From the archives: 16-year-old Alexander and Death

I wasn't sure what to write tonight, so I looked around for inspiration. Tom wrote about his best friend -- and my relatively new friend -- Michael's death. This got me searching through old emails and I found something that is interesting to me.

In September of 2001, a fellow camper Nat Duncan passed away after a battle with a brain tumor. I've written about Nat twice before. (Here in the early stages of my blog to explain me and where I come from, and here when I ran the annual archery tournament in his memory.)

The summer of 2002, I was still a camper. For the first tournament, we dedicated a park in Nat's memory and we all wrote something and compiled a scrap book and gave it to Nat's parents. My page was a letter on one side and on the bag was Nat's score card from our riflery program that I and a few other had found.

This is the scrapbook page that then-16-year-old Alexander wrote. Please be kind; I have not read this since then and not edited it at all for this public posting.

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Words can only go so far. Language is limited, and I have no idea what to say. I guess I'll start by typing what I'm thinking.

Nat had an effect on so many people.

The obvious is all of those who met him last year. Needless to say, many people that had previously not spoken to Nat started to speak to him. To most of those people, Nat had never really been a person before. And even then, he was more a lesson and an inspiration than a 'regular' person. (What regular actually is, though...) Nat made an impression on all of those people with a memory that will last a lifetime.

Then there are those who knewNat before last year only. Last year, working at Ocean Edge, a coworker ex-camper friend came up to me and asked "is that kid with the annoying British accent still at camp?" I remember him saying it with a smile and laughing, undoubtedly thinking about some time Nat did something so outrageous that you had to laugh. I know personally there were many times just within the 3 years previous to last when publicly I was fed up with Nat's actions, but when I rode home on my bike or on the bus, I just laughed. (Who can forget all of JC1 year, Nat at BBs and Archery saying something about chocolate in Klingon.)

And then there are those who knew Nat as two different people. Pre-cancer Nat and Post-cancer (or rather during-cancer) Nat. Nat was always a little bit more immature than everyone else in the age group. He was, after all, the youngest. When in a group, he was sometimes a little hard to deal with. But that made it so much nicer when he was calm and when it was one-on-one. I distinctly remember some time JC1 year walking up from Archery with him while he was talking about his bow and his archery obsession. Frankly, it kind of scared me...I though, "This kid LOVES his firearms!" But it also intriguied me and I also thought, "This kid isn't so bad to talk to."

Although he was a little more immature earlier, by JC1 year, he did catch up to everyone else. He was not as far behind. At that point I stopped hoping that Archery would be closed by the time they called his name. I actually started to NOT be scared of him holding a bow...or at least I was a lot less scared.

JC2 year, though, Nat was more mature than anyone in the unit. Every person did learn from him. Some people learned to not be as mean to people. To me, it just reassured something I'd echoed to my fellow JCs before I even knew about Nat's cancer: Cherish every relationship; you can learn more from the negative ones than the positive ones.

I'd like to think that my relationship with Nat was mostly positive, but I know there were times that it was not. And that's okay. I know that from the day Nat came to camp to the day he left, we didn't mind being in the same room, and I know that at times I even enjoyed it.

Even now, Nat makes me smile. and that says more than any words can say.

I have no words, just strings of memories that together make a smile.

(signed and dated)

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I remember being scared about giving that to his parents because it felt more honest than I thought most people would be. I assumed people would write about how much they loved Nat, and I didn't write about that. Hell, until his last summer, I didn't love Nat! I love the spirit of Nat and the memories of Nat, and that tournament is among the highlights of my summer (especially since I won this year...), but Nat himself...still unsure. I ran the letter by one of the directors and she OK'd it. I wonder what she thought, though, being 25 years my senior, reading these thoughts of a 16-year-old trying to deal with death.

I was precocious, of course, but dealing with premature death at such a young age (his death, my age) will force instant growing up.

Nat's death, I dealt with properly. I've hashed out all my issues that I had with his life after his death. It took me a while, but I did it. Michael's death, I still am not sure I've completely worked through, but revisiting Nat's death seems like a good start.