21 Years

1988-2009.

21 years.

That's a long time. A lifetime for some. For others, 21 years surpasses a lifetime.

I was a senior in college at 21 and excited to take a new Creative Writing course. Not surprisingly, much of my writing had turned darker than I had typically written before Ken's death. And much of it centered on him. I don't remember often consciously choosing to write about him, but that's where my thoughts naturally went.

One of our assignments that October was to write a description of a ghost. It certainly isn't my best writing; in fact, I recall that my professor didn't really "get it." But I think those of you reading will. So, in memory of my brother's suicide on Halloween, here was my response.

Ghost

by Kristin Spengler

He treads sluggishly on his journey and slowly slithers through trees, hoping not to be discovered by any eye which can still see the future. Light is his enemy, as he is only comfortable with darkness as an escort. He hangs his head in shame so that he will not have to face his decision. His stature is slouched as he belabors every step on this world from his past. He freezes at the house which used to be his home; darkness has taken its place. His musty scent lingers as he roams through the incomplete household. His favorite obsession has become bursting into the dreams of others as quickly and suddenly as he abandoned his own. As he slowly lifts his head, his glowing red eyes strain to focus on me, then back at the ground. The pain he left behind for me seeps into all of the walls and possesses me until I have to gasp for air. I attempt to free myself of the nightmare we share and jut straight up in bed with only his words, "I'm sorry," gushing out of the door into the unknown.

Happy 41st Birthday

My friend Deena, me, Ken, and our grandpa

after a Swarthmore football game in 1986

I know I have been MIA from this blog for a while. Sometimes, I just need to get away from it. (I apologize to those of you who sent me new memories to post. You can find the new posts directly below this one.) Since this would have been my brother's 41st birthday, I felt it was appropriate to post something new.

Around this time of year, I am always reminded of what I was doing in 1988. You see, as an eleventh grade English teacher, I get swamped with requests for college recommendations. I take them all very seriously and make them all personal. One of our guidance counselors teases me that I do more recommendations than any other teacher in our school (which is probably true). If only we received a little extra pay or benefits for all of that work! Every few years -- this year being one of them -- I have a recommendation request for Swarthmore College. It's an extremely competitive, challenging, and beautiful school. It's also the school my brother attended when he chose to take his life.

Back in 1987, I was knee-deep in my college search. I had wonderful help from my parents who instilled in me the value of education and who genuinely seemed to enjoy touring various campuses with me. It also helped that my parents had lots of previous knowledge about colleges from my brother's search and their own wisdom. I wasn't the intellectual marvel or athlete that Ken was, but I had lots of extra-curricular activities in high school and a low tolerance for any grade that wasn't an "A." I also wanted to continue my involvement in music, even though I wasn't sure I would add this as a major (of course, I did decide to double-major and also complete secondary education certification; education was not a major nor a minor at my liberal arts college). I found several colleges I was interested in, and I narrowed them down to my top three. At some point, Ken nagged me to apply to Swarthmore, too. Ha! I thought. What a joke! They would never accept me. I am a realist (even though I admit that I have the occasional lofty dream). So I knew for a fact that my normal SAT scores would not qualify me for admission to such a prestigious college. My high school guidance counselor -- who couldn't pick me out of a line-up, by the way -- recommended that with excellent grades like mine, I should "try harder" the next time I took the SAT. (This is the same man who offered me the "guidance" that I should quit band and take physics instead. Try telling that to my music teacher parents and to the colleges who offered me music scholarships). Anyway, solely because I didn't want to hurt Ken's feelings, I sent away for a Swarthmore application.

One afternoon, soon after all of the college deadlines had passed, I remember sitting in our family room with my high school boyfriend. We were watching a brand new television show, and I was sitting on the carpeted floor. Ken came in and scoffed at the show. "What are you watching?!?" he asked with annoyance after a few seconds. "It's called The Oprah Winfrey Show," I told him. (Maybe I did know a thing or two back then after all!) He changed the subject and asked me how the college application and scholarship process was going. I told him the schools that had made the cut. He looked dismayed. "What about Swarthmore?" he asked. Now, I really never had any true intention of applying to Swarthmore and setting myself up for a rejection letter. Didn't he have any idea how smart he was? I would never be that smart. I told him what the deal breaker had been. "Swarthmore had three essay questions, Ken. Hard essay questions." Never mind that writing was my forte and that I wanted to be an English major. "I would have never gotten accepted to Swarthmore," I continued convincingly. I know all these years later that there was no chance of me ever being accepted there.

