How I Forgot Jack B. Paul

Written July 07.

Introduction

Death Notice

Paul, Jack B., 78, white male. Last known address: 245 N. Delaware. Any info, please call 317-327-****.

It's Sunday morning, a mild-weathered summer day for Indiana. July 4 festivities are off to an early start, like most holiday celebrations in the Midwest. It is those things one can always count upon happening around here. Christmas lights up before the Thanksgiving turkey is carved and illegal fireworks filling the sky for the weeks leading up to and following July 4. I grumble about both of them, but I realize days wouldn't feel quite the same in their absence. So much of life consists of all the stuff we think we would be better off without. It's funny, really. There wouldn't be much left if all those things were erased from the picture. There'd be no context. The existence of the bad is what makes the good, good.

But what does that have to do with Jack B. Paul? Nothing really. I like to imagine, though, that Jack knew all about this life. He had the wife that hassled him about going to get a Christmas tree. He muttered to himself down the aisles of Wal-Mart, expressing his annoyance with making the holiday such a spectacle. But every year, he hung the lights. He trimmed the tree. He said grace at dinner. At his age, he knew there were some battles he would never win. But July 4--that holiday was all his. His wife cringed each time his Budlight bottle became a launching pad. She held her breath when he went diving in to the ditch after a roman candle placed in the road fell on its side. I like to believe that they drove each other crazy, but at the end of the day, couldn't imagine a much better life. I suppose that's the romantic in me. But truly, I like to imagine that despite everything, Jack had a pretty good, albeit ordinary little life.

So why on this morning, while flipping through the Sunday paper, did I come across, not an obituary, but a death notice for Jack B. Paul? Was there really so little known or so few that knew Jack that a proper obituary would have gone unread? What happened to his wife, so worried about getting the Christmas tree up on time? To his neighbor that sometimes got his mail? To his friends that spent so many evenings drinking on his porch? I can't imagine what went so terribly wrong in Jack Paul's life that left him so alone.

Jack's death notice was alongside the story of a 20-year-old girl whose "life was cut too short". The death of someone so young is truly a tragedy. In 5 more years, she could have been where I am now, sitting here typing this story. But tragedies happen everyday. We cry. We dispute the fairness. And then, we forget. But not with Jack. He experienced the feeling of being forgotten so many years before. Save for maybe some nurses, there was no one left to forget him.

The details of Jack's life are not so important. We all forgot people the same way. We lose interest. We stop trying. But mainly, we just stop caring.

Therefore, the question becomes not 'How did we forget Jack Paul?', but rather, 'Why did we stop caring?'.

Chapter 1

I have receipts for every purchase I've made in the last 7 years. I can tell you what classes I took each semester in college, including the building & room number. But if you were to ask me the last name of my college roommate or to provide some information about any of my so-called college friends, I'd have to get back to you. I prefer to believe my brain was not programmed to retain information such as this, rather than the only other reason, that I just didn't care enough to remember.

I get sudden flashes of people I once knew. I remember how and where I met them, but not often their names or why we no longer talk. Were it not for random occurrences that spark these memories, I'm sure I would happily go along forgetting they ever existed. What I hope to discover is what happened so early in my life that made it so easy for me to stop caring about people. I have such mixed views about my childhood: versions from my parents, teachers, friends, and myself. I suppose they all hold some value. Observations such as this are never black & white.

...