Lives Assignment

July 1st, the very beginning of summer. Summer ’06, it held such promise didn’t it? New people, new adventures, new times that I won’t ever remember.

I had plenty of nights I wouldn’t remember, trying to drown away the memory of what happened that day…

Chuck, my dearest friend, why did you have to go so soon? He was only 16 and had so much more to do! On that fateful night there was a fireworks show at Candlewood Lake, as there is every year. My foolish friend was drunk and he was stoned and decided to go swimming with his two brothers, Andrew, 19, and Danny, 11. After only a few minutes Andrew and Danny lost track of Chuck. They got out of the water, thinking that he had joined the crowd watching the display. They looked for him for 15 minutes before returning to the lake. Before finding him face down in the water 20 feet out from shore.

He had been such a good swimmer too.

When I got the call the next night that I would never see my best friend, my love ever again, I didn’t even cry. I dropped the phone, fell to my knees, my faced burned like I was going to cry but nothing came out. Nothing but an ear shattering scream. My dad came running, my mom slowly behind him. He shook me for a good 5 minutes, I’m told, yelling at me what was wrong, failing to make my screams stop.

When I finally found the words all I could utter was “Charles Bennett”. My parents had never met him and were bewildered as to my meaning. When my dad finally caught on he went to his computer and typed in his name and came up with a 1 sentence, “Charles T. Bennett, 16, of Wondy Way, Danbury, passed away unexpectedly on Saturday evening, July 1, 2006”.

From that day on I was thrown in a whirlpool of events. Calling out of work, going to his dad’s house to help take care of Danny, telling our friend Frankie, the wake, the funeral, and finally the burial.

I tried all summer to forget, to never remember that I didn’t tell him I loved him and that he was the best friend I could have ever asked for.

The wounds have received from his passing still have not fully healed.

Through his death I have learned to always so “I love you” too often. Because you never know when one day you’ll turn around and they’ll be gone. Every so often I look up to the sky and wonder if he is up there, watching. I wonder if he knows everything now, if he truly understands. I wonder if he hears me when I speak to him. I have to believe that he does, that he really is up there, somewhere. Because if I don't, then that means that there is nothing after. Than he is just laying there......Such thoughts are forbid in my mind.