3 minute read
Note: The featured image you see of Officer Twisdale and Sam over his shoulder was created by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for their newsletter in which they published part of Sam’s Story.
about this chapter
Chapter 7. Rewriting, as you can tell by its name, is a major theme in the story. It was during a grief counseling session when I got the idea of rewriting my story stuck in my head.
advice
It was August, three months after Sam’s funeral, when David and I returned to the temple to meet with the rabbi and follow up with him. He asks how we’re “holding up,” and offers us advice on how to cope and get through each day.
He asks David if he remembers the Foreman fight—Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope?
(from Chapter 7. Rewriting: remedies)“Ali covered up on the ropes . . . Kept his hands up in front of his face. Foreman pounded the shit out of him, and Ali made it round to round. Ali came up with his strategy when he was in it—the fight—because he had to. He was just trying to survive.
I tell the rabbi how alone we are now, how everyone moves on, goes back to living. “Most days I can’t even move. I’m just waiting here now, dead.”
He tells me I can give up. “But you’re not a giver-upper, are you?” And then he goes on . . .
(from Chapter 7. Rewriting: remedies)“Grief is a war zone, the most desolate and loneliest of places. In it, you may remain blocked by the ending you did not choose. Or you may rewrite your story—his story—with a different ending. You’re a storyteller, a writer. Yes?”
My seat became quicksand then. “No. Sam was the writer.”
Sam’s action figure: Duke
In November, we attend an award ceremony at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, where the Sheriff reads aloud the letter I wrote to Officer Tim Twisdale months earlier, thanking him for his help that Monday, the day of Sam’s death.
After Twisdale receives the Six Pillars of Character Award, he hands me an envelope. “Don’t read it now but later, okay?”
This is the first time since that Monday that we’re seeing each other. Sam has cast the perfect Duke.
(from Chapter 7: Rewriting: Duke)I don’t recall where I was or what time it was when I opened the envelope and read Twisdale’s letter, but I remember reading it over and over again. I liked the way he spoke to Sam. He wasn’t afraid to talk to him. But then, why would he be? He was Duke.
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