Christopher Bachmann Alienated Hero Mr. Kovarik Memoir
May 14, 2010
David It was a warm and sunny spring day when I learned that my mother was pregnant. We were waiting for my sister to get out of her second grade class at Immaculate Conception, and my mom had me sit in the front seat of the red Geo Safari next to her when she told me. For some reason it hadn’t clicked that something was going to happen when I had seen my mom buy a book of baby names a few weeks earlier. I was an oblivious seven year old at the time and the only thing on my mind was whether or not my mom would let me play on the playground when we waited for Katie, my sister, to come to the van. When my mom had told me, I wasn’t as surprised as some people would be when they learn they are going to have another younger brother; and from what I recall, I think I just said, “Really? Okay!” then I promptly asked to go play on the playground. As I left the van, I remember thinking about how neat it would be to have another little brother. Patrick, my only younger brother at the time, was three years old, and wasn’t much company. It’s hard to explain, but for some reason, I just thought that my new younger brother and I were going to be best friends the minute he came home. It didn’t occur to me that he had to grow up. I don’t understand why I thought these things, but I was just excited about having a play mate. When I played on the playground, Katie finally came out from school and when she was still really far away, I yelled across to her, “KATIE! MOM’S GOING TO HAVE A BABY!” “Nuh Uh,” she replied in the snobbish way that older sisters’ do. She and I didn’t get on well, and it wasn’t until we
were both in our late teens that we actually bonded, and eventually became best friends. She didn’t believe me when I had told her, so we went back to the car, and my mom told her, and of course, only then did she believe it. My mom was talking to a friend from the car window, and while she talked, I took the book of baby names from her and tried to page through it. I could hardly read, but I proceeded looking through, and I came across a few doggy eared pages. “These must be the names she likes,” I thought quietly to myself in the backseat. I remember that my name wasn’t book marked, and a little relief swept through me. I was glad she wasn’t going to reuse my name. It was mine, I thought, and I would have been upset if I had had to share it. Eventually, my mom finished talking, and I buckled up into my blue car seat, and we went home. I don’t remember much but a few incidences from the next few months that followed. Summer came, and I remember the day a group of ladies brought my mom a small TV to watch while she was on bed rest. I had learned by this time that my mom was going to have twins! It completely boggled my mind that she was carrying two babies in her belly. I couldn’t comprehend it and the ultrasounds confused me even more. How was there room for them in there? How were they eating? My mind raced with questions of an ignorant seven year old. My mom would try to explain some things in terms I would understand, but nothing made sense to me. It must have been hard to try to explain things like that to a seven year old. Eventually, my mom told me that one of the twins in her belly was sick. She didn’t tell me what exactly was wrong, but I just figured it implied that the baby would get better, so I never really thought twice about it. That probably sounds bad, but put yourself in the perspective of someone my age at the time. You don’t
have any worries or cares at that age. All you are concerned with is your toys and snacks; your mindset is pretty self-centered. I never would realize until later in my life just how tough it was for my mother to tell me that one of her babies was just “sick” when really, things were much worse than “sick.” My younger brother wasn’t going to live. That fall, I started first grade at Immaculate Conception. It was my first school experience because the year before, my mom had home-schooled me and I was so excited. I loved it, and made so many new friends and met so many new people. At first, it felt scary to start school, but everyone was so nice to me. While I was having the time of my life in school, it got nearer and nearer to the time when the babies were supposed to be born, which was an exciting event that I was looking forward to. Now, looking back on it, I feel so horrible with myself because while I was happy and ecstatic, my mom was in pain. Not just the physical pain that comes with being a pregnant woman, but the mental pains of knowing that one of your twins is going to leave you. One night, I was in my bed, and I woke up to get a drink or go to the bathroom and I heard a noise. I had never heard it before, so I went to go find out what the noise was coming from my parent’s room. I crawled up to the closed door and pressed my ears to the cold hard wood of the door and listened. It took me a second to realize that it was my mother. She was bawling, and moaning in pain. I had no idea what to do, so I just froze. I sat there for an hour just listening with my ear to the door, rooted to the spot. It’s my first memory I have of ever hearing someone in pain. Eventually it stopped, and I figured she was fine so I went back to bed. I’ll never forget her crying. It echoes in my mind like some ghost of horrific pain. I still wasn’t aware of what was going to happen, so I just figured she was sick or something. Years later, we would talk about this whole experience together, and
