PATRICK SEAN KELLY

September 14, 1993
Patrick Sean Kelly
WRITING TO LIVE
The character that has meant the most to me in all that I have read, is Biff Loman, the "lost boy" from Death of a Salesman. Biff could not find his purpose in life because he didn't know what he needed to be happy. When I read his story, I was in the same predicament. It seemed as though the world had nothing to offer me that would fulfil my life. A career is a tool for the survival of the body and the mind. This ‘tool' for me, I have come to realize, is writing. I am a writer because it is the only thing that makes my life liveable. Every other career I have considered has benefits, but none has the ability to transform and to align itself with the changes within me.

I am a very fickle person, so I need a career that will change constantly. As I was growing up, I wanted to be a teacher, a veterinarian, a lawyer, and a Marine. At each phase of my career cycle, I was certain, without a doubt, that this is what I was destined to be. Although I know I could become any of these professions, I have serious doubts as to how long I would be happy with any of them. I wanted to be a teacher when I was in grade school because I wanted the power to tell little "shits" like myself what to do. But when I found out how much money teachers made, it didn't seem quite as appealing.

My next step came from my love of animals. Getting paid for playing with puppies and kittens sounded perfect, until I remembered I would also have to cut them open and watch them die.

So finally, I thought I had found a home in law. Money, importance, influence, it had everything. I had a vision of myself in an expensive suit, flailing my hands and thrilling a mesmerized jury with my intensity to find or defend a noble truth. But time after time, working professionals told me stories of endless paperwork and moral dilemmas, none of which fit my idea of the lawyer as a superhero of heroic justice.

After that, I got tired of always having a plan for the future. I forgot about it, and just relaxed for a while. Then came the middle of my junior year in high school and I could no longer hide. As the saying goes, "I would have to find my future, before it found me." Panic struck me. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do for the rest of my life. If my life was going to be boring, it might as well be for a noble cause. The Marines seemed to fit that. And if I died in action, I would not have to worry about anything.

In my heart I knew it was just a way for me to avoid looking for my true place in society. What I truly wanted was to be part of everything. I wanted a dynamic life full of adventure and romance, pain and pleasure, life and death; I needed a life that was worth living.

The writing life is the only thing that can satisfy my needs; it is the one thing that can feel like anything. During a period when I was still in my Marine phase, I came across a book that showed me the life that could make me happy. "Hollywood, the last 50 years", contained pictures of movies that embodied the entire scope of human existence; exactly what I was looking for. There were stories of teacher geniuses, noble lawyers, fearless Marines, anything that I had ever wanted to be, plus much more. This was a life that would allow me to change, and I would not really have to choose just one career. As Joan Didian expressed in "On keeping a Notebook", words or phrases bring back entire people in other worlds. John Gardner said in "What Writers Do" that "a writer is many different people."

Through each character I create or relive, I will experience the emotion of another person's existence. There have been moments in my life when I could not believe the exhilaration of the passion inside of me. The only thing that could bring those moments back to me, was me writing them down in crisp detail and brutal honesty. A screenwriter creates worlds so real that people can break-down or become inspired by them. As the creator, I will feel this catharsis every time my emotions build a new life. A writer must examine his feelings toward himself and others whenever he struggles to squeeze out another piece of dialogue. This introspection will fill my life with, as Joseph Campbell put it, the "experience of being alive." Which is to say, I will feel the "rapture of being alive" by living a life that demands my vulnerability to those emotions which make a person know that he is living. I would eventually become numb and lifeless in any other career, but writing is a life search of a person's innermost being. Whenever I change and lose touch with my emotions, I will re-start the search until I feel alive again. Writing is my tool of survival for the mind.

The only way I can live is if I feel alive, and the only way I can feel alive is if I am a writer. And living a life that does not feel alive is the same as death, consequently, I will ‘die' if I do not succeed as a writer. Either I become a writer, or I don't become anything. Therefore the other aspect of choosing a career, which is whether or not it is a tool of survival for the body, doesn't concern me. I cannot live as anything else, so another career's financial rewards are meaningless. It's a decision between ‘life' or ‘death', and I have chosen life: writing.

I am a writer, then, because it is my only chance for life in a society that offers me nothing else I can accept. I am a dreamer, a victim of a media that creates worlds that I can only be a part of in my imagination. There are so many other lifestyles that have tempted me, but with writing I can live them all. I can be the ruthless killer, the disturbed lover, and the dumb jock, whenever it is there in my soul to be explored. I am a writer because nothing else fulfils my need to "feel the rapture of being alive."

Animation by Cog23

This page is a dedication to my son, Patrick Sean, who was killed in Tijuana, Mexico on May 11, 1996. To this day, there has never been an investigation into his death. More information about the exact circumstances can be seen on the links below.

