"An Angry Young Man"

My brother has kept a journal for most of his life. A few months ago he started going back through some of his writings and now sends me some pertinent stories. Every few mornings I will wake up, turn on my computer and there will be a "memory." The strange thing about these "memories" is they are all from his perspective, which is decidedly different from mine.

Right now he is sending me stories during the period right after our mother died. Just about all of them concern me and my anger. I lashed out against just about everybody who happened to cross my path. He wrote in his journal that "Jackie had another of his mad spells today." And from the other words he wrote I can tell that he thought I was just spoiled and acting out.

In truth though I was angry. I was mad at the world. I was mad at God. I was mad at anything and everything. In my opinion my world had been destroyed and I was mad about it. I remember I felt totally frustrated and helpless to do anything about anything. No one had any idea as to how to cope with me and so I just got madder and madder.

I have always used sleep as a retreat from depression or frustration so during that time I began to sleep as much as I could. No one seemed to care that I stayed in my room a lot. So I would go there and go to sleep, and in my sleep state I wasn't angry. In my sleep state I hadn't lost the world. I don't know if this sleep thing works for other people but it did for me.

Eventually I learned to accept the "new world" that had been forced upon me. I was able to control my anger and keep it under wraps. I halfway became the person I was before my mother died. Still I retained a temper and it would flare up from time to time.

There is never a right time for tragedy to strike but I think the teen years are the worst time possible for something like that. In your teens, especially the early teen years, your emotions are bobbing around inside you like pinballs in a machine. One moment you feel one way and the next you feel entirely different. Add a family tragedy on to that situation and you have chaos.

I remember sitting outside at night looking up at the vast sky and wondering why me? I couldn't find an answer to that one question of why me. It didn't help to think that death happened to millions of other families day after day. I just knew it had happened to my family and I didn't understand why.

Even today after so many years have passed I can still think about my mother dying at a young age and leaving two sons behind and I feel the anger stirring inside of me. The emotions have been pushed down but they are still there. I guess they will never truly go away.

My brother sends me his "memories" and they take me back to a faraway time and a long ago place. And through his words that "angry young man" comes to life again. I understand him and sadly I still grieve for and with him.
 

 

 

 

 

©2007 Jackie K. Cooper

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