my mom told me that that wasn’t the only time she cried herself to sleep during her pregnancy. I’ve never told her about the time I crawled up to the door and listened until I let her read this, and I don’t know why I never had. If I could offer some explanation or insight, I would, but I can’t describe the isolation I felt, laying on the ground outside my parent’s door. What is a seven year old supposed to do when they don’t even know what’s wrong, and when they’ve never heard such anguish. How does one react to that and explain the thoughts in their head? It was September (the month the babies were due), and people kept bringing more and more stuff to our house like food, or presents for the babies or my mom. Of course, I got jealous with all the attention being focused on them, and I didn’t really know what to do. I had no one to play with, no one to turn to or help me deal with the anger and frustration I felt. I know that sounds selfish, but again, I was seven…what do you expect? I felt so alone when I was at home. My mom had been my best good buddy the year earlier when she home schooled me, but now, she never had time to spend with me, and when she did, I knew she was exhausted and I didn’t want to bother her. I know she wanted to give me the attention I sought, but I understand now that she couldn’t at all times. Looking back, I can’t believe how difficult this must have been for mom, and that’s why I think her friends brought her all those things. I believe they did so because they didn’t know what to say or do when around my mom. What do you say to someone who is going to lose a child, and there is nothing that can be done. “Oh, I’m sorry,” or, “Things will turn out just great,” weren’t appropriate responses to my mother’s agony. Now, being 18 as I write this, I recall my grandpa Jim’s death, and my Grandma Florence’s death, and how during those times, people had brought us food and flowers
and other trivial items just as people had before, during my mother’s pregnancy. Nobody knows what to do or say when these things happen. I just figured people were being really nice because my mom was pregnant, but these weren’t gifts of happiness and love, they were gifts of condolence, and sorrow for a loss that was inescapable. The days before my Mom went into labor, Patrick and I stayed over at my mom’s friend’s house, while my older brother, Kevin, being 15 at the time, stayed home with Katie. Kim Fischer, my mom’s friend, had the coolest house. She had a dear head mounted on her wall, and I thought that was the neatest thing I had ever seen in my life. She gave us her son’s old action figures and GI-Joes to play with and Patrick and I had such a fun time while we were there. Ms. Kim treated us so kindly and I’ll never forget the hugs she would give us, even if we did something bad, (which was constant seeing as Patrick and I both have ADD). She was never upset with anything we would do, and she gave us so much attention. Her husband, Mark, was a truck driver, and he would let me crawl around the cabs of his multiple 18 wheelers that he owned, and he would let me play in their trailer and walk through their woods. I had never experienced such kindness from people who weren’t in my family, and I couldn’t figure out why they were so kind to us. They must have felt sorry for Patrick and me; these two ignorant little boys, playing carelessly, while their mother is about to go into labor. How sad it must have been for them to witness me and him play, not realizing the pain that was in store. A little while later, I don’t even know if this is an accurate memory, but I remember my dad told me what was wrong with David, my sick brother in my mom’s womb. I found out that David had “anencephaly,” which is an extremely rare neural birth defect where the top half of the nervous system and spinal cord doesn’t form. David was