But Ken made a face. Then he said something I will never forget for the rest of my life. A sentence that has haunted me for all of these years after. "Oh....well, I spent a half hour in the admissions office telling them all the reasons why they should accept you." I can barely even type that. It hurts me to the core now just like it did then. And I doubt he would have ever told me had I actually applied.

I still know I wouldn't have been accepted. But why didn't I just complete the darn application? Why couldn't I have just done it for him? I had no idea that he really wanted me to go there and share his small college campus with him until then. What if I had been miraculously accepted and I could have been there for him when he needed me the most? What if...what if...what if....

I only got to visit my brother at Swarthmore a few times. My junior and senior years of high school were chock-full of commitments every single weekend for band, show choir, and private flute and vocal lessons, not to mention all of my academic commitments and what was left for my social calendar. But I will never forget the image that greeted me when I arrived at Ken's dorm room. This picture -- blown up -- was on his door for all to see:

Ken and Kristin, 1973

He never explained to me why that picture was taped to his door. But it made me proud. And when I think back to the memories I have of Ken, the Swarthmore application and this photo often come to mind as proof of how much my big brother cared. He wasn't especially fond of showing his emotions, but these two memories are reminders to me when I need them. While our relationship was often typical of a brother and sister who lived to agitate one another, I also have a few gems like these to remember what a gift he was to me and my family.

So, happy birthday, Ken. Thanks for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself, and thanks for being almost as proud to be my big brother as I was to be your little sister.

Twentieth Anniversary

I have so much to say on this twentieth anniversary of Ken's death -- so much to say, yet so little energy to go there in my mind and relate all that I want to express. I have related what this day means to me as a mommy on my family blog. But I want to explain the words that came to me only days after he took his life.

When the tragedy of Ken's decision struck my family, I was in my second month of college as a music and English major. And even though I was asked to see our college psychologist when I returned to school, my real therapy was in the basement of the music department's chapel in the practice rooms. I had my favorite room with my favorite piano and would play whatever I wanted without anyone's judgements. And a song about Ken just happened. I didn't do it on purpose; it really just evolved. I think part of me needed to play it to feel as if I were close to him in some way. I didn't make the connection then, but I had a lot of trouble performing solos after Ken's passing. Looking back, music was my thing -- the one thing that Ken didn't do better. I really believed he was more talented, more intelligent, more popular, more everything than me. I don't even say that in a negative way; it just was a fact. Secretly, I think that may have given me confidence in my musicality. I knew I excelled in academics, but I would never be as scholarly as Ken; I had a lot of wonderful friends, but I would never be the life of the party as Ken was; but I pursued music and found myself a field that Ken hadn't conquered yet. And while in one breath he would call me a band nerd, he would also tell me how good he thought I was on rare occasions.

But my confidence in every area was shot after we lost Ken. The very first solo I had in college only weeks after Ken's death was a nightmare that I replayed in my mind many times after. It was our chamber choir performance -- a select choir whose membership was by audition only and who received music fellowships for their inclusion in the group. I had auditioned for this solo and was chosen out of all of the girls, even though I was a freshman and this was my first concert. So you can imagine how mortified I was when I walked up to the front of the stage to sing my solo and completely forgot all of the words. That had never happened to me in all of my years of recitals, concerts, and solos. I had certainly been terribly nervous before, flubbed a note or two, or had shaky vocals, but forget my words?!? Ridiculous. I had several inconsistent performances after that, too. So, when it came time to perform my senior voice recital three years later and I told my voice teacher that I wanted to perform an original song, I understood her immediate hesitation. She was a wonderful woman who believed in my abilities and talents, but she also knew my story. Many people at college had gotten to know me freshman year as "that girl whose brother killed himself." I think when I sang, part of me wanted to prove to those people that I was a strong person who could forge through this pain and I would show them. But as my previous solos had proven, sometimes I passed my own test; sometimes I didn't. My voice teacher was concerned when I told her about my song. Understandably, she probably envisioned me stopping mid-verse and sobbing off of the stage. She wanted to hear it, so I played and sang it for her. Just then, my accompanist walked into my lesson. "Oh, Kristin, are you going to sing that in your recital?" she asked while she put down her things and plopped down at the piano. "No problem," she announced as she began to play every note of my original song perfectly. I was taken aback. "How do you know that song?!?" I asked, stunned but smiling. "Are you kidding?" she responded. "You have been playing this piece for the past four years. Didn't you ever hear me playing it along with you in my practice room?" So much for soundproofing. She later explained that she knew it meant something special to me, and she thought it was so pretty that she learned it after I had left one night. So much for my complex songwriting abilities.

