Post #163 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
June 2011 Memoir Contest
Today, we are pleased to publish the second of two Honorable Mention winners in our June Memoir Writing Contest. Today’s winner, Kelly Ann Wright, shares a story of change in her life. Congratulations Kelly.
Memoir Contest Winner
REST IN PEACE IN FISHING HEAVEN
By Kelly Ann Wright
It was June 2010 and I was getting ready for my favorite time of year – summer. I bruise easily so the bruise I got on my left knee from moving the patio furniture seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. A few days passed and the bruise had spread up and down my left leg and my entire leg was swollen dramatically. My mom took me to the hospital and they admitted me immediately.
My family and one of my closest friends, Claudette Reaume, were by my side the whole time. They heard the doctors warn me that I was “committing suicide slowly” and if I didn’t change my life style I would die. This meant a strict diet because I rarely ate regularly, sleep which I hadn’t had in years, no smoking or at least cut back and no alcohol — not even an ounce ever again. I took this very seriously and my life changed that first week of June. That month was when my new life started. I had a choice and I choose to live.
Claudette took every word the doctors said to heart and relayed the warning to her husband and my dear friend Jeff Reaume – Reaumo. He was probably as scared as I was and he too decided he needed to change his lifestyle.
I got home from the hospital on Saturday June 5th and was pretty much bedridden, walking only a little with a cane. On Friday June 11th the phone rang early in the morning but I refused to try to get up because I couldn’t imagine who would be calling that early. For some unknown reason my mom was up and answered the phone. She came into the den where I laid with my leg propped up on six pillows, sweaty and smelly because I couldn’t stand in a shower and in a cranky mood.
She whispered, “Kelly I have bad news. Reaumo died this morning.”
The first words out of my mouth were “Damn it, why Reaumo?” I believe everything happens for a reason but what was the reason for his death? I still don’t have a full understanding or an answer.
Reaumo’s childhood home was across from the green of the 14th hole and mine was across from the 14th tee. We grew up on a golf course and we were country club kids. Reaumo was seventeen years older than me so when I was young that was a huge age difference but as we got older the gap seemed to get smaller and smaller. I was no longer afraid of the guy with the long hair driving a white van with his German Sheppard running along next to it down the street.
Reaumo always had a German Sheppard. My best friend growing up lived behind the Reaume’s and I would cut through their back yard at least a half a dozen times a day. Every time I just held my breath and prayed to get through alive. I just knew one day that his German Sheppard would make it over her fenced in area and eat me alive. She obviously didn’t but she did have a poodle in the neighborhood as a nice snack one day.
When I was in my late twenties I meet Claudette through Reaumo and other mutual friends and we became a group. We had some fantastic times fishing, vacationing and just laughing. We spent many evenings together with fine food, but not so fine wine because occasionally it came in a box.
Reaumo was not one to be mushy or sappy but I will never forget my 40th birthday party. It was at my mom’s condo and the whole group was together and as they left my mom said, “Reaumo, you really mean the world to Kelly” and he replied, “I think of her as my daughter.” I laughed with him and I cried with him and he took secrets with him to heaven that I and only a few trusted people know.
Dad
On June 20th 2010, Father’s Day, I was thinking about my dad and all the wonderful things he did for me and I reflected on how much I relied on my dad for advice. I was definitely a daddy’s girl. My dad passed away in 2000 so I had been through many Father’s Days without him and had accepted that he was gone because I always had my surrogate dad – Reaumo.
Then it hit me in the gut like a punch from Mike Tyson and I thought I was literally going to be sick. I realized Reaumo was dead. I had been so distracted with my own health issues that for a moment I forgot Reaumo had died. It would not be unusual for me not to see him for a few weeks but the fact was I was never going to see him again. I was never going see my dad again. I was alone. I had neither one of my dad’s. I was an orphan.
I honestly believe that my dad and Reaumo sent someone to look over me in their absence. They sent me Dave. Dave never had a chance to meet my dad or Reaumo but he will refer to something that I don’t remember telling him about them. Dave doesn’t fish and doesn’t have the love of water like my dad and Reaumo but maybe they sent him to me to tell me to move on to a new life. I wish they could have met him and I wish they could have walked me down the aisle at my wedding but I know they had the best seats in the house. Dad and Reaumo were looking down on us from “Fishing Heaven.”
