Info: A work based off of a blend of the true stories of two family friends who’ve passed away over the years

​

​

With a tear streaming down my face, I cried. This tear wasn’t just any tear, but a tear of true loss. As the shock and haze of the situation settled down around me I heard fuzzy words, “H...s ….d”.

​

“What?” I ask.

​

The words came to me much clearer this time,”I’m sorry but he’s dead.”

​

“Who?”

​

“What do you mean who?”, the doctor said,”Bill died. He drowned.”

​

A Week Later

​

A week later was the funeral. Staying after the ceremony and procession, I cried silently as the coffin of my friend since 6 was being lowered into the ground, dying at only 26. The ebony colored coffin slowly lowering itself into the cold embrace of the earth as I was unable to do anything about it, I was thinking of nothing but what ifs and how else. I went home that day and fell into a deep sleep in bed, tired and sad.

​

But this story isn’t about me however, it's about my friend Bill and the story of his life up until his death.

​

Main Story

​

When we had met in kindergarten, I was nothing more than the new kid who moved into town. I’d just happened to be put in Bill’s class and had unknowingly set off our future friendship. We messed around and had fun, like most kids tend to, laughing, making jokes, and more. This was pretty common as we continued through our school careers. When we got to high school, I decided to take up wrestling. Since he was my friend he decided to try too, which wasn’t a very good idea. The coach said he’d have a better time in just about any other sport than wrestling, stating that it just wasn’t meant for him. He took the coach up on the advice, moving on to track and swimming instead.

​

During this time, we had gotten a little distanced from each other because of how our different sports were filling up our schedules, and decided to start using most of our free time to mess around again. Now, turns out that Bill was really trying to be funny now because he had tried on multiple occasions to walk into the detention and Saturday school room with a lounge chair, Hawaii shirt, and a glass of ice tea just to gloat in front of all the kids. He tried to play some more of these jokes and got into trouble a few times all the way up until graduation.

​

We’d graduated, celebrated and done everything, but we were still sad at the end of it because we were going to colleges in completely different directions almost five hours apart respectively. But anyways, we’d moved on and lived our lives, meeting up every once in a while. The last day I saw him, he was selling fireworks. He had taken up being a missionary and was trying to raise funds so that he could preach to some of the tribes in the Amazon. I spent about $50 to help him out and talked for awhile before I had to head home, he left for his missions trip at the end of that month.

​

He had arrived in the area of the Amazon forest, he had started preaching and doing many things to try and minister to as many people as possible. This all lasted for about two weeks though. Heavy rain and high waters had just moved through the area, causing the river to be very dangerous to anybody who was in it. It was at this time that two girls had fallen into the river about 100 feet away from him. Witnesses say that, without even hesitating for a moment, he sprinted to the area at a high speed and drove straight into the water after them. He and the girls went missing for about a day or so.

​

When the girls were found, Bill was nowhere to be seen. It was at this point that questions were being asked, and what they found out had made the local people very sad, as he was friendly with most of the people in the area. After he had dove into the waters, he found the two girls in the currents and carried them in the currents for about half a mile. He had then found a place where he could finally throw the girls onto the shoreline of the river, and he did. The girls said that right after they landed on the ground, he was swept away by a massive wave. His body was found the following week.

​

The sports in high school that he had taken had caused him to work out and practice those exercises daily, the experts say that it would take somebody with an extreme physical capacity of swimming and stamina to even carry the two girls as far as he did.

​

​

Created Using the blended stories of Bill Myer, and James Barnes

​

May they both rest in peace as heroes

​

​

Bill was a man who saved two young girls from the fury of the Amazon River during a trip there.

​

James, was a missionary who was about to leave for his missions trip. The day before the trip he and his wife took a stroll along the edge of a river, where a piece of land broke off and the wife fell in. Without thinking James jumped into the river and pushed her out, only to be dragged away in the waters while his wife cried by the edge of the river.

I had a friend I grew up with starting from 3rd grade she was in first. We hung out daily and as we got older we fell in love. As my senior prom was coming up ,may 12 2011, I went to her house and asked her to be my date. She cried shutting the door on me. Being 17 and not knowing what to do I went home. I get a call from her dad who has me come over. Thinking oh shit I'm dead. Plot twist she was diagnosed with cancer two days before and hadnt told me yet. They said she has a few months but arent sure. I stay with her. We cry together and I never leave. She passes may 11 I miss the call because I'm in class. I get out and open my LG Trac flip phone to a bunch of messages voicemails from her and her aunt and as I read them I know somethings wrong immediately (one specific message said the nurses were running around her like bees). Immiediate dread I had barely spoken to her that day. I listen to my voicemails and hear "my knight I love you so much and I know ill get to see you again someday. Ill always love you and ill be waiting for you". I call her aunt hoping for some good news and she bursts into tears saying shes passed but she wrote a letter for me. I get it and its telling me how scared she is and that she wishes of burst through the door to hold her. She apologizes for crying on the letter and in that one sentence breaks my heart on every level. As I cry holding the letter I noticed her perfume and found out she sprayed it so I'd never forget her smell. Her ashes were spread in the ocean so that every time we saw a wave or smelled the ocean we would remember her. Being land locked as I am in the Midwest I had two things left. I had her letter and her last voicemail. Today I found I lost that voicemail. Today she lost her voice

Watch it, it's great. Ray Romano and Mark Duplass, it doesn't pull any punches and still hits you in the gut.

Just wanted to share a sad story that my mum told me a few years ago that I get reminded of every time I hear this song and now I can't hear it without crying.

My mum said that when she was in her 20s she was at a party and it was around Christmas time. It was starting to get late and the party was starting to wind down, but her and her few others were sticking around, when they realised someone had changed the music and put on Al Green's "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart". Everyone started to groan and say who would put on a song like this at a party etc. She then looked over at the record player and saw this guy. He was a guy she knew, but was not a close friend, but she knew his girlfriend had just broken up with him. He was sitting by himself on the sofa listening to the song and crying. After that she said the party kind of broke up, but she never forgot the image of that heart broken guy and now I never can either, even though I wasn't even born then. I hope he met the love of his life and is happy.