The Scene

A Bittersweet Life

Pain is a part of being alive.
The question is, how do you deal with it?

DINA FUCHS
Special to the Jezvish News

grew up in a small town in
North Carolina, the kind of
place where everybody really
does know your name. It was a
comfortable place. A place where the
people who teased you in kinder-
garten became the people you were
infatuated with in high school.
Mike Penland was my first infatua-
tion.
In the eighth grade, his smile in
the hallway was enough to fuel me for
the rest of the day. He was the first
boy who made me want to look pret-
ty at school.
When he finally asked me to dance
at one of our cotillion balls, he held my
hand and led me slowly down the stairs
to the dance floor as Madonna's "Crazy
for You" drizzled softly from the speak-
ers. I still remember how it felt to have
the weight of his hand pressed gently
against the small of my back.
Years later, I moved away and lost
touch with Mike and many of my
childhood friends. I made new
friends, had other boyfriends, and
grew to dismiss many of the experi-
ences of my youth as "immature" and
misguided.
I didn't see my old friends very
much or speak to them very often. I
thought about them from time to
time and took comfort in the memo-
ries of my childhood, but did little to
reach out to the friends of my past.
A few weeks ago, I received a call
that Mike Penland had killed himself. -
Years had passed since I'd last seen
him, yet I was immediately moved to
tears. How could someone I once
knew so well, someone who still
seemed to have so much left to expe-
rience — he was only 28 — feel that
enough was enough?
Why was there no sign of this years
ago? What happened to the upbeat,
engaging guy I had grown up with —
the guy who played football and was
admired by so many?

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Dina Fuchs is on staff at the Atlanta
Jewish Times, sister publication of the
Detroit Jewish News.

And why was I only questioning
this now, when it was too late to find
the answers?
I still have photos of him from our
eighth-grade trip to Washington,
D.C.., displayed in my room at my
mother's house in Florida. Stuffed in
the back of my closet are bags full of
notes passed between me and my girl-
friends in school — many of which
I'm sure contain references to my
crush on Mike.
About five years ago, I ran into
him. I was working and he had seen
me while taking a tour of our office.
He looked exactly the same as he had
when we were kids, still handsome and
with a big grin on his face. We ended
up having lunch together, reminiscing
and catching up on each other's lives.
He was staying in town with relatives
for a while and I promised to stay in
touch with him. My intentions were
good, but I never called.
It is difficult for me to comprehend
how my friend could have reached a
point in his life where, for whatever
reason, he felt it was no longer worth
continuing. There is no way for me to
rewind the clock and let him know
that his life had made a difference in
mine, nor do I know if it would have
mattered to him. But the sadness I feel
that someone I once cared for could
feel so lost and alone is something I
hope never to feel again.
Mike is the second of two people I
grew up with to take his own life. I
cannot imagine that either of them
truly grasped the consequences of
their actions — that dying might end
their suffering, but that in the end,
they wouldn't be around to experience
life anymore. I have gone through
periods of my life where I have felt
alone and depressed, but never
enough to contemplate such final
measures. What could have been so
bad in my friends' lives that they
became so desperate?
Distanced from this horrible
news by a few weeks, I found some
solace in a book I just finished,
Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch,
Albom. The book chronicles the
friendship between an inspirational
professor from Brandeis Universip,