Brett Charles Lamb
1961 - 2007

There are few people in our lives that have the power to change us for the better. Fewer still that actually manage to do so. As I look back on my life, I realize that Brett Lamb was one of those people. He changed my life and I probably wouldn't be here today if not for him.

Whenever I think of the happiest times of my childhood, I always think of Brett, because Brett was always a part of them. I remember the summers when the hydroplanes would come to the Tri-Cities and he and I would sneak in for free. Not having to pay to watch the hydros was a birthright if you were a young boy living in Pasco. I remember the time we were playing football at the park and someone threw a long bomb to Brett. He raced for the ball, arms outstretched and then dived for it...headfirst into a tree. We thought he was dead. But I never could tease him much about that because that very same summer at that very same park I ran a slant out and as I streaked to the sideline my eye caught sight of a gorgeous girl walking down the sidewalk. My eyes locked onto hers a split second before I slammed into the light pole.

I can still see the girl laughing at me while all the guys were rolling on the ground. Brett never let me live that one down.

I don't try to remember my childhood much. In fact, I generally work hard to blot it out. But not my memories of Brett Lamb. Those are the good ones. Those are the bright golden memories of my youth that stand out amidst the otherwise painful darkness. The obstacle courses we would build to race around. The days at the basketball court. The time we made a tape recording, pretending it was Demented Radio and we were the Demented DJ's. The games we played as young boys, the girls we chased as young men. The songs we both liked.

But looking back across the span of a lifetime, there's one memory that defines my friendship with Brett. One memory that I see now forever changed my life for the better. It is that day that I've been thinking of ever since I got the terrible news that Brett had passed away at the young age of 45. It was a day shortly after my birthday...

Brett, his brother and sisters had called to wish me happy birthday. They wanted to know what plans I had. I didn't know. My grandmother was being mum on the whole occasion. He said to call him back when I found out. But as the day drew on, I began to realize that my grandmother was in one of her funks.

You see, her daughter, my mother, had had an incurable condition. One that the doctors said would kill her by the time she reached the age of 14. By force of will, my grandmother had kept her alive against all odds. Due to her constant care, my mother had lived to the age of 36. But when she finally passed away, my grandmother was devastated. She sank into a deep depression. I'd lost my parents and my sole surviving relative had become mentally ill. I was only 9 years old.

Then things took a turn for the worse. I was kidnapped. For five long months I never saw my grandmother again. When I finally escaped and got home, I found she was even worse off than she had been before. She'd had shock treatments. This was before One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Even though I was just a child, I think the shock treatments only made her condition worse. A lot of the time she was just fine. But then she'd slip into one of her funks and all she could do was mourn for the loss of her daughter.

During those times, it seemed like I was the one responsible for her, not the other way around. I was the one who had to feed us both. I had to make out the shopping list, rouse her enough that she would give me the money to do the shopping, make sure she took her meds and even make sure she drank enough water to stay hydrated.

I had a nervous breakdown at the age of 11. No one diagnosed it. No one treated it. I simply endured.

She had slipped into that state on my 14th birthday. When I reminded her it was my birthday I got the shock of my life. She didn't apologize. She didn't say "Oh, I'm so sorry, I must have forgotten." No. She acknowledged that she'd forgotten and then informed me that it didn't really matter anyways. She didn't care. She'd lost Donna, her baby, her child and that was all that mattered. Leave her alone. And I realized right then that I was totally alone in the world. She was good as gone to me. She might as well have died with her daughter. I was devastated.

The next day Brett called again. At first he was a bit miffed that I hadn't called him back but when I told him what had happened he must have heard something in the tone of my voice because he got his older sister Deb to drive him down there and they picked me up. They took me to this place I've never been to before or since. It was a steep vally with a train track passing 50 maybe 70 feet overhead. No river wound through it, just jagged rocks and a flat open field on one side at the bottom with a trail leading down. Deb had made a picnic lunch and Brett said he wanted to explore. Deb went down and began setting up a blanket and making sandwiches while Brett and I hiked on over to the bridge.

This railroad bridge was obviously not meant to be crossed. The gap between each board was wide enough for a person to fall right through and the drop would certainly be fatal. Nonetheless, Brett and I made our way across, one step at a time. I was scared to death but I was damned if Brett was going to have the guts to walk across it and not me. Looking back, in light of what was to happen, Deb must not have noticed us walking across it.

When we reached the other side we set off down the tracks a bit further. I was hungry and a bit impatient. I demanded to know where the hell he was taking us? That's when he looked around, saw a tree and went over and sat down under it. I came over to sit next to him as he pulled out a pipe and a small stash of weed.

"I wanted to get you high for your birthday" he explained "But I didn't have enough to share with Debs."

So we sat and got high and talked and at some point I said I'd race him back to the bridge and we tore off together. But as I got closer to the bridge I suddenly realized I wasn't going to stop. I kicked it into another gear and kept right on going. To my amazement, Brett sped up and stayed right with me step for step. I pulled a little ahead of him and he caught back up, he passed me and I ran even faster and pulled even again. We ran full bore across that bridge as fast as I've ever run in my life without a dog on my tail and the slightest misstep would have sent either of us plummeting to our deaths. But I wasn't ever afraid. I could feel this bond between us. Our steps were perfect, our timing was perfect, we wouldn't miss a single board. We wouldn't fall, we'd do it. And when we crossed the bridge, it was a perfect tie.

I could never have done that again in a thousand years. It should have been suicide.

As we stood there, leaning over, gasping for breath, I looked back at the bridge and the drop below. Deb was running up the hillside, screaming at us at the top of her lungs with more than a trace of hysteria present. Then Bretts eyes locked with mine and I knew he knew even as I was just realizing it myself. A death wish had seized me. It was gone now, wiped away in the race, in the competition, in the bond we shared, but it had been there, it had compelled me to cross that bridge. And then another realization hit me.

"Why'd you follow me across that bridge? You could have gotten yourself killed!" I gasped.

"Someone had to be there to catch you if you fell." he gasped back at me.

"Who the hell would have caught you?" I replied.

"You would have." he answered matter of factly, breathing more evenly.

I smiled. "Hell I would. We would have both fallen to our deaths."

We both laughed at that. Brett reached out and I gave him some skin and just then Deb reached us. She was furious and terrified. She ripped into us and kept ripping into us the whole way back and all we did was laugh about the whole thing which only made her angrier. Deb refused to give Brett a ride anywhere after that for a long, long time.

Later that night, when I got home, I checked on my grandmother to see she was okay, got her her meds, made sure she drank them down and made us both some dinner. I was okay. Everything was going to be alright. Because from that day forward I knew that someone out there gave a damn if I lived or I died. That knowledge gave me strength and changed my life forever.

Brett Lamb is dead now and I give a damn.

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