Spring/Summer 2000 One Year Later - What Dreams Are Made Of

Spring/Summer 2000 - One Year Later

What Dreams Are Made Of
by Kari McGinnis

A purple white-water kayak hangs inside the small lean-to shelter at the side of the house. The young man who spent each day after high school graduation reading kayaking magazines and books, will never feel the refreshing splash of cold water on his face as he maneuvers the craft through river rapids. It hangs as a quiet representation of his adventurous aspirations left to linger in his parents' dreams. The June 10, 1999, pipeline explosion stole the reality of their son's life.

Liam Gordon Wood never got to see his graduation present. But, when he opened the life-size card his mother created with purple construction paper, he knew what adventures lay ahead. Marlene Robinson wanted her son to have something to open at graduation, but friends weren't bringing his kayak up from Oregon until the following weekend. She thought about writing a note inside a regular card, but decided her goofy son would get a kick out of a life-size kayak card.

A smile creeps across Marlene's face as she says how thankful she is that Liam knew his kayak was coming. Her eyes sparkle as she remembers how excited he was. But kayaking wasn't the only summer adventure Liam was looking forward to. He anxiously awaited the sunny weekend when he and his stepdad would strap on their mountain gear and challenge Mount Baker's glistening slopes.

Bruce Brabec explains that his stepson was finally at an age where he could participate in more high-risk activities. Bruce has climbed mountains around the world, and he was excited to share a weekend on Baker with Liam. At 18, Liam had the physical and mental strength adventures such as mountain climbing demand.

"Those are the kind of things that really strong relationships are built on dream kind of things," Marlene says, her voice trailing off as she looks across the kitchen table at Bruce.

And those are the things that were Liam's dreams, dreams he captured with the written word. He wrote every kind of adventure story and often carried it to extremes --from fighting a Grizzly to kayaking white-water rapids.

"Testosterone stuff," Marlene says, adding that Liam never wrote much unless he had to for school, and even then he'd wait until the last minute.

When he wasn't frantically typing out his latest man-versus-nature saga, Liam found time to read. Marlene, an avid reader, began reading to Liam before he was born and continued throughout his childhood. Sometimes, she says, he stayed up really late reading. A photo on the brick mantle behind the wood stove shows young Liam lying on his stomach in bed, reading with his Donald Duck comforter pulled over his head.

Liam's early love for the Hardy Boys eventually gave way to his two favorite novels -- "A River Runs Through It" and "The River Why."

Marlene scoots to the edge of her chair as she opens a small book to a drawing of a river. Small letters spell out a quote from "A River Runs Through It."

"I can just imagine him sitting, writing in his journal and drawing this," she says, adding that he was 12 when he kept the journal. "You just know everything that's going through his mind; everything here means something about the ripples, about where the fish would be. This page really, to me, just talks about the intensity that he had about it."

Liam was 6 when he decided he wanted to be a fisherman. Marlene, having recently separated from Liam's dad, Terry Wood, didn't know where to go or what to do, but she bought him a little pole and took him fishing. She went with him and tried to help him put the worm on the hook.

"It always seemed kind of gross to me, the worm and the fish slime," she says, grinning. She watched him fish for hours without catching anything. Even if the weather became nasty and she went to sit in the car, Liam kept casting away.

"He didn't catch a fish for two years, but it never swayed his desire to go," Marlene muses. During their trips to the creeks and rivers, Marlene noticed all the trash on the banks -- hooks, line and beer cans. She figured since flyfishermen were usually considered environmentalists, Liam needed to be a flyfisherman. She took him to a local flyfishing shop and the people there took him in, teaching him how to be a flyfisherman, tie his own flies and build his own rod.

The fishing rod Liam was using the day he died leans against the mantle near the wood stove. Marlene gently picks up the pole, running her fingers lightly across its surface. Bruce watches her with gentle sorrow in his eyes. Friends of theirs cleaned it up for them, she explains. It still smells like gas, she says softly as she lifts it toward her nose. She holds it there for a silent moment before setting it down again. Turning, she pulls up the sleeve of her fleece.

"This was his watch," she whispers. "I wear it every day."

Liam was spending that sunny Thursday flicking his fly across the surface of his favorite fishing spot on Whatcom Creek when the pipeline exploded and sent flames raging along the creek. His arm was beneath the surface of the water, so it didn't get burned, Marlene explains in a tiny voice.

