THE LETTER

Dearest Friends,

We'd been in Bahrain for about two weeks when John finally came home with a letter from one of our friends back at SSFY (the fab yard in Indonesia) -- this one from Young S.  I was ecstatic to finally be hearing from one of them, but when I noticed a strange look on John's face, I suspected the news wasn't all good. When he insisted that I sit down, before handing the letter over, I realized it had to be terrible.

Apparently SSFY had held a big going-away party for someone out at the Anyer Beach restaurant, which usually meant lots of drinking.  Then again, the road back to Cilegon was so twisty and dark at night, there being no streetlights of any kind, alcohol may have had nothing to do with it at all.  It may well have been that I & I just never even saw the big truck that was pulled off to the side of the road, until they came around a corner and plowed right into it.  He did manage to get her out of the wreckage and into a passing minibus, which took them to the nearest expat's home, but without paramedics, hospitals, or even a decent doctor anywhere nearby, there wasn't much they could do for her.

I wish the letter had ended with that, for I could have come to grips with the fact that she died.  Tragic accidents are a part of life.  Unfortunately, Young S. felt the need to share a bit more with us.  She went on to say that I's final words were on the order of "Didn't I tell you...your driving would be the death of me?"  Of course, we had no way of knowing if that was even true, but just the possibility of that -- that she may have lain such a burden of guilt upon someone she supposedly loved, knowing that it may well have wrecked him for life, and consequently, their children as well?  Well, that I have never been able to deal with, and it's one of only two things that still haunt me to this day.  The second would occur some fifteen years later, just after our return to Indonesia.