I wasn't ready to say good-bye

Grant County Journal

I Wasn’t Ready to Say Good-bye

Written by Janet Warren

June 28^th, 2012

My world changed on April 24^th.  My son, Jeffrey Alexander Meacham, age 15, ended his life with a bullet. He would have been 16 on June 22^nd.   He lived with his father in Colorado during the school year but came to Ephrata most of the summer and other school breaks.  About a year ago he decided he wanted to live with Mike and me for his junior and senior years of high school so he could do the Running Start program at Big Bend.  His father figured out a way he could do the same thing at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, so my hopes were dashed once again.

Jeffrey was in Ephrata just three weeks before he died.  My last glimpse of him was at the Spokane Airport.  I had forgotten my purse so I couldn’t get a gate pass to wait with him until his plane boarded as I usually did.  He hugged me and told me he loved me before he ascended the ramp into security.  I watched as he shed a few tears when he thought I wasn’t looking.  I wanted to run up the ramp, take him in my arms, and beg him to stay with me.  But I’ve always wanted what was best for Jeffrey, and I thought it was his choice to stay in Colorado. 

Jeffrey had two lives that I knew about.  The first one was in Colorado Springs where he was born and remained in the family home after his father and I divorced. He was a brilliant student, taking advanced placement and honor classes.  I checked his grades the day before he died—as usual straight A and A+ work.  One of his teachers sent me his last assignment he had written for an English class.  It was an 8-page, well-thought out, well-written paper that he turned in on the morning of the day he died.  He was active in our church, faithfully attending an early-morning seminary class, even the morning of that fateful day.  He had no addictions—the toxicology report came back completely negative. 

Jeffrey’s second life was here in Ephrata.  He loved his stepfather and had a strong bond with him.  He had a special friend here, Nick Quist.  Those two would take up where they left off every time they were together.  Jeffrey could be a typical teenager in Ephrata and take a rest from his first life.  I liked to think he recharged his batteries here.

Jeffrey obviously had a third life that no one knew about.  He never spoke of it to anyone—somewhere deep inside that brilliant mind of his he lived in pain.  There is no outside reason that Jeffrey died; it is in his third life that those answers remain vaulted.  One of the things I read in a grief book has taken on special significance:  “I have since learned grief is not about answers; but learning to live with the questions.”  So many questions.

On the one-month anniversary of Jeffrey’s death, May 24^th, my close friend Pam George passed away in Colorado Springs from a massive heart attack.  She was 57 years old and didn’t even know she had the advanced heart disease the autopsy showed.  Pam was Jeffrey’s protector.  She always called me with news of Jeffrey.  She called when he gave a talk in church, or if she heard him say something to her son Spencer that she thought I should know about.  About six months ago Pam told me that she thought Jeffrey was really well-adjusted.  He seemed happy.  He loved his computer classes at school, he never missed his early-morning seminary class.  She hadn’t always felt this way, and I knew Pam always told me the truth, so I tried to get over my sadness that Jeffrey wasn’t going to come to Ephrata for his last two years of high school. 

At Jeffrey’s funeral, Pam told me in her no-nonsense way, “When I die, the first thing I am going to do is find Jeffrey and ask him ‘What in the world possessed you to end your life?”” Then she died.  And I have no doubt the first thing her spirit did was find Jeffrey.  In fact a small piece of my broken heart is comforted knowing Pam is with my son in the spirit world.  But Pam left behind a husband and four children who are suffering just as I am.  Spencer, who loved my son Jeffrey, came home to find his mother on the floor and tried to resuscitate her. He has experienced more in the last two months than any 16-year-old should have to go through. (Read The Bench Babies written by the mother of Bench Baby #3 at www.chocolatecreamcenters.blogspot.com for a beautiful story of friendship between three boys and their mothers.  It was posted April 28, you’ll have to click on Older Posts a couple of times. Spencer was Bench Baby #1, and Jeffrey was #2).

One of the most helpful stories about grief comes from a keynote speaker at a Compassionate Friends conference.  Steven Kalas writes that when you lose a child, grieving is a lifelong experience. “You don’t get over it.  Getting over it is an inappropriate goal.  An unreasonable hope.  The loss of a child changes you.  It changes your marriage.  It changes the way birds sing.  It changes the way the sun rises and sets.  You are forever different…the goal is not to get over it.  The goal is to get on with it.”  He goes on to liken profound grief to a stage play where the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set.  The piano changes everything.  You keep bumping into it, and it blocks your ability to interact with other players.  The entire play must be rewritten around it.

