Jamie Gilbert, if you're out there, please post
This story is sad. I have warned you (mostly my wife); it is not likely to make you feel good in any way.
In third grade, a kid joined my cub scout group named Jamie Gilbert. I remember because he was always Jamie Gilbert as opposed to one of the other kids in our "den" named Jamie Clarke. Jamie Gilbert had asthma, and since I also had asthma, I felt that this was reason enough for us to become good friends.
The thing is, though, I didn't really have asthma. I simply had allergies, but since Kaiser wasn't willing to pay for me to take expensive allergy medicine year round, they waited until I was unable to breathe and then they diagnosed asthma. The moral to this story, and to many other stories, is that Kaiser sucks and that its doctors are about as capable of offering a diagnosis as, say, Dr. Doom.
But Jamie Gilbert did, in fact, have asthma. He missed whole weeks of school where he was in the hospital. Most of my third grade art time was devoted to making large get well cards for Jamie Gilbert. When he would show up to class, it was like seeing an old friend back from a trip around the world. He dropped in like a special guest star.
Nobody ever talked about why Jamie had this problem. In this day and age, it could have been any number of reasons: accident of birth, crack baby, mom smoked. Who knows? But one thing is true, the best friend of an eight year old is a beast at the whim of prepubescant fickleness. When school was out, we went about our lives in that adolescent summer running, camping, playing Dungeons and Dragons, visiting the rope swing in the creek next to my house. And, as Jamie was not a part of that world, he faded from memory, so that next year, when he wasn't there, nobody even mentioned him.
It wasn't until I was an adult, years later, that I began to wonder about that. I mean, whatever happenned to him. Maybe he moved. Kids move. He was in the hospital so much that there was no one to report immediately on his absense to say, "hey, Jamie Gilbert's moving." So, maybe he moved.
In the movies, parents tell their children when their little friends die. This is normally how the little girl or boy takes their first step into the sorrows of the world that breed poets. But, what really happens off the silver screen? What happens when nobody knows the parents well enough to find out about their catastrophe? What if the child just isn't on the books at school any more? Does the principal call the house to see what's going on? If they find out something horrible, do they get on the intercom, or do they let the dead child fade into obscurity, knowing full well that since the children won't ask questions, there's no reason to traumatize them?
I'm sure that, right now, Jamie Gilbert is in Kansas City or some shit, working in I.T. or web design. He probably has told his wife that, when he was young, he had really bad asthma that was so bad that his family had to move out of Diablo valley for his health. That's what I've decided I'm going to believe.
In third grade, a kid joined my cub scout group named Jamie Gilbert. I remember because he was always Jamie Gilbert as opposed to one of the other kids in our "den" named Jamie Clarke. Jamie Gilbert had asthma, and since I also had asthma, I felt that this was reason enough for us to become good friends.
The thing is, though, I didn't really have asthma. I simply had allergies, but since Kaiser wasn't willing to pay for me to take expensive allergy medicine year round, they waited until I was unable to breathe and then they diagnosed asthma. The moral to this story, and to many other stories, is that Kaiser sucks and that its doctors are about as capable of offering a diagnosis as, say, Dr. Doom.
But Jamie Gilbert did, in fact, have asthma. He missed whole weeks of school where he was in the hospital. Most of my third grade art time was devoted to making large get well cards for Jamie Gilbert. When he would show up to class, it was like seeing an old friend back from a trip around the world. He dropped in like a special guest star.
Nobody ever talked about why Jamie had this problem. In this day and age, it could have been any number of reasons: accident of birth, crack baby, mom smoked. Who knows? But one thing is true, the best friend of an eight year old is a beast at the whim of prepubescant fickleness. When school was out, we went about our lives in that adolescent summer running, camping, playing Dungeons and Dragons, visiting the rope swing in the creek next to my house. And, as Jamie was not a part of that world, he faded from memory, so that next year, when he wasn't there, nobody even mentioned him.
It wasn't until I was an adult, years later, that I began to wonder about that. I mean, whatever happenned to him. Maybe he moved. Kids move. He was in the hospital so much that there was no one to report immediately on his absense to say, "hey, Jamie Gilbert's moving." So, maybe he moved.
In the movies, parents tell their children when their little friends die. This is normally how the little girl or boy takes their first step into the sorrows of the world that breed poets. But, what really happens off the silver screen? What happens when nobody knows the parents well enough to find out about their catastrophe? What if the child just isn't on the books at school any more? Does the principal call the house to see what's going on? If they find out something horrible, do they get on the intercom, or do they let the dead child fade into obscurity, knowing full well that since the children won't ask questions, there's no reason to traumatize them?
I'm sure that, right now, Jamie Gilbert is in Kansas City or some shit, working in I.T. or web design. He probably has told his wife that, when he was young, he had really bad asthma that was so bad that his family had to move out of Diablo valley for his health. That's what I've decided I'm going to believe.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
2:27 PM
4 Comments:
Just FYI- I'd advise you don't see or read Bridge to Terebithia.
We had a kid or two who died, come to think of it. One was a kid fascinated with science. He was found one morning in his room with a plastic bag over his head and a stopwatch in his hand. Kind of put a damper on things.
Chances are, though, your final guess about Jamie is spot-on. I think a lot of kids outgrow these so-called chronic illnesses of youth. There's a kid two doors down who went on a Make-a-Wish Foundation vacation a year or two ago. She's got some kind of auto-immunie disorder. But, she seems to be growing out of it. Kids ARE rather fragile, but if they make it through (which most do), they become strong, normal adults.
Every year in high school we lost a classmate. We always found out about it. Younger than that? There was the girl who died years after complications stemming from a pool filter, but that's all I can remember. I do not intend to see Bridge to Terebithia.
We had some kids who were children of miners or some other type of nomad. They'd be there for a year, then gone. Still, since it was a tiny town, every new arrival was novel. Somebody would usually try to be friends with the new kid, unless they were completely socially inept. But as for kids dying... don't recall. High school kids died about once every couple of years from drunk driving. There may have been some sickly kids in elementary school who passed away, but if so, I don't remember it.
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