BASED ON A TRUE STORY:
In 1989, Tommy Clifford passed away at the age of 20, and his former co-worker, Rick Ciccone, believed it was a suicide. Two years earlier, Tommy, a summer hire at a land surveying company, experienced the tragic death of his...
Rick Ciccone was in tune metaphysically with death and dying. He believed that the body lying in the coffin was a mere vessel and that the essence or soul of the individual was off somewhere in the ether. It was a big part of his reasoning of not going to funerals. It was also likely that he just did not want to say goodbye, as was the case with his grandfather, who passed away two months before young Tommy Clifford. Rick's grandmother had to ask him if he was attending the funeral. He did, going into the parlor only long enough to view his grandfather's body. He waited in the lobby, until he was called upon to be a pallbearer.
In 1991, a mere 2 years after Tommy was killed, a boy Rick grew up with died at the age of 26. Mark Schoendienst was the 3rd of 4 brothers, all at least 6' 1" in height, except Mark, who grew to be a mere 5'4". He was a sweet kid and, like Tommy, polite, kind and with a great sense of humor.
The rumor on the grapevine was that Mark was found unresponsive in his pick-up truck. His obituary stated that he had a 2-year-old son at the time, but no wife was mentioned. There had been a divorce, but the rest of the story had been muddied over the years, and family members that Rick was in touch with refused to discuss it. It was believed to be a suicide and, strangely enough, paralleled what Rick concluded about Tommy.
When Rick saw John "Tex" Daly earlier in the day, Rick had experienced the deaths of eleven people he'd known over the course of his life in one 10 week stretch at the beginning of the year. Some were close friends dating back to high school. Others were kids he knew in the schoolyard who were siblings with a classmate. One was his first Little League coach - an early, positive influence on his life, who named Rick the M.V.P. of his T-Shirt team.
Rick attended zero funerals.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Rick was named his T-Shirt team's M.V.P. while playing Little League here.
It was remarkable that, of all those Rick knew who passed away over the years, it was the death of young Tommy Clifford that seemed to affect him most.
In what seemed like a page out of the movie "Ground Hog Day", Rick found himself, once again, on the shoulder of Aura Road, with the spirit of Tommy Clifford, reliving the very scene that was emblazoned in Rick's mind for 35 years.
****
As before, Rick twirled the thread of a plumb bob around his index finger. He rested on the bumper of the trunk of his Dodge Charger. Tommy stood a foot or two from Rick, staring at the ground, distraught, despondent, near tears.
"My friends were killed in a car accident." Tommy said, slightly above a whisper.
"I know. That's rough." Rick responded, sympathetically, "I'm sorry to hear that."
There was a pause. "I was supposed to be in the car."
Rick looked at Tommy, concerned for his co-worker. He tried to say something, but "Well, you're lucky you weren't" wasn't going to cut it.