“But over time, the piano is pushed to stage left.  Then to upper stage left.  You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano.  Instead, you engage it.  Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life…eventually you learn to play that piano.  Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen.  You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month.  But, later, when you’re 84, staring out your kitchen window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child’s life mattered.  You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play.”

I love you Jeff.  I love you Pam.  I have a strong belief of an afterlife and look forward to the day when I will see you again which is what keeps me going.  Until then, I will try to stop bumping into that piano and learn how to play it.

Both obituaries can be viewed at dignitymemorial.com

ONCE IN A WHILE IT’S GOOD TO PUT PEOPLE ON PEDESTALS


Grant County Journal

January 2012

Janet Warren



I learned something about myself in the last couple of days and I am not proud. I am a spoiled brat. I had suspected as much when I whined so much about my high efficiency washer and dryer not being on pedestals that Mike took his stash of money he had been saving for his surround-sound equipment and bought me the pedestals. I had to sit on the ground to fold clothes out of the dryer for cryin’ out loud. Then I learned of a woman whose old washer and dryer and car died all at the same time. My good friend stepped in to help her, sending a repair man to her house. The woman offered him all of $16—probably the last of the month’s money—but he refused to take it. Hey, but I don’t have to sit on the floor to fold my clothes anymore.

The coup de grace came yesterday when my desktop computer died. How was I going to write my column? Why hadn’t I replaced my laptop when it started running so slowly? I even shot an email from my iPhone to the editor of the Journal telling her I may not be able to get the column to her this week. Then my husband, who is always saving me, offered to leave his iPad home so I could write it on that. Not optimal, since the keyboard isn’t that comfortable, but doable. As I started to get set up I realized the iPad didn’t have any data processing software. I couldn’t write on it. What the heck was I supposed to do? Write it in longhand? Wait a second—I once had those skills. I used to have good handwriting until I learned to type. I used to be able to spell—until I started using SpellCheck. I realized I was way ahead of those youngsters who were bottle-fed technology. So I started to write out my column in longhand. This is really pathetic, but I can’t write like that anymore. The way I write is to think about a topic for quite a while. Then I finally sit down at the computer to type it and I basically write it in “stream of consciousness” which is to write everything I have been thinking about without really thinking about it. Then I go back and cut and paste and fill in and take out. I can’t do it that way when I’m writing longhand.. Longhand forces me to write in a logical pattern, thinking about what I am going to put on the paper. I can’t do it. How am I supposed to know how to spell coup de grace when I can’t look it up on dictionary.com. I don’t think I even have a hardcopy dictionary in the house anymore. I have become a slave to technology unable to relate to people who haven’t hopped on the technology bandwagon. I can hardly communicate with my children since my skills are still so rudimentary compared to theirs.. I am stuck in a time warp….can’t remember the old ways, can’t figure out the new ones. So I stamp my feet and feel frustrated and yes, realize I am a spoiled brat.

This isn’t what I expected to write about this week, but sometimes things happen in our lives that make us take stock.. My daughter made a comment when she was visiting me at Christmas about a certain young family who works three jobs and sacrifices some of the comforts of life to raise a family and to make ends meet. She was amazed at how hard they work. Many of her friends are very educated in fields where there is still work and the only problem they have is waiting it out for the highest paying job. I’ve often thought how beneficial it would be for my children to visit a third-world country to see how other people live, but I should have been making them look around themselves at what people in this country have to do to survive.. In fact, I should have been doing the same.

I don’t think my epiphany is going to change me much. I won’t go back to trying to write longhand because my writing has improved over the years with the use of technology. I will get my computer fixed or buy a new one if I have to. But maybe I will appreciate not having to sit on the floor to fold clothes a little more. Maybe once my computer is up and running I will marvel at how it has changed my life. Maybe I will count my blessings a little more. And perhaps I will learn to recognize other people’s efforts more. Instead of only lamenting when things are taken away, maybe I will appreciate them while I have them. That goes for the people in my life too. Thanks for the pedestals, Mike. But thank you more for the sacrifice you made to give them to me.

