Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [103]
It was not until years later when I was in graduate school studying about grief that I fully understood my year with Poe. As odd as it must have looked for a young child to cozy up to Poe, no one in my family even noticed because everyone was so shattered by my father’s death. But once the year was over, I put my friend aside. He had taken me through a year of grieving.
Readers have said to me that they are startled and horrified at Rocky’s behavior after her husband’s death, particularly when she disposes of his ashes in such a spectacular, yet gruesome manner. Yes, Rocky is a bit over the top, but in dealing with grief there are infinite ways that people choose to make a statement to the dead. Her behavior tells us just how far off center she is blown. I have known people who wear their lover’s ashes in a vial hung around their neck. When my ex-husband was killed in a motorcycle accident while I was writing this book, I knew immediately what I had to do. I took a dear friend to a bar, ordered a shot of Jack Daniels and a cigar. I did not leave the bar until both the cigar and several more shots were consumed. These were potent symbols of my former spouse and I felt connected to him as I rolled the powerful smoke in my mouth and the Jack Daniels scorched my throat and belly.
What we believe about death determines how we live. Billy Collins, the former poet laureate of the United States, often warns students as they enter his poetry classes, “Welcome to the school of death.” Poets so often write about death and loss, and fiction writers are not far behind.
Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is widely taught as a lifesaving technique. Why do you present a case where it doesn’t work?
When I began to write about Rocky, I knew she would have her world shattered by the death of her young husband, and that she would feel betrayed when her iron-clad belief in CPR is ripped away from her. She completely believed that she possessed a skill that would save her husband.
My own experience with CPR made its way into the novel. I have known CPR since I was a lifeguard at age 23. I was never called on to perform CPR during my one summer as a lifeguard, despite working with handicapped and medically fragile people. It was not until years later when I had just started a job at a college in Massachusetts that my old training was tragically needed. As I walked up a flight of stairs in the student center, a man flew down the stairs and said, “There’s a guy in the men’s room who’s not breathing.” I ran into the men’s room and there was a young man wedged between the urinal and the corner of the room; his skin was already blue, his lips an alarming shade of purple. As soon as a student and I got him on the floor, I knelt next to his head and began CPR. I never hesitated for a second and part of me assumed he would be revived; he would open his eyes at any moment because we were going to save him through CPR. Within moments the head of the athletic club arrived and took over compressions, then the campus police arrived and all of us took turns doing everything we could to convince his heart to start. We were undaunted; we continued until the EMTs arrived with defibrillators. I imagined that we were breathing for him and squeezing his heart into action until the medical professionals could make his heart start for real. I believed that much in CPR. The young man never revived. I was devastated and so were all the people who tried to save him.
Less than a year later I was walking in a park with a friend and saw that a man had fallen on the asphalt and two women stood over him. Once again, the man was not breathing and the stubborn lifeguard in me responded. One of the women