. He almost ran. He stopped to wave to me from the top. He seemed miles ahead of me.

I reached the lake to see Ruben and Keith, another brother, with shirts and shoes off, deciding if they wanted to jump in the deathly cold water. I called them wimps. Ruben promised to jump in if I did. I kept my clothes and shoes on and plunged in the shockingly cold water. I thought I was brave, but I quickly gave that up. I walked around the lake while Ruben swam to the other side.

He never made it. Halfway there he changed direction and dogpaddled to the side, a fact we little noted at the time. He started struggling as he swallowed water. I must have heard it first. Keith was closest to him, then I. Neither of us were strong swimmers, nor did we sense a real need to assist Ruben. I called out vain encouragements of “Come on,” “You can make it,” and “You’re almost there!” He was almost there, probably only 2 strokes away from where he could stand.

His last word was, “Help!” Somehow I think he probably had imagined his last words differently. By the time we pulled him out there was little we could do but cry. He was dead, and suddenly I saw the world in slow motion.

***

He was dead. How could that be? I took off my sopping wet shoes, cold against my tired, worn feet. I had started swimming with them on and now they were unfit to wear. But Ruben wouldn’t need his shoes, and they were sitting on the rock where he had left them, so I wore them as we walked, single-file, not speaking, occasionally stopping from grief, down the mountain trail. At our first rest I sat down from an overwhelming and consuming apathy. I looked up to the top where Ruben’s body still laid. I saw Ruben standing there, both arms waving in the air to get my attention. He motioned for me to hurry up. I stuck out my tongue. Why had I done that? We kept going down the trail as the sunlight faded. The many rocks made the going slow. I usually run down trails, but I didn’t feel like running.

We reached the stream where Ruben and I had parted. I wished, then, I had been in shape enough to keep up. Oh, a lot of things would have been different if I had been in shape. On the way up that stream had been beautiful. On the way down it was a menace. It babbled and careened around rocks as it flowed down the side of the mountain. It didn’t flow fast enough to drain that lake.

The rest of the trail was physically easy. We took it very, very slow. At this point Ruben had told me I was a great sister. At that point he admonished me to be easier on my family, to show more love. He had put his arm around me and I drew in closer to him in the way adoring fans do: more of a melt. The man I had sought approval from showed me what I most wanted. Here’s where we had talked about the trees—they were almost sacred, I had thought. Rows and rows of white poles with gorgeous purple and red wild flowers interspersed between them. They reminded me of the trees from the Sacred Grove, or what I imagined they should be like. They had taken my breath away.

We got to the end of the trail. We hadn’t even remembered to get the keys to the van from Mom, who was still at the top of the mountain waiting for a helicopter to come and take the body. A couple asked us if we needed any help. “No,” I told them. “Our brother is dead.” Of all the people affected by Ruben’s death, I pity them the most. They were happy and unable to make us happy. They wanted to take our pain away and could not. Their faces spoke of pity for us and sadness at viewing someone else’s tragedy. I found myself at the same time morbidly pleased to see pain on someone else’s face and mortified to feel their agony. Hesitantly they moved up the trail. I half hoped we had ruined their day.

***

I spent the rest of my summer reliving that hike in painful and increasing detail. It didn’t help. I stayed up later than my mind could handle. I cursed at the Almighty, cried silently, cleaned floors until my arms ached. I searched and searched for meaning. And that was the meaning. Finally, for the first time in my life I was looking inside myself. In the midst of the tragedy, the chaos, I dug deeper than I knew I could to find myself, my strength, buried beneath all the superfluous extremities. The particulars of what I found don’t matter—we all find something different—but we all need those moments, rare and special in our lives, to prompt us to search.