Life has a way of bringing those home, with whom we have more things to share. Many, many years ago, I lost my best friend to a charismatic leader in the jungles of Guyana. Together with 900 others, including her infant son, her nephews, her husband, her sister-in-laws, other friends... she perished as she lived her idealist, compassionate, life of service. She was a Catholic school girl, like me. She was a hippie in the 60's (or as hippie as her dad would let her be), like me. She longed for a more diverse and open community, different from the upper-middle-class community into which she was born, like me. And she found Jim Jones, like me.
Where our lives turned from one another was on the road to Jonestown. In so many ways, Terry and her brother's beliefs, in the possibility of utopia, were much more passionate than mine. They were more committed, much stronger than I. I settled into the California life of a young mother with two little girls, as they carried the dream of an equal society into the jungles of South America. None of us were crazy, down and out drifters. And none of the others I met in the church's community were really this way. That was big news hype. Most were folks coming out of the 60's, from all walks of life, dreaming of a better way. Truly looking to love and care for, the entire universe. My memory of Terry speaks of unconditional friendship. She was a true friend in that way: always patient, a lot of fun, dependable, open. I had a terribly hard time when she died.
The day she died, it had been a little over a year since I had seen her. I was at work at Agnews State Hospital, where I was a psychiatric technician. It was a Sunday, and it was very quiet on the ward. A co-worker and I were playing cards in the day hall, with some residents. A news flash came across the television about a mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. I froze and said so quietly from within the buzzing in my head, "I have friends there." And my co-worker said to me, "Well, they better get out." Terry died. Her brothers, Tim and Michael, were among the very few that got out alive...
And last night I received the greatest gift, I heard from Tim again! I cannot express how grateful I am to have him to reconnect with, and sort through all of the crazy grief that I was forced to tuck away back then. The deep, deep depression that my mother shook from me, after a year. The questions. The things left unsaid, that last day they came to our home to ask us to please join them in Guyana. But time doesn't stand still, and if it isn't right to talk about "those days", then I will just rejoice in that "Carter smile", those laughing, blue Carter eyes, and thank the universe for this opportunity that has come back around. Last night he came with heartfelt apologies to me for his actions (or lack of) during that horrendous time following the devastating ordeal of 1978. That is the kind of family they were. HE didn't show ME enough gratitude for my reaching out? Me in my safe, warm, cozy California world while he was grappling with the deepest grief known to man?
He was the big brother I always wanted, and he has come back.
