Remembering Jake — the Fallen Hero of 4th grade.
Like the “sneak attack” we played out so many times in the woods — no one saw THIS coming.
Remembering Jake M.
My friend Jake and I used to dress up in cammo, grab our toy guns, and “play Army” in the woods behind his house with some of the other kids in the neighborhood. At 9, we were all soldiers in a great war—the war on boredom. We made teams; always the U.S. versus “the Vietcong,” or “the Russians,” or “the Germans,”—the enemy du jour—depending on what movie we saw recently. We built cool forts in the brush. We “shot” at each other and then everyone always fought over who shot who first, and who won “the war” and ultimately, someone had to go home for dinner, and “the war” was over until tomorrow. But not for Jake, he was apparently battling his own war at home, too.
See, Jake never made it past the 4th grade. He took his own life that year for reasons we never knew and certainly weren’t equipped to understand at that age. (And still aren’t.)
Thirty-something years later, I often think of Jake — especially now that I have kids of my own that age. My fondest memories are those of him dressed in cammo, leading the charge towards “the enemy,” firing that toy M-16 with it’s “realistic” rat-tat-tat sound. Our toy guns looked “real” back then — no orange safety caps. We were the real deal.
While he never lived to fight in all those cool battles we dreamed of at 9 and 10, he was fighting his own battles, against his own personal enemies, all along. And it was on that sad day so many years ago, as the rest of us got to school, those enemies — those demons — snuck-up on him and attacked him at home, in the den. And like the “classic end-run maneuver” or “sneak attack” we had played out so many times in the woods — no one saw it coming.
Jake is forever MY soldier — a fallen hero of all the battles we fight just growing up — personal demons, disease, peer pressure, drugs, poverty, disaster, mental health, domestic violence, crime, and on and on and on, it’s like it never ends, and then we get older and it’s even worse, and all we can do is “be prepared” for it.
So I like to think Jake “took one” for the rest us — one for the team — the proverbial hero who throws himself on the grenade to save everyone else — so that maybe we—those who knew him—-have all valued and cherished our lives much more. Maybe it better prepared us for “real life” — and hopefully, we have ALL lived our lives better because of it. (I know I have, I’ve thought of him a lot over the years.) Maybe, too, it better prepared us for having children of our own and for dealing with their problems and their demons, too. And for that, Jake deserves my Medal of Honor and remembrance among our nation’s finest this Memorial Day.
Not to steal any thunder from our nation’s veterans lost to war, but many of us are fighting wars unseen and so many lives are lost to those wars just the same — some as young as Jake. We must remember them, too, for they lost their lives not to protect our freedoms, but so we can understand our own lives — and protect them — better.
— P.