Everything had fallen into place for Liam that last year of his life. He left the narrow halls of Sehome High School, anxious to trek across the bricks at Western Washington University. He often teased Marlene and Bruce about how they couldn't wait for him to move out. He had developed a close relationship with his dad, Terry, who lives in Corvallis, Ore. with his wife, Nadine, and Bailey the little girl they adopted from China, giving Liam the sibling he always asked for. He had a job he loved at H&H Outdoor Store.

"He had reached this beautiful culmination in his life. He was on top of everything. Some people see that as tragic, but I see it as an incredible piece of grace. For as short of a life as Liam had, it was such a great life," Marlene says. Bruce nods in agreement.

Bruce came into Marlene and Liam's lives at the perfect time when Liam was 12. Bruce picked up where Marlene and Liam struggled the way preteens and moms do.

"As a step-parent it was easy to be his father. He was really willing to be my son," Bruce says. "Even though he had a dad and I wasn't trying to replace that, I had a role in his life."

Bruce says he saw Liam's passion for flyfishing as a way to connect with his stepson. Because he could never get excited about fishing, Bruce decided to share his passion for rafting with Liam. During rafting trips, the two enjoyed the water and adventure and were able to bring their interests together. It created a connection between them on another level.

All through his life, Liam needed to fish and be outside. As parents, Marlene and Bruce struggled with their worries about letting him go.

"It was such a conscious decision to be able to let him go from a relatively early age. " Marlene recalls. "I would try to control things to some extent, but I know I really let go of a lot and it was often really hard to do. As a parent, it's just so much easier to say, 'No you can't go there, it's too scary and dangerous.' And so it would be nerve racking, but in retrospect I'd have to say that I'm really really glad that I let him take those risks because they meant everything to him. Ultimately, especially given the way he died you just can't control things."

Bruce remembers the little steps Liam took up to the point where he was big enough to go on his own.

"When he was little we worried too much about letting him go do things. And then to have something bad happen that had nothing to do with the things you worried about " Bruce says, his voice softening into the heavy silence engulfing the room.

After the accident, Marlene and Bruce received a call from Mike and Elaine McRory, members of the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association. Although they didn't know Marlene and Bruce, the McRorys suggested creating a park at the creek as a memorial to Liam.

"They've become close friends," Marlene says. "They've done a wonderful job of distracting me and pulling me into the environment that I love."

Marlene says she now feels more at home outdoors than she does indoors.

"Every day is a struggle these days, but I find that when I'm somewhere out hiking or working on the creek as long as I'm out there in nature I have a sort of sense of calm. And I think it's a connection somehow. It's hard for me to put into words," she says in a tear-choked voice. "I think it is something very spiritual. I really have a strong sense of (Liam's) presence when I'm out there. I often imagine him being there with me. I think that nature somehow takes us away from words and explanations. It takes us beyond that and I don't think, I mean there just don't seem to be any explanations for me around this, so to get beyond this is helpful."

As Marlene's eyes well up with tears Bruce slides his foot across the floor and rubs it against hers.

"She looks for moments all the time," he says quietly without taking his eyes off her. "Even while walking to work; she started walking to work last year after the accident. It's only a mile, but we were like everyone else -- just got in the habit of driving to work."

Bruce and Marlene feel that walking to work is a time to be with Liam.

"The whole connection to gasoline and cars is difficult for us now," Marlene says, adding that they made the change to step away from being so dependent on the car and gas, but it's become more than that.

"There is that whole thing about taking the time to slow down, to pay attention and to not be rushing everywhere, to not be contending with traffic and lights and business," Marlene says.

Working on the creek helps Marlene feel close to Liam. The project also fosters her appreciation for nature and shows her the importance of urban creeks. She says that whether people participate in restoration or simply walk through the park during their lunch breaks, being near the creek might lead them to think about the environment. In turn they might implement changes in their own lives, such as walking to work or deciding not to use pesticides on their lawns.

Bruce and Marlene joined SAFE Bellingham as members of the steering committee and they're watching federal legislation closely.

"Our larger goal around the pipeline issue is to see improved safety standards," Marlene explains. "It was imperative that we work on the federal stuff first because that's what's happening. Any civil action we have time for that and we only have so much energy. We'd prefer not to be working on pipeline issues at all."

"I feel like we've been really picky in choosing what we've been involved with because we really want to monitor or take care of our energy," Bruce says. "It takes a lot of energy to speak out about pipelines both in terms of trying to remember it all and learn it, as well as the toll it takes being out in the public about something so personal."

As the executive director of Northwest Youth Services, Bruce finds himself naturally looking beyond the pipeline issues to the connections with people.