Anyway, that moment, it became clear to all of us that I had no choice but to perform this song that I had written for my brother in my senior recital. A senior recital is the final test of a music major, and I was singing some very challenging pieces. But I needed to prove I could do this song. I needed to sing it in front of my parents, grandparents, professors, longtime friends, and college roommates. And most of all, I needed to sing it for Ken.

If you'd like to hear me sing (and play) the song for yourself, click here (in the middle of the screen, find the song "Now" under "Songs;" then click the "Play Song Now" arrow). I will leave you with the lyrics to the song from an eighteen-year-old naive girl who desperately missed her big brother and had to express it through her simplistic song, the twenty-one-year-old who performed it from the depths of her heart to all her loved ones including her brother at her senior recital without faltering, and the thirty-eight-year-old who would give anything to never hear this song again and hear her brother's boisterous laughter instead. After twenty years, that would most certainly be the best music of all to my ears.

Now

When we were young
We needed little more
Didn't care what life
Was really for
Never thought we
Would ever be apart
Never thought then
That you would break
This little girl's heart

But now I know that
Life just isn't fair
We wait too long to
Show how much we care
What would I give
To end this circumstance
I'd give my life if
I could give you a second chance

Now when I see sky
I see your face
Although they say you're
In a better place
There's somewhere here
Where you will still remain
In my heart you'll stay
And that will never ever change

How could you be so wrong
Can I go on
Without your love right by my side
I don't know how I will survive
Oh how
Will I get through this
How could you do this to me now
How
Could you do this to me
Now

© 1988, Kristin Spengler

A Milestone Year

Cheesing for the camera with Ken and my mom on Graduation Day

This past weekend marked a milestone for me: it was my 20th high school reunion. Naturally, seeing many people I hadn't seen in many years all in one room flooded my mind with memories of my past. In particular, I remember my friends and me thinking so eagerly about graduation. My dear friend, Wendy, and I would sit in each other's bedrooms and dream about that magical year that held so much promise: 1988. I was anxious but nostalgic as the years passed in high school. Wendy and I would write on the back of each of our class pictures: "Can you believe we are freshmen?...sophomores?...juniors?....and then, SENIORS?" In fact, my senior year and the year 1988 held many milestones for me: I turned 18, applied for colleges, received several scholarships, and graduated from high school. All of those moments were snippets of my future which I had only daydreamed about years before. I'm sure that all of my classmates remember similar moments and the friends who shared them when they think back to 1988.

But walking back into a room filled with people I shared my high school years with makes me remember the person I used to be. Only months after graduation, I would change. No, my goals and dreams didn't change, but my view of the world would. When I think back to the Kristin who graduated from high school with friends she had known since nursery school and all of her wishes for the future about to come true, I am sad for her. I wish I could go back and shake her, tell her that she needed to open her eyes. She was naive and believed that everything happened for a reason. She believed that bad things happened to bad people. She believed that families like those she idolized on The Brady Bunch and Family Ties actually existed. She never guessed what was in store for her or her family.

My parents separated my senior year in high school. I remember Ken writing me from college and telling me he was sorry that I had to go through that without him. I wonder if he ever thought of all of the other milestones I would reluctantly go through without him when he made the decision to take his life.

The year 1988 was not the magical year I thought it would be. In truth, when I think of 1988, I think of the big black line separating the person I was before Ken's death and the person I became after. It was the year that transformed me and catapulted me into harsh reality. I think of a person who struggled with her religious beliefs and living in her own skin sometimes. I think of a girl who watched her friends live it up at fraternity parties while she sat in her dorm room alone wondering how she would make it through another day without her brother. And I think of the woman who finally realized that all of those milestones would still come even though he was gone.

When I sat in the bleachers during pep rallies in high school chanting, " '88 is great," I never could have known the depth of meaning that year would hold for me. And seeing so many faces from twenty years ago at a reunion certainly was a memorable experience. But the one face I long to see -- my brother's face which no one has seen for twenty years -- I did not get to see at my reunion, and I will never get to see that face again in this lifetime. I only hope that when we have our own reunion, hopefully many years from now, it will be held in heaven.

