This is a letter for three persons, who are all deceased. One was a friend. The other two would have been friends, of this I am certain.

Recently, I went through some boxes, packed away by my mother over 30 years ago. I’d moved away by then, the things in my bedroom becoming relics of a time that I was in a hurry to discard as I hurtled into adulthood. Like all parents, my parents kept the things I tucked away. Those scraps of paper, each one treated like treasure. The cards, and letters, high school programs, and other ephemera. I imagine my mother folding the old t-shirts from my high school, going through photos, vinyl 45 RPM’s and boxing everything up. Perhaps it was her way of putting that segment of my life away. Soon, she too would pass away. Ten years ago, after my father passed away, the boxes were sent to me. I put them into my garage, where they sat until just recently, when I decided to make some space. I opened the boxes, and stepped into my childhood.

Among the many photographs were two of my very best friend, Michelle Martin. I called her Shelley and we were friends at Webster Jr. High School in Stockton California. The first photo is her Jr. High ID card, given to me after she told me she was moving to Los Angeles. I must have asked her for a photo, and this is all she had. Today, I’m moved by her generosity -this keepsake from her days as a 13 year old, safely in my possession. Shelley was tall, she had light red hair, worn in a loose afro, and she was always stylishly dressed. Thin and limber, I remember she wore platform shoes, which along with her smile, made her stand head and heels above everyone else.

Shelley and I had a close friendship in the seventh grade. I can’t remember being friends with anyone else that year, and the next year without her, I remember feeling alone without her. But that year, we’d meet everyday for lunch, excited to see one another. We’d sit on the bench in front of the school, playing ‘King of the Bench,’ which consisted of both of us standing on it, trying to knock the other one off. It never, ever got rough of pushy, it was just, fun and a time filled with laughter. I sensed that Shelley had a life that was different from mine. She carried a purse with a wallet. She knew how to take a city bus, and had a bus pass, and she showed me a photo of her mother, a nurse, who looked just like the actress Diahann Carroll. I brought my lunch, but Shelley got to buy hers. I remember waiting in line with her, as she bought a school lunch, and she’d always have enough to buy a Good Humor bar. I have no idea what we talked about, but a year later, once she had moved away, I remember not having a friend like Shelley and no one to play “King of the Bench,” again.

The second photo that I have of her is when she’s in Los Angeles. She was even more beautiful and glamorous. In a time when there was a movie called “Mahogany,” my friend Shelley was looking very Diana Ross, very sophisticated, very Los Angeles. I, on the other hand, was a very typical 15 year old. I was gawky, self conscious, short and living not far from farms. We wrote long letters to one another, and from what I can remember, Shelley was going to be an actress. She had the presence and stature to do it, and I recall that her letters were thrilling, full of news about plays and writing them.

I saw her twice after she moved. Both times, during trips to Disneyland. Shelley and her mother would come visit us at our hotel. Once, Shelley even got to come into the park with us. We were both 16, but Shelley was worldly, as only a teenager can be. I deeply admired her, and she and her mother complimented my writing (I guess her mother read them). “You’re going to be a writer,” said her mother, to me. (Indeed, that’s exactly what I became).

The geographical distance between us made it easy to drift apart. I didn’t hear from her until after we’d both graduated from high school. It was a phone call from Shelley, telling me she’d had a baby, who was living with her grandmother, in town. In 1978, this was really big news. Teen age pregnancy wasn’t discussed. Girls who got pregnant were sent away to schools where they wouldn’t be seen. And now, my friend Shelley was reaching out. “Go see him,” I remember her telling me. (his name is being withheld).

I drove to her grandmother’s house, who was raising him. She already knew who I was. I saw him a few times, taking him for walks, even picking him up to take him to see my parents. Shelley wasn’t living there, as she was working elsewhere. But still, because this baby was hers meant that I would extend the same friendship to him. I never questioned where she was -this was her son, and that was enough for me.

I saw Shelley one more time, before I left for college, at her grandmother’s house. I remember hugging, and being excited, and yet she seemed so distant. In quit tones, Shelley detailed the rape that had taken place, resulting in her pregnancy. She told me other details as well, and with each one, I felt in my gut that what she had been through was bigger, and darker than anything I could imagine. Today, knowing more, I understand that this brutal violent act, traumatized her and drained away the hope and promise that had infused Shelley earlier. Today, I wonder how much it contributed to the tragedies that would follow her. But it was 1978. Not only did we not talk about teen pregnancy, but most regrettably, we didn’t talk about trauma, PTSD, or even know about generational trauma.

Time passed, and I was in college. I received one final phone call when I was around 21 or 22. I can remember the room I was in, that it was a rotary phone, and that she sounded ethereal, so faraway. Wisftful is a good word to describe how she sounded. She encouraged me, told me that she believed in me, and then her voice would drop off, and then come back. Soon, the talk turned to drugs and weed, and I realized my friend Shelley was high. Still, Shelley would always be my friend.
The only other thing that I can remember from that call is that I had a date waiting for me. I had to go.

I never heard from Shelley again.

Decades pass. Boxes get put into the garage. Last week, after I found the photos of Shelley, I looked for her online. The finality of life hit me, when I found her obituary. She died from complications of Crohn’s disease. I took note that she had three sons, and when I went looking for them, a tragedy opened before me.

In addition to the first son, she had twins.
But all I was to find of both of the twins were their obituaries. It was through one of them, and a note that had been left here on The Unsealed, that I read the full scope of tragedy that had befallen my friend. As a young adult, she developed paranoid schizophrenia and became a drug addict. When the twins were ten, she lost custody and was institutionalized.
But brightness wins, it always does, the sons went on to become high school and college football stars. They were stars in the way my friend Shelley could never become. But brightness and hopefulness is no match for the darkness that descended on them after her death.
One son committed suicide within 2 months of her death, and the other son took his life a year after his brother’s death.

It is hard for me to comprehend that all three are gone.
That there would be no one for me to send these pictures of her to, no one for me to hear my memories of her. No one that would know that Shelley’s friendship still carries loving heft with me today.
It was heartbreaking that in the mentions of her, all the world would ever know is what’s written about is her struggles with mental illness. I would have told her sons that her friend remembers the promise of Shelley. I remember when Shelley was the fresh rose of garden. Lastly, I remember when Shelley was King of the Bench, where, along with all of the brilliant stars shining above, she will always remain.

Michelle Martin, my friend, 1960-2018.
Josh Atkinson, 1993-2018
George Atkinson III 1993-2019
Dona Nobis Pacem