A Decade Overnight

Okay true believers, it is time for a rest stop for your friend and humble narrator. From the beginning, I have told you that this was going to be an outlet for me. An outlet of emotions that if kept inside, would eat me alive. You have been privy to the rage, to the love of my wife, to the lack of tolerance of stupidity....but none of you have seen what is boiling inside of me as I write. I thought about not even writing this one because it is a side of me that I don't like to show. I know that a lot of you just began to pay more attention because of that last sentence. Not to be rude, but this blog is not for any of you...this one is for me.

I grew up in Upstate New York. Not Buffalo upstate, but upstate nonetheless. I moved to Hyde Park when I was 8 years old. I was in Mrs. Wager's third grade class. I moved in mid school year, so I was the new kid. I had one person that I knew from visiting my Aunt and Uncle over the years, but that was all. The day I walked in, I was befriended by a boy that would become close enough to me for me to call my brother. His name was Scott Oliver Coomes, and he was my best friend for the next 20 years. Scott and I did everything together, whether it were good or bad. We were on the same baseball teams growing up, the same football teams. Our parents considered each of us their "other child". As we grew older, Scott was the best man at my wedding, and I at his. My brother Bobo.

In 1991, I left Hyde Park to join the Navy. Scott wrote to me in Boot Camp, came to visit me in Connecticut, and then again when I was moved to Virginia. Scott had a daughter in 1992, her name was Jordan Marie Coomes. For those of you that can do the math, that means that she is 18 now. He brought her down with him the last time he visited me in January of 2000. She was 8 years old. My wife and I had just had our first son the month before, and Scott changed his diaper one time so that when he was older he could say, "hey, I remember when I changed your diaper"...a bit of an embarrassment point that any good Uncle wants to have in his arsenal.

Two months later, March 6th, 2000, I received an email from Scott's dad. I woke up early that morning to check my mail before work. The email just said "Call me as soon as you get this, no matter what time it is." Scott had been in trouble all the time...never anything serious, but in trouble. I figured that he had gotten arrested or something, but called Chris at 5 a.m. anyway. He answered the phone and I said, "what did he do now?" Chris told me to sit down. This is such a cliche statement, but I did it anyway. I said, "Okay, I am sitting, what did he do?" The next words to come out of his mouth buckled my knees. My brother, whom I had talked to not three days earlier, had killed himself. I couldn't speak, I couldn't walk, all I could do was cry. I tried to explain to my wife what had happened, but could barely get the words out. I do not believe that she had ever seen me in that state in all the time that I had known her. She had to call my bosses at work and explain to them why I was going to be late.

Over the next few days, I was in a daze. We drove to Hyde Park for the funeral. I don't know as I remember the drive there. The only thing I remember was being in the funeral home and seeing the closed casket with a picture of Bobo on an easel. We went to the cemetery behind Pete's Mobil on 9. As we stood there listening to the preacher, I looked across the cemetery and saw my father standing there. My father had left work that day to see the burial of his "other son".

I bring this topic up today because next week will mark 10 years that my brother has been gone. It seems like only yesterday that I received that email from Chris, hence the title A Decade Overnight. I have not forgotten him, nor will I ever. I see him everywhere. I see him in my dreams, I see him in his daughter (who through the grace of Facebook, I still have contact with), I see him every time that I watch a Yankee game. I do not believe in god, I do not believe that everyone dies for a reason, but I do believe that somehow Bobo is still with me in everything that I do. For all of my friends, I like you all very much. But my brother Scott...I loved him, and I miss him more and more every day. So here's to you Bobo...


- Salty Dog