NOVA: 3 El Yearos Latero

25 September 2007 ~ In Rear Reflection

I meant to post this yesterday but I was pretty much a walking zombie all day. I didn’t get any sleep Sunday night so needless to say I had that crazed look in my eyes all day yesterday…you know, the look that says “Brains….ggrrrrrrrr…..brains” Ok, I hope somebody gets that reference. :)

Anyway, I rolled into this area 3 years ago on 22 September and managed to traverse the maze of roads to find my new apartment complex. Since I wasn’t scheduled to move in until the 24th, they wouldn’t let me have it so I had to stay in a hotel for 2 nights. By the way, if anyone ever moves to the DC area (Northern VA) let me know so I can tell you which apartment complex to avoid, unless English is not your first language and then you’re ok. Take that as a standing rule of thumb around here.

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The past 3 years have been crazy but they have been very rewarding as well. I met someone really special right after Thanksgiving ’04 and come this New Year’s Eve, we will celebrate our three year anniversary. But let me tell you, it has not been a stroll in the park like you see in the Disney movies. I mean, let’s get real! We’re not opening umbrellas and defying the laws of gravity by taking flight to the clouds, and wild animals don’t greet us at the window every time we whistle a tune. We often joke that if we didn’t own a home together and share custody of 5—count them FIVE—‘kids’ then there are times when we probably would have broken up long ago during one of our “disagreements”.
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I have a nice job with great benefits and I’m going to school to complete my degree. I know I’m a little behind in life, but I discount it to spending 7 years in the Air Force and working at an isolated international station abroad. Or, I could just be honest and say that I COULD have taken internet-based classes while stationed abroad, but honestly I didn’t feel comfortable with that idea. I much preferred a brick and mortar style of learning.

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In the past 3 years I have owned 5—count them FIVE—vehicles! When I moved here, I was driving a 2003 Jeep Liberty Limited Edition (blue), then traded it for a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid (metallic blue), kept that for 10 months, but at 10,000 miles I traded it for a 2006 Jeep Liberty Limited Edition Diesel (crimson red), then because of the mechanical problems with the Diesel engine, I swapped it for a 2006 Jeep Commander Limited (crimson red) and finally, I tossed the gas-guzzling, Republican-supporting Commander for a 2006 VW Jetta. Recently, I said that I’ll have to schedule my Jetta’s first oil change since I just drove all over God’s green earth going to IL for my brother’s funeral and then down to MS to visit my family. One of our friends joked that “Hell, I guess that means it’s time for a new car!”

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It’s been great living here and being so close to the Kennedy Center (for the Performing Arts), and the National Theatre. Together, we have seen Mahler’s Ninth, “Les Miserable”, “The Nutcracker”, a few NSO performances, and my life long dream finally came true this past summer: “The Phantom of the Opera”! We’re going to see a few shows this coming season, most notably Disney’s “The Lion King”. We also went to Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors Tour 2007” concert this past summer, which was to support equality for all American citizens, not just heterosexuals. The message was clear: no one is seeking “special rights” (as the conservative right would have everyone believe) but instead to extend the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to ALL tax-paying Americans. Anyway, I won’t get on this right now. :)

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One of the most memorable things happened this past summer. For starters I have always wanted to take Amtrak cross country and for my big 3-0, we went to Chicago for 2 weeks via Amtrak. The trip was about 18 hours one way but we had a nice room and we actually got a view, unlike what you get by driving or flying. I would love to live in Chicago again, and somehow Nate knew that the entire two weeks would be one big “sales pitch” on Chicago…and it was! LOL While we were there, we got to see the Blue Man Group, the usual touristy things like the Sears Tower, and a few boat cruises and for my birthday, we had dinner in the Signature Room of the John Hancock building (95th floor). We wanted to do something that would make this trip even more memorable so we finally did what we had been wanting to do for the past year: we each got a tattoo (and my first). Ha-ha! My tat is the rainbow Star of David and in ancient Hebrew the word “Shalom” underneath. Anyway, it was a great trip and we did loads, but I won’t bore everyone with that. Instead, I’ll just make copies of the home videos and send to everyone, compliments of the HD-camcorder! :)

A lot of other things have happened but I won’t go into it now. My next class starts today and I need to log-in and check the syllabus.

