I Go Back....

This one was tough to write...so bare with me.

6 years ago today, I was playing in my senior year district golf tournament. I remember that day like it was yesterday…

I was late…as usual…to meet the rest of the team in front of the gym to head out to Beaumont. I remember pulling up thinking, “Crap, what a way to start today”. I got into the van expecting a lecture from Coach White (aka Mary) and was shocked when all she said was “Good Morning” in a way chipper tone and we pulled out of the parking lot. I was also expecting jokes from my teammates about me being late again, but everyone was silent. “Great,” I thought…”Everyone’s mad at me”. I had no idea how far from the truth I really was.

As soon as we got to the course Coach White was on my butt about staying off my phone. I didn’t think much of it since it was district and I really needed to focus but she said it about 100 more times and then watched me turn it off before we actually started play. “Danni, Do NOT turn on your phone today”, she told me right before I teed off. Again, I didn’t think much of it but was starting to get annoyed. Another strange thing is that my basketball coach, Coach Scales (Jackie), was also there and I remember seeing her and Mary talking off to the side in hushed voices before teeing off, “strange…” I thought but then we begin to play.

I played terrible that day. Drives weren’t straight, chips were short, and even my putting, which is the best part of my golf game was falling short of the hole nearly every time. I was in a HORRID mood come 14, I knew that I had most likely blow my chances of qualifying as an individual and once I heard the team wasn’t playing well either, I knew that Regionals was probably not going to happen for the first time in 3 years. As the end of the course got closer and closer I realized that Coach White and Coach Scales both were following me and not going to see any other players. “Why?!?! Just go away”, I remember thinking. "Why stay around and watch me crash and burn." So as I finished 18, I remember thinking all I wanted was a Dr. Pepper, some flaming hot Cheetos, and to be left alone, but as soon as I put my club in my bag, Coach White was right there with her cart telling me to get on and to not look at my phone. Now at this point I am becoming a little annoyed…”the tournaments over! Why the heck can I not look at my phone???” I realized my basketball coach was following behind us in her cart and we were driving into the parking lot. “Where are we going?” I asked Coach White. She told me were going to Coach Scales' car and didn’t say anything else. I had NO IDEA what was going on but I had a feeling it wasn’t good. They ask me to get in the car, my basketball coach took my hand and start getting choked up, my golf coach is in the back with her hand on my seat. I immediately ask “Is my family okay?” even though since my Dad was at the tournament also, I knew that he would have told me by then. “No, your family is fine…but…James Reeh committed suicide last night”.

-----WHITE NOISE-----

I blanked out, I didn’t know what to think, I couldn’t think. How, why, How could he do this to his family!?! A family who had loved him and tried to do their best for him even after his brother was killed running a red light less than 3 years before!! Why…(this is when the tears came). Why did he have to get mixed up into drugs?!? Why did he let them win?!? Why was he hanging out with these people that weren’t looking out for his best interests?? Why didn’t I reach out to him the past month? Why did I cut him out because he was making bad choices? Why? Why? I couldn’t think anymore…so I cried and cried and cried some more. I realized that the whole day everyone had been making sure that I didn’t find out, starting with me being late that morning...

James Wesley Reeh was a boy I met my freshman year of high school, he was the new funny kid and I, like every other person in school, was drawn to his “happy go lucky” attitude and his infectious laugh. Over the years of high school we got to be very close, actually dating for two weeks at one point, but let’s be honest it was high school, so it didn’t mean a thing. We grew close during the time when his brother was killed in a car crash. I remember during the wake for his brother we snuck out of the palor  and hid in some janitorial room because he said he needed a break from “being comforted.” I remember sitting in there for about 30 minutes just talking about basketball, Pat Green, and his brother. I’ll never forget that… We called each other “my twin” because my birthday was August 28^th and his was August 29^th. The only catch is he was born a year earlier, haha. We even had a dollar that we split in half and wrote each other a note on that we kept in our wallets/purses. I still have mine….

The last year of James’ life he began to change. I believe a lot of it had to deal with the depression over losing his brother. He once said in a classroom that last year, if he could do anything, anything in the world, it would be see his brother again. He missed his greatly. He was also struggling with school and for some stupid reason had decided to start doing some drugs. He started hanging out with a different crowd and his parents took him out of Bridge City High School. I remember getting into it with him about his new life choices and also he wasn’t a fan of my current boyfriend so he would always have snarky things to say about that. We would still text but I saw him less and less. And then it was the week before prom when everything changed and he was gone…

I remember the first time I went home during college…I knew that I wanted to go by the cemetery. As I’m on my way “How to Save a Life” by the Fray came on and I remember tears falling down my face. When I finally made it out of my car, I remember sitting there talking to him and then getting angry. I was angry he chose to leave this life because things got hard, I was angry he chose to take his own life and make his parents have to see it all, I was angry that he chose to go down a path that we talked about 100 times and how stupid we thought people who did drugs were. I was yelling a tombstone and I’m pretty sure the nice couple a few 100 yards away though I was Looney. I finally ended up sitting on the grown singing “Ever clear” by Roger Creager because James used to get so mad when people would say Pat Green sang Ever clear. Then I just sat, and I sat there for a good thirty minutes just thinking, and praying.  

Even though it’s been 6 years, I think about him all the time. I have dreams about him at least once every 3 months. There always so vivid, the dreams that are vivid enough that when you wake up you actually have to convince yourself it isn’t real. I hear “How to save a Life” by the Fray and I cry, I hear “Who you’d be today” by Kenny Chesney and I cry, I hear “Ever clear” by Roger Creager and I laugh. But every time I hear “I go back”, no matter what I’m doing, I nearly always stop and it’s like time stands still, and I really do go back to when he was here. We talked a lot about that song because he lost his brother when he was 16 and there is a line in the song that says “I go back to the loss of a real good friend, and the 16 summers I shared with him, now only the good die young, stops me in my tracks”. We listen to it a lot that summer before he left us. And I treasure every minute I had with him. He was an amazing soul who lived life out loud and to the fullest. I miss him so much and wish so badly that he wouldn’t have made that terrible choice to take his own life on his brother’s birthday 6 years ago…

Rest in Piece James Wesley Reeh.

Love, Your twin.

"Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life"