Sean had just completed his third year at the University of Southern California School of Cinema, Filmic Writing Program. He had aspirations of writing movies that portrayed Native people as valuable people with something to offer the world. He was determined to live life to the fullest and to communicate his ideas and deepest thoughts through his writings. He hoped to change the world for the better. He hoped his movies and words would make people stop and think and become more tolerant of those around them.

In reviewing some of his writings left behind, I came across an essay about his views on the meaning of life. He wrote:

"How can you kill a thought, destroy a memory? I began to believe that my soul was independent of my body, and that death was just the transition from one world, one body, to another. I can now imagine my soul dying, because I know my brain creates what I call a soul, and without my brain, there is no Patrick Sean Kelly."

Because of a still unexplained act of horrible violence, there is now no Patrick Sean Kelly. But it seems the effect he had on people will not be forgotten. And while they may have prematurely silenced his voice, they have not been able to dampen his spirit.

In that same essay, he concluded:

"I now live for every individual day, because when death comes, I can die knowing I took full advantage of my life. Life is just a mammal surviving as the sun rises and falls. What this mammal does while surviving is what will ultimately decide the success of his or her existence."

I hope that wherever he is, he finally knows how much he meant to people and the effect he had on people's lives.

Sean, you'll be missed and loved forever. And my solemn promise to you is that I will find out who is responsible for your death and that, one way or another, justice will be done.

I plead with all you young people -- don't go to Mexico. Life is cheap there. And unfortunately our own governments don't help either.

To you who are parents -- Hold your children, love your children, be patient with your children, appreciate your children. There is no guarantee you'll get a chance to do it tomorrow.

May 31, 1997

My dear Sean:

This page is dedicated to you, exactly one year after we said good-bye to you forever at your memorial service at the University of Southern California.

I recently made the final entry in your diary. It was very difficult, but it was time to say good-bye to you properly.

I started the diary on September 18, 1975, the day I first met you and brought you home. I made an entry every year on your birthday so you would have a record of our life together. I always worried that since it was only the two of us all those years, that when I died you wouldn't have any recall of a lot of the details since there would be no one to talk to about our life together. Never in my wildest imagination did I dream that the record would be for me, not for you. Children are not supposed to die before their parents.

I last talked to you May 02, 1996, when you phoned that evening because you were so excited about finishing your script and getting the job at the library you wanted for the summer. You knew your grades were going to be better than ever, you finally seemed happy and confident about who you were and your future. You were in a hurry to get to the library that night and put the finishing touches on your manuscript before you turned it in the next morning. Unfortunately, you were never to know how really well you did. You were to have been inducted into the National Greek Honor Society last summer. But the notice came far too late.

Your last words were "Gotta go, talk to you Sunday, love you". I said "I love you too" but I don't know if you heard me or not. You never called Sunday. I never spoke to you again.

You know the rest better than I do. I am still struggling to find out. I'm afraid I will always be struggling to find out.

My life ended the next three weeks when you disappeared May 4th. Everybody kept telling me it would be all right, you would be found, and found alive. But I knew in my heart I would never see you alive again. I don't know how. I just felt my soul draining away with your absence.

When the call came on May 25th that I needed to go to Tijuana to make a positive i.d., I felt so guilty. I felt that maybe if I hadn't believed you were dead that three weeks, if maybe I'd been more positive, that my horrible nightmare wouldn't have come true. But I couldn't do anything about it.

I can't adequately describe the feeling of going to that morgue in Tijuana the next day and viewing your horribly mangled and battered body. I at first couldn't even be sure it was you. I touched the glass separating us but couldn't feel you. You looked so afraid, so hurt, so alone. I wanted to talk to you, but you could no longer hear me. I went back to the hotel in San Diego that night and started making the calls nobody wanted. Calls I didn't want to make. Words I didn't want to speak. All I could say to them is "Sean's dead." I spent that night alone, wondering when the nightmare would be over. I'm still wondering.

Your friends have been truer friends than you could ever imagine. Michael Park, Elias Cervantes, Nels Lennarson, Ankur Arora, Mike Hillman, Rene Sarkhosh. They've been by my side for the last year. They talk about you and think of you often. I wouldn't have made it through this last year without them. I only hope you somehow know how much you meant to them. I'm afraid you'll never know.

I can't get over the feeling that I let you down, Sean. I wasn't there when you needed me. I didn't find you soon enough and bring you home and get you the medical care you required. I should not have relied on others to find you. I should have found you myself. I should have been by your bedside so you could hear my voice and know I was there. A mother is supposed to protect her child and I didn't.