Until next time…
NK

One Month

23 September 2007 ~ A Family Changed Forever

It’s 22:30, and I was just getting ready for bed but I wanted to jot down some thoughts while I’m in the “writing mood”. One month ago tonight everything was fine as far as I—and most of my family—knew, but then the calls started making their way around to each family member until finally, my call came. It was just past 1AM on the 24th of August and I was just getting settled into bed when my cell phone rang. “Who the hell’s calling me, now?” I thought to myself. As soon as I saw “Dad” on the display window, my heart dropped. I just knew something was wrong because for starters, Dad never calls. He always makes me call. Secondly, when someone who never calls, calls in the middle of the night, you KNOW it’s not just to talk about the current Trade Policy in Kazakhstan.

At any case, I took the call and immediately asked what was wrong. My dad did his trademark clearing-of-the-throat before speaking; his voice was calm as he asked me what I was doing. I said, “Who cares what I’m doing. What’s wrong?” Then my dad said (and these still words echo in my head), “They think Shondell’s dead…” I think I, as well as my entire family, was covered in a shroud of disbelief. How could this happen to us, and to someone in our family? This is the kind of thing you hear about in the news, or from a colleague, or even in the movies, but not in our family. How inane is it to think that we can be impervious from the full gamut of the human continuum?

The long, dark and endless journey of sadness began that night and no doubt continues through to this day.

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The trip to Illinois was the longest trip of my life; I decided to drive rather than fly because I wanted the time on the road to just reflect and try to build some inner strength before facing the inevitable: a flag-draped casket. My partner, Nathan, and my cousin, Adam, came to IL as well. Ironically, the trip was a bit comical in that my dad—who lives in Pascagoula, MS—and I planned our individual trip so well that we left at the same time just to see who could get to IL first! Obviously we had previously calculated that we were about equal distance from our destination. My entourage and I arrived at the hotel (about 6AM) then my dad, step mom and younger brother, David, showed up about 30 minutes later.

For most of the 12-hour trip, I sat quietly in the passenger seat of my Jetta and jotted down some random thoughts I could use to compose my brother’s eulogy. Skipping ahead just a little: On the 29th of August, I stood at the front of the chapel-like room and delivered my brother’s eulogy. It was both the most difficult and the most important act that I have ever done, being my brother’s pallbearer and pulling the flag-draped casket from the hearse was the second most difficult thing to do. Besides burying my brother, I think the hardest thing of this entire experience was having a closed-casket service. Granted Autumn, my brother’s wife, and I decided to have it open for immediate family during the visitation evening, we decided to close it prior to anyone else arriving; the site was just too traumatic for most people to handle. Just before the staff closed the casket, the family was given a final moment to say goodbye. My dad approached the casket and leaned in closely. I stayed my distance. As my dad came up I saw something that really brought a sense of finality to this entire menagerie: I saw my dad cry for the first time in my life…but as he stepped away from the casket he quickly removed any physical evidence of tears, or the likeness thereof!

Anyway, I don’t want to hearken on this theme for the entire blog, but I just want to vent some of the things going on in my head while they’re still fresh. I think it’s important to laugh a lot if life and have fun, but then there comes a time when we need to redraw our attention and focus on what’s going on internally in our lives. I am the type of person who generally hides beneath the masquerade mask and makes others laugh all the while I carry with me the same types of burdens and troubles as everyone else in this world. I love making people laugh, though, because if we can laugh and just—even temporarily—forget about our troubles, then we can carry on in this journey and become stronger and pass on our knowledge to friends, family and future generations. At least that’s my take on survival.

I need to get to bed because it’s 23:40 and I have to get up at 0300 to get ready for work, but I’ll leave you with this quote from Enya’s song “Long, Long Journey”.

“Through the darkness and the shadow, I will still go on…”

On the Harbor...

20 September 2007 ~ Inaugural Post

It’s 22:03, and it’s been nearly a month since the unthinkable came to pass. This is my first blog, so I hope you can endure this painstaking journey with me. I’m not sure how long I will keep a blog or how long each entry will be, or even how often I will submit a new post, but I do hope to be able to sort through all the rubbish we call thoughts.