I ended up writing this column on my old laptop, and I will hand-deliver it on a thumbnail drive to Kerry Moser at the Journal since I can’t attach my laptop to a printer. She’ll have to scan it, run it through SpellCheck, and check for grammar since for some reason I can’t get the print big enough on this laptop to see what I’m typing. That Kerry—did you know she has been working at the Journal since high school? I wrote a column on her husband a while back. She and her husband are some of the hardest working folks I know. I kind of put her on a pedestal too.

Road trip! Road trip!

Grant County Journal Road Trip! Road Trip! Written by Janet Warren April 26, 2012 I spent almost half of April in Syracuse. No, not Syracuse, New York—Syracuse, Utah. If you don’t know where Syracuse, Utah is you are not alone. Most of the people who live in Utah don’t know where it is unless you mention it’s in between Ogden and Layton. Utah has an interesting layout. Here in Ephrata when you set out to go to the next town, you know when you arrive because there is a lot of farmland in between. In Utah, you never know what town you’re in because they all run together. And don’t get me started on their grid system of street layout—it’s the most confusing thing I’ve experienced. It’s not just the fact that I get lost easily—I never get lost driving in Chandler, Arizona where the grid system actually makes sense and is easy to follow. My sister and her family recently moved to Syracuse. My brother-in-law, Denny, is a manager for Gordmans department store, and they just opened up the Utah territory. So Mike and I took a road trip to Utah with our daughter, Jenni, and three grandchildren in tow. I love it when Mike goes on our little adventures because he likes to drive. We dropped a car off at the Spokane airport for him, and then he drove the 12 or 13 hours to Syracuse. Mike flew back to Spokane a few days later, because as he likes to point out—“Someone has to work,” and Jenni did the driving back home. I always offer to drive, but no one takes me up on it, except my sisters. I once drove my sister, Diane, from Reno, Nevada to Ocean City, New Jersey. This was before I had a GPS and we didn’t even get lost until we hit the New Jersey Turnpike. In my defense, who doesn’t get lost on the New Jersey Turnpike? My sisters and I are directionally impaired so the invention of the GPS changed our lives. But that’s another story. Jenni went on a little vacation to Costa Rica and the grandchildren stayed with the other grandma in American Fork, Utah. I have to share them sometimes. I spent a lot of time reading and relaxing and shopping at Gordmans. My sister, Sara, is one of my best friends so we always have good laughs. Our road trip back to Ephrata was a little longer. We spent the first night in Butte, Montana. Have you ever seen the 90-foot statue of Mary, Our Lady of the Rockies, on top of the Continental Divide in Butte? According to a website: “Our Lady of the Rockies is entirely nondenominational and was dedicated in 1985 to workers and women everywhere — especially to mothers. Butte was an area hard hit by copper mine closures in the early 1980s and this Madonna was believed to be one way to lift the spirits of the residents.” Bus tours to the statue don’t start until June, so we only got to see it through the zoom lens of Jenni’s camera. Our road trip continued to Spokane where I had a conference to attend. This is where the most memorable part of our journey occurred—something that still gives me chills. Our hotel was about a half mile from Riverside Park and we wanted Seth and Noah to ride the carousel. We walked and I got a little turned around (it’s that directionally challenged thing). Jenni followed me because even though she is not directionally challenged, she thought since I used to live in Spokane I might know where I was going. This was her first mistake. Anyway, we found ourselves on the end of the park where the Washington Power Company is and we had to cross some bridges over the Spokane River to get into the park. The rapids were amazing and Jenni wanted to get a picture of the twins on the bridge. She was fiddling with the camera and Seth sat down on a concrete ledge, just the perfect height for a 4-year-old to rest on. As I looked up, I realized the iron bars on the bridge were spaced so far apart, all Seth would have had to do is lean back and he would have fallen through to the rapids and rocks below. In times like this, things flash through your mind. I imagined him falling and Jenni going in after him. I know that’s what her instinct would have been. Her father-in-law was killed in Costa Rica when he became sick on a bridge. The limo driver let him out, he walked over to the side where he lost his balance and fell to his death. Jenni’s mother-in-law’s instinct was to go after him and the limo driver had to hold her back. Would I have had enough presence of mind to hold Jenni back? Or would I have lost my grandson and daughter that day? It still makes me cry to think about it. I know that people can become paralyzed with anxieties about things that could have but didn’t happen and I’m working through that. However, that evening while I was sitting in my conference at the INB Performing Arts Center, my mind kept drifting to how the night could have turned out so much differently. Spokane is about the have the wrath of a grandma unleashed upon them. I’m not going on anymore road trips for awhile. As I took a walk this morning in my quiet Ephrata neighborhood, I realized it was enough. I am glad I am home.