going to be born with only half of his brain and skull developed and he wasn’t going to make it. Years later, after reading and researching, and spending hours and hours trying to see if there was anything the Doctors could have done, I always came across the fact that this disease had a 0% chance of survival. Even if the baby survived the birth, it still wouldn’t live for more than a day. Nothing could have been done. It just didn’t register that I was going to lose my little brother. I wasn’t devastated at the time, and it didn’t scare me as it would today. Even today, every now and then, I’ll be awake at night, or on the computer, and I’ll just read about this birth defect and try to wrap my head around why it happened. I’ll lay awake in my bed for hours on end, even until the sun rises trying to work this out. I’ve dealt with it, but there is nothing that makes you doubt the existence of not just God, but just happiness in general, like the death of a child. On September 29th, 1998, around 12:00 at night, Kim woke me up from the bottom bunk of the black futon bunk bed where I was surrounded by stuffed animals. “You’re mom’s having the babies!” she said quietly in the dark. I got my clothes on and heard her wake Patrick up. I fell asleep on the way there, and when I woke up, I was in a hospital room, with all of my relatives. My mom was on the bed, and she looked more exhausted than I had ever seen her in my life, but she had a smile on her face. She was holding her two baby boys in her arms, Dominic and David, The Bachmann twins. I was so tired, but so happy to see my two younger brothers. My mom asked me if I wanted to hold Dominic, and I said I wanted to. I sat on a chair, staring into his face, and that’s when I realized what was going to happen. I hugged Dominic, and asked if I could hold David. As my dad brought him over to me, he asked if I wanted to see him without his little red hat on, and part of me did, and part of me didn’t. I paused for a minute and said
yes. I will never forget what I saw. I cannot describe it, or what it felt like, or what went through my mind. I think my dad saw my pain, and he put his red hat back on, and he let me hold him. I sat in the big chair again, holding David, staring into his face and taking in every feature to the point that even today, his face is imprinted in my mind. I never wanted to let him go. He was alive, and I could feel the warmth of him, I could smell the freshness of his new, little body. I looked at his little hands and his little feet, and his little face. I don’t know if David ever officially opened his eyes widely, but I’m convinced, and my dad is convinced, that he was peaking up at us through the little open slits, just barely exposing his beautiful little blue eyes. Part of me will always believe that he felt me there, and that he saw me, and he knew that I loved him. David only lived for 16 hours, and the next day, when I came back, he was no longer with us. I got to hold him one last time, and I will never forget it. That’s another minute I will never ever be able to describe. How do you put what you feel as you are clinging to your deceased brother into words? I went back to home, and a day or so later, was the funeral. I got dressed in a nice little suit, and I had just gotten these new blue sunglasses that I thought were the absolute coolest things ever. I kept them in my pocket, but only put them on once, later, when I was crying. Psychologist talk about blocking out your worst memories, or repression, and some people don’t think it’s a real thing, but it is a very real thing. I remember walking into the church, up to the open casket that my dad and some men from church had handmade for David. I said goodbye, and my dad lifted me up and I gave David my very special red comb, and the change I had in my pocket. Later, someone asked me why I put those things in there, and I remember saying, “In case he needs to comb his hair or if he needs some money in heaven.” I kissed his
cheek…his cold hard cheek, of which I will never forget the feeling of…and I said goodbye. I remember nothing after that of the funeral mass, and this is why I think repression is real. I talked to my mother the night before I finished writing this paper, and she says that it might not be repression. She says it might just be that saying goodbye had just been so emotional for me, that I forgot the time after. I asked her about the funeral, and she told me that the church was completely full, and that the music was beautiful, but she said that when they closed the casket, I took it the hardest. I have no recollection of it, but apparently, I was crying non stop. My mom says she thinks that when they closed the casket, I realized I would never see him again, and that’s why it was so hard for me. After the funeral mass, I remember walking through the cemetery towards David’s burial sight. There was a soccer game going on, and as we processed down through the cemetery, everyone on the soccer field stopped playing and knelt down. We approached the big hole in the ground, and sat in white chairs underneath a blue tent. Then, in a flash, it seems, we were walking back towards the church. I must have either fallen asleep, or repressed it. There was a luncheon that followed after-words, and then we went home. As we pulled up to our house, there were two gigantic cardboard cutouts of blue storks with babies in pouches being carried, one saying “Dominic” and the other saying “David.” It was garage sale season, and some neighbors where having their garage sales. I felt numb inside as I went home. How can people go about their lives like normal when my brother was gone? When I returned to school the next day, my first grade teacher, Mrs. Wyzinski, in front of the entire class gave me a big hug and said, “Why don’t you tell the class the
