Frederick

My cousin Frederick drowned in a pool when he was two years old, and suffered permanent brain damage. He is 23 years old now, and lives out his life in a wheelchair being fed through a tube in his belly. His muscles are all atrophied, he has bedsores and rotten teeth. I want to throw up whenever I think of Frederick, so mostly I try not to.

I dreamed of him last night. We were at an all-night diner, drinking coffee and eating pie and talking. Only, Frederick didn't really talk; it seemed as though what he intended to say was communicated silently to me, transmitted by a combination of telepathy and body language and facial expression. He also did not eat nor drink; I remember thinking that I really wanted his pie but it seemed unkind to take it from him since I let him drown when he was a baby.

Frederick's appearance was unsettling: his face was grey and the skin was split and peeling away from his skull. His eyes were very deep-set in his head, and were black orbs like a fully dilated pupil. He was very tall and very emaciated. His hair was nicely cut and styled, and water was dripping from his eyelashes. Nobody seemed to notice this but me and I was very upset by it.

We were discussing death, in a rather philosophical manner. Frederick was explaining it to me, how death is transitional and can mean many things depending on circumstance. The dynamic between us was strange: he was quiet and peaceful and my impression was one of a wise and all-knowing Buddha-like figure as he was telling me how death doesn't have to be marked by sadness and trauma, but should be viewed as an opportunity for growth and improvement. Frederick was telling me about his thoughts while he was in the coma after 'the accident'. He was explaining that he was aware of all of us mourning for him, and that he remembered wanting to tell us that we were wasting our energy. He wanted us to be happy for him, because he was limitless in that coma-place. There he wasn't bound by size or age or ability; his mind became his vessel and he was connected to God, could do and experience and be all that God was capable of. He gained clarity in that time, understood what had happened to him and to our family, knew the future and knew that we would all spend our lives blaming and regretting and hating and puking over him. He wanted us to stop, to understand, but we were hopelessly unaware that the accident freed him. Released him in a way that we would never understand until we died and experienced it ourselves.

I woke up with several thoughts. One is that I don't ever remember Frederick speaking. He was under-developed before he drowned - he didn't learn things very fast and only spoke in single-word sentences. I remember that he was lovable, but I don't remember ever expressing any love for him; I remember that I liked him better than his sister, but I pretty much hated her from the beginning. I have never really thought about the sort of person he'd be if he hadn't drowned, but now I wonder. Would he be like his sister? Would he be quiet and smart and shy? Would he be gay? Would he be my best friend? There aren't very many boys in my family, and I don't really know what any of them are like.

I wish Frederick had been given the chance to grow up. I wish he could eat with a fork. I wish he could have played sports and gone to college and gotten a girl pregnant. I wish I could think of Frederick without wanting to throw up.

I think he will die soon.