"When people talk about their kids or talk about the family, they're thinking differently about it," Bruce says. "They're going home and looking at their kids differently maybe stepping back and not getting so attached to a problem they're caught up in with their kid because they're staying connected to the love they have."

Marlene agrees, explaining that she believes people in this country focus too much on business, profit and getting things done.

"What it means is that individuals and families and relationships get lost so that we have this corporate culture that really presses people to spend a lot of time and energy working to the detriment of their relationships," she says. "I think that people talk all the time about feeling really torn between their families and their work and not having enough time, but when something like this happens so close to you, you can really draw the line."

Drawing that line has always come easy for Marlene. She chose flexible jobs that allowed her the time and freedom to be with Liam. Her position as one of two staff members at Whatcom Community Foundation is no exception. The foundation not only gave her support and offered her as much time as she needed after Liam died, it created an endowment fund for the environment in Liam's name.

"From the time when I began thinking about being a parent I found ways to balance it and it always worked for me," Marlene says.

"I think one of the things that's been an incredible solace to me is feeling as though I don't have regrets around those issues, that Liam and I really did spend time together, that we were really good friends and we knew each other."

Marlene's voice becomes hoarse as she recalls a moment about two weeks before Liam died. They were in the kitchen and out of the blue Liam asked her if she loved him.

"I told him that I loved him so so much and he said, 'sometimes that's just a good question to ask' I'm so glad those things got said."

Marlene feels the loss is different for Bruce than for her because his relationship with Liam was partly based on faith in the future.

"So while I miss I just miss Liam, for Bruce there's that added thing -- not only missing Liam, but knowing that they had so much relationship building to continue to do and so much happiness "

Simple things trigger memories of Liam.

"In a lot of ways I'll try to connect to the feeling of him being here, being alive," Bruce says. "Sometimes it's a very conscious decision, but sometimes it's beyond words and the earth, beyond thinking it just kind of happens."

Bruce leans back in his chair as he recalls a day when Marlene was gone and he decided to put on some of Liam's CDs. It wasn't music he would listen to unless Liam happened to be playing it.

"I was just having the grandest time, you know just cleaning house and then Marlene came in and it was almost like I'd gotten caught. I remember it was the weirdest feeling because I didn't want to have it on when Marlene was home because I didn't know if that was something she would like ." Bruce looks intently in Marlene's eyes as he wanders back in his mind to that day. "She just came over to me and I just started crying. It was such a warm, comfortable feeling, but it was very connected to the past, too. It's a slippery slope and I just fell right over."

Little sounds that might have once been taken for granted remind Marlene and Bruce of Liam. Tearing the plastic off the top of a yogurt container and other sounds associated with him getting food out of the refrigerator trigger memories.

"Some days they surprise me and some days I purposely do them," Bruce says, laughing at some of the funny things that make Liam feel alive to him.

"Liam was just a goof ball. He was so funny," Marlene says. "And that's something I miss in myself that I lost. I feel like I used to have this very happy sense of humor and it's really not there for me anymore, but I sure like to remember his."

The soft music floating from the speakers can't disguise the silence where teenage humor once filled the space with easy laughter.

The notes float around a house full of pieces of a life lost. Stretch, the turtle Liam brought home from his fifth-grade classroom, sits expectantly in his aquarium beneath the wood-stove mantle, which is adorned with photos of the loving boy. Across the room, a wooden skeleton sculpture stands with stick arms outstretched. A red heart radiates a feeling of life inside the blue and black paint that outlines the skeletal form.

Marlene laughs slightly as Bruce turns on a lamp, revealing a poem inscribed on the sculpture:

"We have come only to sleep, only to dream, it is untrue, it is false that we have come to live upon the earth. We sprout like grass of the springtime. Our hearts open their blossoms. Our body becomes a flower. It gives a few flowers and then withers" -- Netzahaulcoyotl. The poet-king of Texcoco. Thirteenth Century Mexico.

The soft music continues as Marlene explains how the art piece was the first thing she and Bruce saw when they went to Evergreen AIDS Foundation's auction in September. "When we saw it, we looked at each other and just sort of said, 'Well I guess that's for us,'" Marlene says.

Bruce turns the wooden boy around and his eyes trace the words: "The dead are like our children, they need us. As long as we honor their memory, the dead will never die."

Spring/Summer 2000 - One Year Later

What Dreams Are Made Of by Kari McGinnis

What Dreams Are Made Of
by Kari McGinnis