I hope you didn't suffer as badly as I imagine you did. I hope you didn't know I wasn't there. I hope you don't know now how badly I hurt. It would only make you hurt for me, and I don't want that. I want you to be happy, wherever you are.

If you are watching me and looking out for me now, I thank you, Sean, for giving me my new friends. You'd like all of them. I wonder if you hand-picked them. And for sharing your friends Michael, Elias, Nels, Mike, Rene and Ankur. All of them in their own way somehow manage to be there at the right times, saying the right thing, pulling me back from the brink. I just have to figure out now how not to be a burden and how to make it on my own.

I don't know if I'll ever be all right without you. I know I'll never be whole again. I know I can never see another movie without thinking of you, or waking in the morning without hoping it's all a dream, or going to sleep at night wishing I didn't have to wake up in the morning.

You also know how stubborn and pig-headed I am. I'll continue to fight the powers that be and I'll continue to try to get answers where there are none and I'll continue to talk to anybody who will listen about what happened to you with the hope of preventing it from happening to others.

And I'll continue to miss you more than life itself. When they took you, Sean, they took me too. It's like someone literally ripped my heart and soul from my body. You were my life, my future, my reason for being. I will never forgive them. I will never stop looking for them. But I will work on forgiving myself for letting you down when you needed me the most. And I look forward to the day when I can dream about your smiling face, your quick wit, your love -- and stop remembering the way you last looked.

I love you. I miss you.

Mom

RANDOM THOUGHTS — TO SEAN
September 18, 1997


Twenty-two years ago;
I first met you.
Sixteen months ago;
I lost you forever.
Now this is a sorrowful day;
While it used to be so joyful.
You are no longer;
And I do not understand.
I talk to you every morning;
But you do not answer.
I listen for you every day;
But I hear nothing.
I look for those tell-tale signs that you are here;
But all I see is emptiness.
You brought magic into my life;
The magic is now gone.
Everywhere I turn I look for you;
But I still do not see.
Some say you are an angel;
But I do not believe.
They tell me I will see you again;
But how can I wait?
My heart and soul are gone;
Will they ever return?
I have seen death before;
But never like this.
When you were here;
I knew who I was.
While you were maturing;
I could see my future.
I cannot adapt to my new role;
that of a childless Mother.
You were my light, my life;
I wonder where you are now.


Love, Mom
"But in the days of our sorrow, no pain is so bitter as the memory of our past joys." Dante

March 25, 1998

Once more a birthday comes and goes without you. Does it ever get better? Do we as parents missing our children ever stop hurting? Everywhere I go I see things that remind me of you. Every song I hear makes me think of you. This isn't right Sean, that I can only talk to you this way now. I finally saw the last film you made just a couple of weeks ago. You had so much to say, so much to offer. You would have made the world a better place.

A friend of mine wrote this poem. Today, I dedicate it to you.

My Son

May your spirit fly with the eagles, my son
May you find peace in your flight
Now that your time on earth is done
and you are no longer within my sight
To the Indian, an eagle is a spirit that's free
not tied to the bonds of this earth
May warmth and love surround you
May you find peace as you did before birth
And may you soar with the greatest of eagles
touch every part of the sky
Leave nothing undiscovered
know our love will never die
And whenever I see an eagle above
I'll now smile instead of cry
I know you'll always be near me
Till one day, together we'll fly.
(Vicki Tush)

If you would like a copy of the above bumper sticker, please email me at TijuanaNot@aol.com

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For more information on my son and the circumstances of his death, please see the following links:

Unexplained Death in Tijuana

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Parents of Murderd Children National Song
"WE ARE THE SURVIVORS"
by Richard Wright

There are those of us whose mothers have been taken from our arms,
There are those of us with children we could not keep safe from harm,
There are those of us who've lived to see our fathers lose their lives,
And each and every one of us survives.
(chorus)
We are the survivors,left behind to carry on.
We are the survivors, joined together we are strong.
We will speak out for our loved ones who were not given a choice.
We are the survivors, hear our voice.

Maybe some of us have brothers who were here but now they're gone,
You can ask about our sisters, because their memory is strong.
We are sons and we are daughters, we are husbands, we are wives,
And each and every one of us survives.
(repeat chorus...)
We are the survivors, left behind to carry on.
We are the survivors, joined together we are strong.
We will speak out for our loved ones who were not given a choice.
We are the survivors, hear our voice.

With a part of us that never heals, and a fear of the unknown,
There's a strength in knowing through it all, you're not alone.
(repeat chorus)
We are the survivors, left behind to carry on.
We are the survivors, joined together we are strong.
We will speak out for our loved ones who were not given a choice.
We are the survivors, hear our voice.
(repeat chorus...)

To hear the song, please visit the POMC Home Page at: POMC - Home Page

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