THE OATH
We moved to Port Se' during the summer of '75 weeks after learning that dad would not be coming home from Vietnam.
Richie and I were just shy of our fifth birthday and out of them five years we remembered dad more from pictures than in person. We regretted the move, but were old enough to hide out displeasure's for mom needed all the support she could get now.
Mom felt the move would erase the pain she had. Each room of that apartment held the memory of dad and in order for us to move on in our lives mom felt we needed a fresh start.
Port Se', named after an explorer, was a small residential town on the North Shore of Long Island. It was the first time that Richie and I would be living in a house, compared to our 10th floor apartment in Manhattan.
The move did help for the three of us were busy learning about our new surroundings. While mom did minor repairs with me helping, Richie explored the neighborhood seeking the friends that mom promised would be plentiful.
I remember the words, so clearly, that mom spoke so many years before when we first moved to Port Se'," Regina, you and Richie are going to be so happy meeting friends that will shape your life."
Those words were spoken that bright sunny day in '75 while I helped mom with the minor repairs. Mom has since passed on, but the story isn't about mom. This is a story about my twin brother, Richard Mertz.
2.
Upon arriving in Port Se' Richie and I were silently voicing disgust by having to leave our friends behind. We never believed we'd find new friends and I think that was our biggest fear. How wrong we were for we met friends that would shape our lives just as mom said.
Richie did not have to venture far to meet other boys his age. He was not 100 feet into the new neighborhood and he already met a boy ( Tommy Dugan ) that was the same age as Richie.
The Dugans were a young couple who moved to Port Se' a few years before us. Tom and Nancy were high school sweethearts who moved to Port Se' to begin a family. Their expectations were high, but after Thomas, Junior they were content with one child.
Mom and I didn't see Richie for most of that afternoon and when he did finally come home, Tommy was with him.
Mom played the perfect hostess making Richie and Tommy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch while the two of them shared stories with one another. Mom and I stood listening because we would just as interested about Richie's new friend as Richie was.
From that day on them two five-year-old boys were inseparable and it would be this way for the next 13 1/2 years.
Richie forgot about his old friends in a heartbeat. The only friend he cared about was Tommy and if one had something, the other wanted the same thing.
Throughout the summer of '75 Richie helped ease mom's hurt with his childhood explorations. Mom could not be more happier mending scraped knees, bruised elbows, wiping runny noses, etc.. Of course that is only when Richie was close to home for most of his days were spent with Tommy running around the neighborhood.
As the years passed by birthdays came and went while Richie and Tommy grew closer. Throughout their school years they'd sit near one another in class, go out for the same sports, and find themselves within the same troubles. As they grew older, putting down their toys and moving on to the regular teenage activities, people used to tease that it was Richie and Tommy who were twins instead of Richie and I.
Mom never look to fill that void in her life so it did not help when Richie and I tried to get her to go out on dates. We knew she'd feel as if she'd be cheating dad even though it had been 12 years since his death.
I remember the time mom was finally getting rid of and finally putting to rest most of dad's belongings. Mom was about to throw out dad's collection of firearms, when Richie saw this he became irate for those guns were also his memories. He remembered as a child helping dad clean those guns even if they didn't need cleaning. It was a father and son moment that they both would want to remember. Richie's memory for when dad was away at war and dad's memory for when he had the moment in the jungles to reminisce.
Mom was skeptic, but she gave in once Richie promised to leave those guns locked in the glass case.
There weren't much smiles that creased mom's face, but the day Richie brought home Lillian, mom tripped over her own feet trying to be the good hostess. Of course Lillian's sister, Laura, was with Tommy. They did everything together.
The walls of our living room filled with pictures of graduations, proms, parties, and mom would stand in front of those pictures for hours telling Richie and I how happy dad would be.
Richie and Lillian was serious about one another making plans for the future, yet they were still in school. Nevertheless, they had great dreams for their future.
3.
One night while mom and I were getting ready to go shopping, the phone rang. It was a call that would change that happiness in our lives.
The only audible thing I could get out of mom was that we had to get to Port Se' General Hospital, Richie had some sort of accident.
Upon arriving at the hospital it wasn't a surprise to see Tommy. Mom wasn't able to focus on anything which explained her running from hospital room to hospital room screaming Richie's name. The last time I saw mom this frantic was when the government brought home the news about that.
During those tense hours the Dugan's, Tommy, Lillian, and Laura all sat with us awaiting the news from the doctors.
Tommy had already told us that he and Richie were walking home from baseball practice fooling around tossing pebbles at one another. Soon the pebbles grew to rocks in which one cracked three vertebrae in Richie's back. We soon learned that it would leave Richie paralyzed from the neck down. This was just short of Richie's 18th birthday and along with his paralysis, many changes were to follow.
During the months that Richie was in the hospital and rehabilitation Center mom had our whole house changed to accommodate a wheelchair. The steps to our house were now a ramp, the rugs were ripped up returning to the original wood floors, and every appliance had new adjustments made. Our whole home was changed to welcome Richie.