Welcome, Swarthmore Alums

Thanks so much to Jim Sailer for getting the word out to Ken's Swarthmore classmates about this blog. I hope that many of you will share some of your memories with us whether they are funny anecdotes or serious stories. My husband and I take my boys to visit the campus at least once a year since we live fairly close, and I always lay white roses by the tree dedicated to his memory. The campus is so completely beautiful, but it certainly is a bittersweet beauty for me. I hope that Ken's Swarthmore friends and acquaintances know that you were a tremendous part of his life. While I don't know many of you, I hope that, through this blog, we can change that. Please feel free to send your memories, thoughts, pictures, or anything that reminds you of Ken to me at: rememberingken@verizon.net. My brother had an amazing ability to recognize genuine character, and if any of you reading this were his friends, then that is a testament to you. I thank you for visiting and for being his friend for a time that was much too short.

Slideshow

There are some obvious gaps in time, but I hope to update this as I receive new photos and find more of my own.
***To pause any of the frames, roll the mouse over the bottom of the picture; click on the bottom to activate contols, and then click the pause button.
(Special thanks to Sally Tapert Forrest and Stephanie Bok for sending their pictures.)

Brokedown Palace

This song is the most difficult to listen to or write about for me. For those that don't know, Ken left a note and a cassette tape with this song on it when he took his life. That is why my parents chose to have these words on his grave: "We loved you more than words can tell."

Brokedown Palace

Fare you well, my honey, fare you well, my only true one.
All the birds that were singing are flown except you alone.

Goin' to leave this brokedown palace,
On my hands and my knees, I will roll, roll, roll.
Make myself a bed by the waterside,
In my time, in my time, I will roll, roll, roll.

In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside, I will lay my head.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

River going to take me, sing me sweet and sleepy,
Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home.
It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago.
Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home.

Goin' home, goin' home, by the waterside I will rest my bones,
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

Going to plant a weeping willow,
By the bank's green edge it will grow, grow, grow.
Sing a lullaby beside the water,
Lovers come and go, the rivers roll, roll, roll.

Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

(To listen to the song, scroll down the right margin to find the playlist.

Then click on "Brokedown Palace.")

Knock, Knock and Welcome to Ken's Blog

Kristin and Ken, 1974

In our house, my bedroom and Ken's bedroom shared a common wall. Sometimes when we were little, we would have to go to bed before we wanted to, and I remember us both taking turns pestering our parents about staying up "just fifteen more minutes." On one occasion when that pestering didn't work, I remember trying to fall asleep and suddenly hearing a "knock, knock" on my bedroom wall. So I knocked back. A few minutes passed, and then I got another knock and I heard a faint giggle. I knocked and giggled back. This continued on until one of us finally fell asleep (or one of our parents yelled at us to knock it off). In fact, it became a sort of ritual between us. I don't remember how long this bedroom routine lasted, but it always made me smile when I got a knock. Many years later, long after those giggly childhood days, we were both teenagers, and there was some sort of tension between us. I was in rolling around in bed, and the next thing I knew, there was a knock on my wall. So I knocked back. The next morning, even though we both knew that was Ken's way of extending the olive branch, I pursued the topic and feigned my annoyance to him, asking, "Why did you knock on my wall last night?" And he replied out of his crooked smile, "I was just making sure you were still there."

I have always been a sleeper. I can fall asleep pretty much anytime, anywhere in seconds flat. And I enjoy sleeping. But there was a time when I hated to sleep. I was a freshman in college when Ken took his life, and I didn't have many confidantes there yet since I had only been a college student for two months. I don't remember whether it was my parents' idea or the college's (or a combination of both), but I was told I had to see our college psychologist once a week after Ken's passing. I completely resented this, and I made it known to the psychologist that I would attend my appointments as I was told, but I would not talk to a stranger about something so tragic and personal. He said that was fine, and for the most part, I would go to his office with books in hand, and we both used the appointments as time to get our work done.

