I heard about this yesterday as it was all my mother could talk about for hours (she has her own little rotary list, only she calls everyone on it). When told the news I can’t say I remarked in a shocked way or even feigned interest – Felicia was on the very periphery edge of my life; I used to go to school with her years ago, family and friends know her, but I never actually got to know her that well.
It’s a pretty sad story what with her little daughter finding her and the boyfriend in the morning and I do feel sorry for the family but that’s about where the empathy stops. I don’t think it’s slanderous when I say here that both she and Benji had reputations of being a little off kilter – talks of drugs use, alcohol abuse, other violent spats. I think a lot of people get caught in relationships like the one she had, where both the parties make each other unhappy but neither is willing to leave.
But I don’t think bad of her for any of that. And I certainly don’t wish her dead or for her child to grow up without a mother, however I will never think of Felicia Armstrong fondly. I, it seems, carry grudges. And I will never forget that morning in second grade when John Black, Kendra Nardi and I were playing in the school yard when Felicia came along and started to pick on one of us. I can’t remember who exactly, but at that time Felicia was a big girl (I haven’t seen her in 10 odd years) and she was a bully. So, one thing came to another, and she kicked me in the balls.
Yep, right in the family jewels. The pain was up there with having my lungs removed nasally – it’s a sensation I sometimes wake up from at night, ghost pain – and it was of course painful. Mrs. Yoder took me to the boy’s bathroom and had me “check” myself and it was probably the most thorough examination of my sac to that point and since. There was only slight bruising, no bloody dangling bits as I had suspected, but it’s something I can’t shake to this day (and as silly as it sounds, I think this event had something to do with the pitch of my voice).
So long, nard crusher. I’m sorry it ended this way.