Wednesday – Felicia (Part 1 of 3)
Feb. 3rd, 2010 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
We were sitting at the picnic table in Sandy’s yard pouring over the high-school yearbooks she had brought out, looking for ourselves and one another and commenting about which of us looked the same and who looked completely different.
“There’s Felicia Handy,” Sandy said softly as she pointed to a picture, and the group of us fell silent. She must have been looking at the yearbook from our freshmen year because that was the only yearbook that had Felicia’s picture in it. She shot herself just before our sophomore yearbooks went to press and the powers that be pulled her picture so that when the yearbook came out a few weeks later there was no sign she had ever attended school there. I thought this unfair; if she’d moved away in the middle of the spring semester, they would have left her photo alone. But the nature of Felicia’s demise had the adults panicking that it might give the rest of us ideas about taking the easy way out, and so they thought it best to remove her picture and hope we’d all forget about her.
It didn’t work. I could tell from the way everyone froze and the sharp intakes of breath around that picnic table 25 years later that every last one of was still haunted our memories of her.
”I was there,” Sandy said, and by the look on her face I could tell that part of her was still there, reliving that day.
“In the house?” Kelley asked, amazed. The rumor mill had worked overtime in the weeks after Felicia died, but no one had heard one about anyone being in the house with Felicia.
“No, I lived across the street. I remember all the police cars coming after her parents came home, and her parents standing in the yard. I watched them carry her body out.”
“She used her dad’s gun to shoot herself in the heart,” Kelley said, “Her dad was a cop.”
I first heard about Felicia at the beginning of second period the morning after it happened, before the principal made the announcement over the PA. A boy who lived on her street announced what had happened.
“Felicia Handy shot herself last night,” he whispered, “You should have seen all the cop cars. There were a ton of them.” He could tell by the looks on our faces that none of us believed him, and the idea of being the first to deliver this scoop seemed to please him.
“No way.”
“Yes, way.”
“Felicia Handy?”
“Yup.”
Felicia was an honor student, a girl who seemed to make straight A’s without even trying. She was quiet and sweet, with a smile that made her whole face light up when she flashed it at you. Her voice was gentle and clear, louder than a whisper but softer than most people talk. I never heard her say an unkind word to anyone. If you looked sad, Felicia was the kind of girl who asked what was wrong. If she caught your eye in the hall, she gave you that wonderful smile of hers. A quarter century after her death, I can still see that smile when I imagine her face. It was unforgettable.
That’s part of what made her death so unbelievable. She was not mopey or depressed that anyone could see. She was quiet and studious, but always cheerful. She certainly wasn’t the kind of girl who anyone could imagine coming home from school, locking herself in her parent’s bedroom, and shooting herself in the heart.
A few minutes after my second-period art class heard the news from a classmate who lived a few houses down from her, our principal announced Felicia’s passing over the PA after he'd finished reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and asked for a moment of silence. Counselors would be available to those students who needed them. No mention was made that her death was a suicide. The rumor mill took care of that. Two and a half decades later, that rumor mill is still grinding. Nobody likes unanswered questions: they leave a void in our collective consciousness, and we fill that void with whatever answers we can find or make up. If we have facts, we devour them. If we don't, we use assumptions to create what at least feels like it should be true, even if it's not. Just so there is something to fill that nothingness inside.
Because unanswered questions make us terribly uncomfortable -- especially when a dead 15-year-old girl is lying in the center of them.
To be continued
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
We were sitting at the picnic table in Sandy’s yard pouring over the high-school yearbooks she had brought out, looking for ourselves and one another and commenting about which of us looked the same and who looked completely different.
“There’s Felicia Handy,” Sandy said softly as she pointed to a picture, and the group of us fell silent. She must have been looking at the yearbook from our freshmen year because that was the only yearbook that had Felicia’s picture in it. She shot herself just before our sophomore yearbooks went to press and the powers that be pulled her picture so that when the yearbook came out a few weeks later there was no sign she had ever attended school there. I thought this unfair; if she’d moved away in the middle of the spring semester, they would have left her photo alone. But the nature of Felicia’s demise had the adults panicking that it might give the rest of us ideas about taking the easy way out, and so they thought it best to remove her picture and hope we’d all forget about her.
It didn’t work. I could tell from the way everyone froze and the sharp intakes of breath around that picnic table 25 years later that every last one of was still haunted our memories of her.
”I was there,” Sandy said, and by the look on her face I could tell that part of her was still there, reliving that day.
“In the house?” Kelley asked, amazed. The rumor mill had worked overtime in the weeks after Felicia died, but no one had heard one about anyone being in the house with Felicia.
“No, I lived across the street. I remember all the police cars coming after her parents came home, and her parents standing in the yard. I watched them carry her body out.”
“She used her dad’s gun to shoot herself in the heart,” Kelley said, “Her dad was a cop.”
I first heard about Felicia at the beginning of second period the morning after it happened, before the principal made the announcement over the PA. A boy who lived on her street announced what had happened.
“Felicia Handy shot herself last night,” he whispered, “You should have seen all the cop cars. There were a ton of them.” He could tell by the looks on our faces that none of us believed him, and the idea of being the first to deliver this scoop seemed to please him.
“No way.”
“Yes, way.”
“Felicia Handy?”
“Yup.”
Felicia was an honor student, a girl who seemed to make straight A’s without even trying. She was quiet and sweet, with a smile that made her whole face light up when she flashed it at you. Her voice was gentle and clear, louder than a whisper but softer than most people talk. I never heard her say an unkind word to anyone. If you looked sad, Felicia was the kind of girl who asked what was wrong. If she caught your eye in the hall, she gave you that wonderful smile of hers. A quarter century after her death, I can still see that smile when I imagine her face. It was unforgettable.
That’s part of what made her death so unbelievable. She was not mopey or depressed that anyone could see. She was quiet and studious, but always cheerful. She certainly wasn’t the kind of girl who anyone could imagine coming home from school, locking herself in her parent’s bedroom, and shooting herself in the heart.
A few minutes after my second-period art class heard the news from a classmate who lived a few houses down from her, our principal announced Felicia’s passing over the PA after he'd finished reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and asked for a moment of silence. Counselors would be available to those students who needed them. No mention was made that her death was a suicide. The rumor mill took care of that. Two and a half decades later, that rumor mill is still grinding. Nobody likes unanswered questions: they leave a void in our collective consciousness, and we fill that void with whatever answers we can find or make up. If we have facts, we devour them. If we don't, we use assumptions to create what at least feels like it should be true, even if it's not. Just so there is something to fill that nothingness inside.
Because unanswered questions make us terribly uncomfortable -- especially when a dead 15-year-old girl is lying in the center of them.
To be continued
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-02-04 06:47 pm (UTC)We are trying to get her to see a doctor, because that sounds like the depths of depression to us!!!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 03:16 pm (UTC)