Richie was due home that Tuesday in the latter part of '88. Mom, me, Lillian, Laura, and Tommy had a surprise party awaiting Richie. The party didn't bring many smiles and a stranger would have recognized that Tommy wasn't up to helping us bring smiles to Richie's face. Tommy always seemed to, now, stand within the shadows instead of at Richie side. It was moments like these that we knew life with Richie would be different.
4.
That bright cherry faced teenager was gone and at first all of us figured Richie's gloomy mood would fizzle out. Each day we'd try another avenue to bring those smiles back, but Richie always asked us to, "let him be" and close the door on the way out.
Richie's bedroom was his fortress where his whole life existed. From that first day that he was wheeled out of the hospital he began severing his relationships.
It was hard on mom when he broke up with Lillian for mom already considered her a daughter-in-law. It hurt mom even more when he asked mom not to allow Lillian in the house again.
That's how the days followed with mom and I trying our best to bring back Richie's smiles while he slipped further and further away. We knew bringing those smiles back would be almost impossible, especially when Tommy ran from Richie's room and out the house crying. As Richie's inseparable boyhood friend was leaving, Richie was babbling incoherently over and over about some, "Oath!"
The days were hard and grew even harder as I neared the day I'd be leaving home to begin law school. Mom assured me all would change, but that day I said bye to Richie and mom I knew that Richie would never be the same. I couldn't stop crying as I was leaving, Richie just sat in his wheelchair staring out the window. Mom always tried to put a happy face on difficult situations, but I knew he'd never be that twin side of me sharing smiles again.
I received letters from him every week where she'd tell me that Richie changed. I knew this wasn't the case, but I didn't want mom's heart broken more then it already was. I was wrote back telling mom I knew he'd come around.
I buried myself in law school taking my mind off of the situation at home. I even met Mark who lifted me up on the days that I felt in one of those moods. I'd send pictures home to mom telling her that Richie had to approve of Mark for as children Richie told me I could not kiss a boy unless he met and approved of him. I don't know if mom ever showed him the pictures or if she did? What did he say? I was going to ask mom during our next conversation, but Ms. Dugan called to tell me that mom passed away that morning in her sleep.
They say natural causes was responsible for mom's death, but I believe it was finally heartbreak that she succumbed to.
Mark was there for me every minute and I don't think I would have made it without him for Richie was no help for he wouldn't even attend mom's funeral.
Once I arranged everything to suit Richie's needs, setting up a nurse to come daily, leaving all those important numbers near a computerized phone, I went back to college. Mark was a saint wanting to bring Richie with us, but I knew he'd never leave that room back in Port Se'.
Richie never left the house from the time he came home from the hospital seven years earlier. He'd be 25 on Thursday and it was his 25th birthday that Richie had finally escaped his world of darkness.
For many years after Richie's death I was devastated while at the same time holding a hatred for my twin side. Hour upon hour I'd sit staring out the window of my childhood home in Port Se'. Mark knew these were periods that I needed to myself. I didn't know if I'd ever received answers to my questions, but I had difficulty with weighing what answer I wanted more? Why did my twin not let all of us tear away his sadness or who was it that would murder a helpless person not able to defend himself?
Tomorrow Richie would had been 28 years old. Sitting here feeling angry with Richie, the police for letting my brother's murder go unsolved, and for myself with not letting the past rest giving my all to my husband and child, Richie Thomas Mertz.
I knew that there is a healing process with all wounds and one day I hope that my questions will be answered. I guess until then I continue to feel broken, understanding a little of what Richie felt throughout those seven years until a bullet took his life.
5.
" Mommy? Mommy, uncle Tommy is here with his unaform," I knew one day Richie would pronounce uniform correctly and more than likely he wouldn't be fascinated with uniformed people at that time.
Drying my hands with the dish towel I went to greet Tommy whose visits were less and less when my questions fell upon deaf ears pertaining to Richie's murder.
We greeted one another with a hug and a kiss. I could tell that Tommy was uneasy, but he'd been that way since Richie's accident, death, and now being the leading officer heading the murder investigation.
While Richie fussed with his toys on the floor in front of us, Tommy and I smiled with him. I knew we weren't about to sit here in the living room all day, but I was afraid what his visit was about. Before I had the chance to question his uneasiness and visit Tommy spoke, breaking his silence.
" Richie would have wanted you to be happy Regina," Tommy sat fidgeting with his tie while he spoke.
" We shared everything with one another. My life revolved around his and vice versa. Our childhood secrets, some were of silliness where years later we'd feel stupid thinking about them," tears streaked his face as he stared straight ahead looking at nothing. I knew that I shouldn't interrupt, for in his own time he'd finished.
"Regina, the oath wasn't one of them silly childhood secrets," Tommy began sobbing loudly as he stood. I went to comfort him, but he just grabbed my hands within his, placing an object in my hands. Watching him turn to leave, I tried to make sense of his visit.
I stood there for a long time while trying to make sense of childhood secrets,oaths, and Tommy's tears. I was in such a state of confusion that I almost forgot to look at what Tommy placed in my hands.
Opening my hands I just stared at the bright shiny key knowing that I now will be able to give all of myself to my family. Walking across the living room I reached up and slid the key within the keyhole of dad's gun case.
No comments:
Post a Comment