Flashbacks

I'm watching a rerun of Glee, the Madonna episode. It's part hysterically funny, part really, really sad and part moving. Moving because you know how it is when some music stirs up memories. When Finn and Rachel started singing "Open Your Heart" I thought immediately of youth group. "Open Your Heart" was the song they played every Wednesday night before starting. My best friend at the time was a Madonna fan, fanatic really, but what 15 year old girl wasn't back then.

It is sobering to remember the mundane things we did together, listening to music, watching "Nightmare on Elm Street," and talking about boys. It's sobering because I recently found out that she finally succeeded in committing suicide.

Life was a long road for her. I was the friend on the sidelines of her drama. She had a tumultuous family life. I can hardly wrap my head around it now, all these years later.

So many memories wrapped up in that friendship. Her name was Mary. She was beautiful and talked of being discovered. She wanted to model. She even took head shots and sent them to agencies. It never happened for her.

She dated before I did, way before I did. We did a Science fair project on statistics together in 7th grade. Her mother made the best meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We paged through volumes of YM, Teen and Bride - picking out wedding dresses, prom dresses, hair styles. Hot pink was in and so were black lace gloves without fingers. She had all the stylish clothes - like the monokini my mom said was indecent - and so did her mom. They both wore makeup. My mom and I didn't. Mary was glamorous and fun-loving. She was carefree and reckless. I was the cautious, anxious, worry-wart.

Mary's mother divorced Mary's father when Mary was a baby. Mary told me that her dad had once kidnapped her. What an incredible life. Mary's mom smoked. She worked late. She dated guys that were the kind of guys you don't necessarily want your teenage daughter around. I remember once, at the house with the pool, Mary poured marbles all over her floor and her bed before we left. She told me she did it because she had told her mom to stay out of the room with her "stupid boyfriend." She called all of her mom's boyfriends that. She said they liked to sneak up to her room to lay on her bed and look out the skylight.

It was strange. Things like that didn't happen in my world. I never had to break my mother's cigarettes and flush them down the toilet. My mom never had more than a sip of alcohol until she was 65 years old. My mom and dad are still married. I never owned designer clothes or lived in a house with a pool. I never had my own bathroom. Mary had all of that and yet, she had so little.

Mary's life was different. The first time she tried to take her life she was 15, I think. She spent time in the psych ward of the hospital. They released her and a few months later she tried again. In the midst of all of this, she would call me crying, sometimes drunk, just wanted me to listen to her and tell her that I loved her, that I cared about her.

When she got pregnant on purpose, I felt hope for her for the first time. I thought, as she did, that a baby would give her meaning and purpose in life. She was overjoyed when she called me with the news. I was sad that she had made the decision to get pregnant but I was only 15 too and I was so happy that she was happy. All of that joy was swept quietly, brutally away with a quick trip to the clinic housed, ironically, in an old school. Her mother, you see, had gotten pregnant too and her mother was too young to be a grandmother. Mary's baby, her very wanted baby, was erased.

Mary changed after that. She became sadder and quieter. We never talked about what had happened but the reality was that we really only talked a few more times. She told me she was too tired. That life was too hard. She stopped returning my calls and dropped off the face of the earth. I prayed for her every night. I prayed that she would have peace and be reconciled with her mother. One night,after praying a rosary every night for her for a year, I had a sense that my prayers were answered. It wasn't until a few years later that I saw proof in a newspaper article. There was a picture showing Mary, smiling that beautiful smile, resting her head on her mother's shoulder.

I was sad to learn recently that Mary had succeeded in taking her own life. My parents ran into her mom who shared the news with them. I have no details of when it happened, only that it did. It was a shock because I had hoped she was out of the woods. I have no idea where she is buried. I wish I did because I would like to say goodbye. I would like to place a flower by her name and tell her that I miss her and that I wish life had been better for her. I think about her every time I hear a Madonna song and I pray for her and her family.

May God have mercy on her soul.