Attention!!
Desire for perfection
ends with victim's death
Tonight my friend died. She
is very close to me. I sometimes
felt that I live for her. In her
eyes and in her smile there is
comfort and warmth. I love
her. Everyone loves her. Carrie
is gentle. She gives more of
herself to others than she gives
to herself. She lives in a world
where she doesn’t belong.
Carrie is grace and solace
among commonplaceness and
disgrace. She is a princess
dressed in rags.
Death is so swift. For a
moment all is fine. Your life is
working. The next moment, it’s
chaos. Nothing works
anymore. Life breaks. Upon
Carrie’s death, I hope for mine.
Upon Carrie’s death, I hate life.
I hate this school. I hate
everyone and everything. This
world is such a stupid place to
live anyway. We’re bom to die.
Why does one harmless gentle
woman die while murderers,
rapists and robbers live? To the
world she gave, why was she
taken? I hate God. He made a
mistake. Please bring her back.
Take me instead. Carrie, please
come back.
1 look at a photograph of
Carrie. I can’t believe she is
gone. I’ve tried to imagine her
corpse on a hospital table. I
think of her bluish skin and her
limp body. I try to imagine her
joints hardening and her whole
body stiff and rigid. I try to
imagine her smile fading slowly
as her flesh rots away, dries up
and falls off, exposing only
skeleton. Carrie, inside a casket
and beneath my feet? I turn
and look at her photograph.
Death doesn’t make sense. I
can’t see her dead body. I want
to see it. Because she is in
South Carolina and I am in
Texas, I can’t touch her either.
If I could, I would kiss her once
more. If I could, I would hold
her once more. If I could, I
would love her once more.
Death cannot steal the sweet
mist that blows from her lips.
Death cannot steal the grace in
her body. Death cannot steal
the warmth in her eyes. Carrie
defies death. She is tough.
Maybe everything is a mistake?
I’m dreaming. I will talk to
Carrie tomorrow. I miss and
love her much. There’s nothing
I wouldn’t do for her. I will
sleep.
I wake early in the morning
just as the world begins again. I
hear the singing of one bird.
Silence surrounds its song. And
through the quiet loneliness of
the morning it continues to
sing.
I pray that I dreamt the
whole night. Yet I turn to my
side and see her crumpled
photograph and letter that slept
with me through the night. She
is beautiful. I stand up and see
my desk with this letter on it. It
asks me to finish, so I will.
Carrie was 23 years old and
bulimic. She had been bulimic
for seven years. She was
tough. She could take a lot of
hell. She lived life without
much support from the home
front. She was a tough woman
who could weather through the
bad times, stay level-headed
during the good times and
keep on loving. She was a
strong woman. She wanted to
be an engineer. But her bulimia
was more than she or anyone
could handle. It ruled her like
alcohol rules an alcoholic. She
was tangled in perfectionism.
She tried to please everyone
but herself. In our last
conversation she said that once
she’s perfect, we’d hammer out
a life together. It’s funny
though, because to me she was
and will always be, forever,
perfect. But now she is dead
and there’s no life for us to
start. Perfect as it was and
could have been, it’s gone. It
feels so bad. I want to quit. I
want to be perfect and with
Carrie.
1 tried to help her. I have a
lot of books and tapes on
bulimia for her. Now you can
have them. Free. I’ll give you
what I have and all I can if you
are bulimic. All you have to do
is ask. But please, stop killing
yourself. You might succeed.
But what you might not realize
is that when you are killing
yourself, you are killing small
pieces of others too. When
Carrie hurt, a lot of other pieces
of other people hurt. When
Carrie died, a lot of other
peices of other people died. I
have a hole in my soul now. It
will never be filled. Perhaps 1
will patch it with guilt, sorrow
and pain, but it will never be
filled. Always a hole. So, you,
STOP! Just ask. Lots of people
want to help you get started.
Please don’t quit. It’s terribly
painful.
This week’s Attention!!
column was written by
Vincent Rose, a senior
electrical engineering
major.
Page 2/At Ease/Thursday, Sept.8,1988
This week’s Attention//photo was taken by senior electrical engineering major Phelan
Ebenhack.
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