But then I started to hate sleeping. I begged my college rommate to stay awake. I called friends, went into the hall of my dorm, wrote letters, listened to the radio, did anything so that I could put off having to sleep. One day, at my weekly appointment, the psychologist asked me why I looked so tired. I knew better, but I told him the truth. "I am having trouble sleeping." He saw his window of opportunity and pounced. "Why can't you sleep?" he asked. "I can sleep," I corrected him. "I just don't want to sleep." Then I just remember breaking down. I guess I needed to tell someone, especially someone who could add his expert opinion. Through my tears, I told him of our childhood ritual. And then I told him how, every single night when I fell asleep, I would hear a knock in my dreams. When I looked up, it was Ken. We would hug and cry, and he always said he was sorry and promised me he would never take his life again and that he would always be here with me. And then I would wake up, and part of me thought my dream was real. So I would have to relive it all; the recognition that my dream was not reality was just too much to bear day after day. I tried to make it stop. I tried to think of other things before falling asleep. I tried to eat weird things before going to bed. I tried praying to God to stop this torture. Nothing worked. When I finished my admission, after a long pause, I asked the psychologist why he thought my dream continued night after night. When I looked up at him, I saw that his eyes were welling up. "Honestly?" he said, "I think your brother is desperately trying to tell you how sorry he is." I don't know if he only said that because that's what I needed to hear, but I believed him. And once I believed him, going to sleep became a bit less scary. Ken still appeared in my dreams, and often still does, but instead of viewing the dream as cruel, I tried to think of it as a deliberate visit from Ken's spirit.

I had a dream about Ken the night before I had the idea to begin this blog this past December. I welcome those dreams now as any connection to him is one that I cherish. When I realized that 2008 would mark the twentieth anniversary of his death, I wanted to do something to honor my brother's memory. Probably the main concern of anyone who has lost a loved one is that they want his legacy to live on in the memories of others, and I have often wondered if people still think of him. I am humbled by the kind responses I received about this idea, and I am so grateful that Ken had so many caring friends who are interested in this project. Please feel free to share your memories either by emailing me at the link to the right or by commenting on any of the posts on this page. I will try to update this site regularly, so scroll down when you visit to view the new posts.

And to Ken ... Knock, Knock. I'm still here, and I always will be.

Video of Ken and Friends

To my knowledge, there is only one video of Ken that exists. Our family never owned a camcorder or even one of those huge home video movie projectors. The only video we have is from a video project that Ken and some of his high school friends made for Mr. Walters' senior P.O.D. class in 1986. This is a commercial-spoof from that video that includes Ken, Scott Wilson, Alex Heist, Roger Johnson, Damien Evans, and Bobby Zaragoza (as Mr. Walters). While the video pokes fun at Mr. Walters, I know that Ken respected him beyond measure. Ken's fake laughter in this clip is even funnier than his typical booming laugh that we all knew so well.

When October Goes

There are different reasons for the musical selections on this site*; some are probably obvious while others may not be. I heard this song in the car about ten years ago and it caught me off guard so suddenly that I had to pull over. I wondered if how someone else could have written a song that seemed to channel my own private thoughts so perfectly. (I later learned that the lyrics were written by Johnny Mercer who also wrote classics like "Moon River" and "Come Rain or Come Shine." His wife gave Barry Manilow a stack of his lyrics after Mercer's death.)

Turning the calendar over to October year after year has never gotten any easier. I often wonder if it would be less ominous if Ken's death had not occured on Halloween. The anniversary of anyone's death is difficult, yet every year, when the leaves begin to turn, I am met with an increasing supply of ghosts, skeletons, and dead creatures seemingly reminding me of the day that is quickly approaching.

Having children forced me to change the way I viewed Halloween. I try to focus on them and their excitement. I still have trouble, but in trying to be a good mommy to my boys, I resolve to keep a stiff upper lip, at least until they are fast asleep.

One of the lines of this song that gets me every time is: "I should be over it now, I know." I have always despised the flippant cliche', "get over it." What a useless piece of "advice." It is an insensitive and ignorant thing to say, which is why I will probably always remember when someone asked a friend of mine, who was consoling me at the time, "Isn't she over it yet?" in reference to Ken's death. No, I'm not "over it." I wasn't then, and I doubt I ever will be. To me, being "over it" would mean forgetting the tragedy of his decision and the massive potential he had in this world. To me, being "over it" would be a disservice to his soul. But sometimes I do chastise myself for getting misty at a memory at an inopportune time with similar words, and I have to remember that it's okay not to be "over it," no matter how old I grow.


When October Goes

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smokey roofs
I watch the planes go by
The children running home
Beneath a twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh, how I hate to see October go

I should be over it now, I know
It doesn't matter much
How old I grow
I hate to see October go

*The music on this site begins automatically; it can be stopped by clicking the pause button.
You can also choose another selection if you prefer to listen to a different song on the list.