I really know where to start. For 30 years I knew someone who was my best friend, the person I could talk to for just about anything and the person with whom I could sit back and reminisce and laugh over times long gone by from an earlier age. Together, we used to evoke memories of the past and laugh about silly things we did in our childhood, the kinds of things brothers do, like instigate trouble for the other and then laugh when he gets as ass-beating.

A few years ago, my brother got tangled up in the wrong crowd and sadly found himself deeply involved in recreational drugs. Everyone in the family tried to no end to help him, but nothing seemed to work; my brother ended up in a hospital for treatment and in June 2004 he was released to come live with me in Omaha, Nebraska. It wasn’t long before he began to fall into his old habits and he would overdose on his prescribed meds daily either for attention or to make his pain go away. He always said that he got hooked on the meds because it made him forget about his pain. Anyway, the edited for TV version of the story is: he got into some trouble and ended up spending a month in the county jail, and when he was released I was in the process of moving to the DC area to accept a job offer. My brother begged me to take him with me, but I was still very upset over what he did and I told him that I could forgive him but I couldn’t forget. I carried that anger with me for nearly 3 years and didn’t speak with him until February of this year, when I discovered he was newly married and happily living in Champaign, Illinois.

I was elated to hear the news and I contacted him immediately to tell him how sorry I was to have carried this resentment with me for so many years and I asked for his forgiveness. It was hard to reach him because, as I found out, he too had been mad at me—perhaps mad that I left him in Omaha while I moved to DC. It did not occur to me “why” he didn’t understand why I was upset with him; because of the drugs in his system, he could not comprehend what he did or why I was upset. I wasn’t smart enough to realize this at the time when it all happened.

We spoke to each other this past March and it was the first time in almost 3 years. It was great to know that he was doing well and was happily married. I was sad that I missed his wedding—that’s another story—and I had grown fearful over the years that he may never find a perfect partner in life. I cried the night I found out because I was so happy for him. I was overjoyed that my brother, who’s life had always seemed very deprived of many things, had finally found true love and happiness. He and his bride were married 30 December 2006.

For the past few years my brother had to contend with the complete loss of vision in his right eye and he was beginning to lose vision in the other eye. He always complained of severe muscle aches but regardless of his veteran status, the VA doctors would never give him a second glance. Well, the VA doctors can take a sigh of relief now because my brother will not be bothering them anymore. After just 8 months of being married, and 32 years of being the oldest son, and 30 years of being my older brother, he was killed on Interstate 74 at mile marker 179B. More info may later follow.

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It was just past 1AM on 24 August 2007 and I was climbing into bed when my cell phone rang. I looked to see who was calling me at this hour; it was my dad and instantly I knew this would not be a good call. I answered and proceeded with caution, but I immediately asked what was wrong. My dad cleared his throat in his usual fashion and the proceeded to explain that he received a call from my aunt (on my mother’s side of the family) and they heard that Shondell was killed earlier that day (the 23rd)…

I sit now, at a quarter to midnight, and often feel as though I’m sitting on the harbor of my sanity. With his passing, I carry now the weight of responsibility of being the sole heir of my mother and the oldest for my younger (half) brother, David (from my dad and stepmother). My partner in crime when growing up, my copilot (for the Saturday morning “spaceships” we used to build when we were young), my buddy, my defender in school, my comic relief (he was good at making people laugh), my best friend for 30 years, who knew the other half to all our stories and all our inside jokes, is dead.

I guess that’s all I have for now…it’s almost time for bed, but I will leave you with this: “Sgt Dildo” was one of my brother’s favorite sayings…He used to call people that when we were in school and of course it continued into his military days and even beyond that. People he liked were often called “Sgt Dildo” as a term of endearment, and if he didn’t like someone he called them a “Clown”. Haha I guess you would just have to know him to get it. :)

Goodnight.
NK

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In loving memory of Kenneth Shondell Key, brother for 30 years...
http://www.legacy.com/Link.asp?I=GB000093303756
(You can view his online Guest Book if you like. There are some pictures posted as well in the Photo Album.)