Give Me a B! Give Me an O! Give me an N! Give me a D!

Grant County Journal Give me a B! Give me an O! Give me an N! Give me a D! March 29, 2010 Written by Janet Warren Once upon a time, 36 years ago to be exact, I sat in an Economics 101 class as a freshman in college. I ended up dropping the class because, as an 18-year-old, I felt I may actually die of boredom if I remained in the class for the whole semester. Flash forward. My eyes still glaze over when politicians banter about their various economic policies that will save the world. The difference is that now I understand my life will be affected and that I had better stay awake, pay attention, and be more proactive. So what does this have to do with the price of rice in China? (Well, quite a lot actually, but let’s not go there). I’m going to talk to you about the Columbia Basin Hospital Bond special election that is coming up on April 17th. In an article published in the Journal on March 15th, Randy Bracht quotes Robert Reeder, the Columbia Basin Hospital Administrator: “Our hospital was built in 1957, and it’s reaching the end of its useful life,” said Reeder. This is personal, I was born in 1958. The hospital needs renovating, people! One great thing about writing an opinion column is that I don’t have to present the other side. I can be completely biased, which I am. I am biased because I don’t think I can retire in a city that doesn’t have a hospital, and that’s what Ephrata is looking at if this bond doesn’t pass. It’s not going to keep operating like it is now. As Susan Scheib, the Community Relations Coordinator for the hospital explained: “You can’t just keep putting a Band-Aid on the hospital. There comes a point where you have to fix it.” It is estimated that if this bond measure does not pass, the hospital will close within five years. The assisted living and long-term care facilities will also close as they depend on hospital dollars to operate. Most likely, the clinic will close as it will be difficult to keep and attract doctors here if support facilities of the hospital aren’t available. The hospital employs 141 full-time employees, making it a top employer in Ephrata. When these employees lose their jobs, Ephrata will feel the effects and they will be significant. I may not be an expert on the economy, but I am bright enough to know that eliminating 141 jobs in a city with a population of 7,500 will be devastating to Ephrata’s businesses and schools. Susan took me on a tour of the hospital so I could see for myself what passing the bond will do. At first glance, the building doesn’t look as old as it is because the hospital is kept impeccably clean. It’s hard to do that with such an old building which tells me the employees take pride in working there. What is apparent, however, is how crowded everything is. Especially the physical therapy department which basically consists of one room with a lot of equipment. There is a great demand for these services in Ephrata. If you have ever been there for therapy after a knee or hip replacement, your ballot will be one of the first to hit the mailbox. The lab is another area where people are walking on top of each other. This is the only department I have personally dealt with. I like my health care provider in Wenatchee, and when we moved to Ephrata I kept going to her. However, it’s more convenient for me to go to the hospital in Ephrata to get my lab work done. The phlebotomist, Jaime Bravo, is the only person on this planet who has consistently gotten blood out of my shy veins on the first try. I love him. The hospital bond voted on during the general election in 2010 narrowly failed, gathering only 59.2 percent of yes votes, instead of the needed 60 percent. That means, in terms I can understand, we missed out on updating our hospital because 30 people in Ephrata failed to mail in their ballots. We have an opportunity for a do-over. Perhaps the plans for the hospital in 2010 were a bit grandiose for Ephrata’s blood. The hospital board listened and pared it down. The details are in Randy Bracht’s article in March 15’s paper--please read it. My purpose in writing this column is to be a cheerleader for those 30 people whose ballots may have ended up in the trash. All my life I’ve heard “Every vote counts.” Poppycock. I voted for my candidate for president in the primary 2008 election via absentee ballot and he pulled out of the race before my vote was counted. But here’s a situation where we do need everybody’s vote. I know it’s scary to think about property rates going up and sometimes I wonder how I can keep pace with some of the other financial demands being put on me. I know most of you are in that situation, too. But Ephrata needs a hospital and it will affect your quality of life if the bond doesn’t pass. The citizens of Ephrata supported the community swimming pool and the schools. It’s time to step up to the plate and support the hospital. As my guru, Dr. Seuss penned for The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not”.