good news?” I don’t think she meant to put me in an awkward situation, but she did. What was I going to say? I know she knew what had happened to David. Was she expecting me to disregard David completely and just say, “Oh, my mom had a baby, and his name is Dominic.” I ended up telling the class that my mom had given birth to twins, but David had died. My classmates asked me how he had died, and all I could sputter out was that he had been born without the top half of his head. It was at that moment that I felt more alone than I ever have. Not one of the kids in that room could possibly understand the hell that I had just gone through. None of them knew what toll this had taken on my life, and none of them knew that it would eventually lead me to be diagnosed with depression, and having to be medicated for it. Even today, I still feel alone, and depressed when I think about David. I hate that I feel so alone, and I desperately wish that I had discovered that there was someone who would understand how he is still constantly in the back of my mind, and how he has been gone for over 11 years. I’m so afraid that I’ll forget him, and I’m scared to open up to anyone about this because I’m afraid they won’t understand me. I never talked about David with anyone until September 29th, 2008. It was Dominic and David’s tenth birthday. Seeing as I live in Belleville now, whenever I’m in O’Fallon, Missouri, I always go and visit David, and I just happened to be out there on their birthday this year. As I sat in front of his grave, it hit me that he had been gone for an entire decade. At that minute, a cold autumn chill blew through the wind, and the trees swayed, and the church bell rang, and a butterfly flew in front of my face and landed on his grave. I’m so sure that it was him there, telling me that he was okay. Still, I went home, and for the first time in a decade, I really cried about it, and I talked to my mom
about it. My Mom is the strongest person I know because she had to go through such torment, and I think she has helped me get through this the most since that day. I think I had kind of avoided the thought of David being missing from my life until it had slapped me in the face that day in the cemetery, and my mom was the only person who I’d ever opened up to about it. For the first time in my life, I felt that someone understood what I had gone through, and what I was going through. A few weeks before the end of senior year, I visited David’s grave again. I had just driven for an hour and a half, drinking Dr. Pepper the entire time, so when I got to him, I stood there in front of his grave for awhile, having to go to the bathroom. After 10 minutes, I stood up and said to David, “You know, this visit would be a lot more meaningful if I didn’t have to take a piss right now.” and at that moment, in the distance outside of the church, I heard someone laugh. It was like David was there, laughing. It’s moments like these where the separation I felt on that day in first grade just disappear. I know he’s still here, listening and interacting with us, even in the most obscure little way. My mom has always said that God has a sense of humor, and it is the times like that when I truly agree with her. On the last night that I was writing this, I went into my mom’s room, and started to cry, for the first time since their birthday that year. At first she just asked what was wrong, though I know she knew what the problem was. The only thing I ever have cried about in front of her and talked to her about is David. She said nothing else, and just hugged me. Then, I asked her to tell me about it, and what it had been like for her, and it was just heart wrenching. I thought that I had felt isolated and alone, but her story is unbelievable. She knows the true depths of despair and depression I felt, and she is the
only person I’ve known who can talk about it in a way that makes me feel understood. She helps bring me back into the world where I don’t feel numb when I think about David. On David’s gravestone, it says, “Be still and behold the awesome works of God.” My mom and dad chose these words because of how lucky my family was to have been graced with the sixteen precious hours with David. Today, thinking about it, I’m much more at peace with him being gone for over eleven years now, but I still feel loneliness when I think about David. I still sometimes feel like no one outside of my family, not one of my regular friends, my girlfriend, or even some of my best friends can understand what I went through. Whenever I think about David, I tend to go off in my own little corner, and I don’t talk or express the pain I’m in because no one can understand it. I’ve never meet anyone who’s been through the same thing I have, and I’m truly happy that no one else had to endure it. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to have people in your life who have experienced these things, like my family, because they help you get through things like this, even if it takes you your entire life.