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Fan WritingStories, page 6My Name Is Shelli Bayley I'm 24 yrs old. The date is July 17th 2005, I was watching The Neverending Story and I wanted to see what the actors had been up too. After I checked part one I was checking part 2 cause I knew Jonathan Brandis was in part 2. I was shocked to find out he past away. my cousin committed suicide when he was 23 In 1997, I know the pain I went through trying to understand why, I still don't know why but I know that GOD has a plan for everyone. Someone may have a long life to live or have a short one, but they live forever in our hearts, What has gotten me by is remembering the good times, as I did with my cousin. Keep Jonathon's spirit alive, watch one of the many movies he's made, like Sidekicks with Chuck Norris, or Stephen Kings It, or what I did, I watched The Neverending Story 2. Please celebrate his life and the wonderful 27 years God gave us to know Jonathan. To his parents, my prayers are with you. I'm very sorry for your tragic loss Contributed by Shelli Bayley I am a 27-year-old-Japanese woman who was a great fan of Jonathan during the time I was 13-18 years old. When I was 13 years old, I started buying a Japanese movie magazine in order to read articles on Edward Furlong who was extremely popular there because of Terminator 2. But when I saw pictures of Jonathan in that magazine, I became so shocked how beautiful, handsome and charming he was and I became a great fan of him immediately. Since then until I was around 18 years old, I was really crazy about him and collected many articles, pictures, videos etc. At the age of 15, I decided to write a fan letter to him, even though my English was not good at all. I was a bit worried if he would think that I was not smart or something like that because of my poor English, but to my big surprise, I received a autographed photo and a letter from him a couple of months later. I had never expected to receive a reply from him, so I was extremely happy when I received these from him. My feelings for Jonathan became just stronger and stronger and I began even buying magazines from USA, such as Teens, Bop, Big Bopper etc, in order to get more information on him. Through all my school days (junior high and high school), I just adored him and was really crazy about him. Since several years back, I have living in Europe and hadn´t think about Jonathan anymore. Yesterday, I happed to wonder what Jonathan was doing now and decided to search information on him on Internet. I just couldn´t believe my eyes when I read that Jonathan passed away in 2003. You may think it stupid to be so shocked by the news of an idol that you loved very many years ago, but it was a great shock to me. I read that one of the fans wrote on this homepage: “It feels as if a part of my childhood died” and I have exactly the same feeling. Even though I hadn´t think about him during the last 9 years, Jonathan had been a big part of my everyday life (though I didn´t know him personally) and it feels that a big part of the memory from my school days died now with the sad news on Jonathan. I do hope that Jonathan finds a peaceful time now and would like to thank him for giving me such a great time and memory during my school days. Contributed by Hiromi, Sweden I first saw Jonathan Brandis shortly after I read Stephen King's 'It' and bought the movie to have a visual representative. I watched the movie twice, I think, before I really started looking at the characters. I was most interested in the boy who they got to play Bill Denbrough, Jonathan Brandis. I did not know his name at the time, but my friend and I were talking about sexy celebrities, and since I didn't have anything, really, I said that the kid who played Bill in 'It' was sexy. "Oh, that's Jonathan Brandis," my friend told me. I think I liked him because he was shrimpy, and in a world of Brad Pitts and other muscular movie men, shrimpy people are in short supply. Now, while this may not seem as though I was too late to love him while he was alive, I watched that movie in the fall of 2004. Incidentally, my friend didn't tell me that Jonathan Brandis was dead. A few weeks later, after I had pieced together a desktop image of a whole ton of pictures depicting Brandis as a child, my friend and I were talking about Jonathan Brandis again. Suddenly, out of the blue, she just said, "Hey, did you know that he's dead." I was shocked. Stunned. "What?" I remember that I replied to her. "Oh yeah," she said. "He killed himself. Hung himself or something." Oh, I was crushed. I was just another screaming fangirl who's celebrity killed himself. What a great world this is. Since then, I have not quit loving Jonathan Brandis. I still buy every movie with him in it that I can get my grubby paws on, and I look up pictures of him about once a week. Even though he's dead, we are very priviledged to still be able to watch his works, and we should thank whatever God we worship that he was with us for even the scanty twenty-seven years that he was. I know that we will never forget Jonathan Brandis. No, not even when we have grown out of our nauseous love for this little boy with intoxicating blue eyes and sandy blonde hair and moved on to people who can actually love us back. Not even when we are on our deathbed shall we forget. We will always be waiting for the day when he will either come back from the dead and becomes a polygamist or the day that the rapture comes and we can all meet him, greet him, love him forever. My childhood will remain tainted by him, and I fear that my adulthood will be as well. Contributed by Sara I wish I could say that I had met Jon, in reality, instead of in the fantasies of a young girl who really didn't know where she belonged or who she belonged with. I've had the gift that has developed over the years of empathy, and so I was not totally surprised when Jon died. For some reason, there was always an amount of sadness and loneliness in his eyes, in his demeanor, in his aura that I could always see and identify with. When Jon died, I was struggling with the depression that I have struggled with for 8 years (now 9 years), with the worse yet to come. His death was saddening - not just as the loss of a great actor, but a great person. For many of us, it is the death of a fantasy, that was not too far from reality. Suicide is not something new to me in any means, but all I can say is that although suicide is selfish - Jon is in a place where he hopefully feels like he can be free. Contributed by Gloria I guess liking Jonathan was my way of being different when I was a little girl. I remember other girls bringing in their copies of Teen Beat with JTT all over the cover and thinking "Ugh he is no where NEAR as cute as Jon!". I decided one summer to write him a love letter....not just a fan letter but a "I absolutely love you please marry me" letter. I was dead serious. I got back a signed autograph photo (well I convinced myself it was hand signed and really, it does look like it) and placed it in a silly frame and hung it on my wall. I was completely in love. As I grew up and he faded a bit I would still "freak out" to see him in a movie or something. My friends bought me The Neverending Story 2 on dvd and laughed. Heck "We are all part of a neverending story" was my senoir quote. I moved to Los Angeles for college and honestly thought I might run into him somewhere. I kept thinking "Well, he hasnt done much lately, maybe I will run into him at a grocery store or something." Seems kinda silly I suppose. I held this quiet admiration for him. One day my friend instant messaged me and said that he had committed suicide. I couldnt belive it. The little girl in me kept saying "woa wait, I was supposed to marry him!" and I was terribly upset. And confused. Afterall, I had never met him before, only seen about half his movies...why should it make me so sad? And more than that, I was so sad that he had been so very sad to take his own life. And then one night, I had the *strangest* dream. I was in a void, and suddenly there he was, standing right in front of me, smiling. I said to him "But, you're dead!". He smiled and nodded. "Yeah I am." "But I would have married you if we met!" I said. Again he smiled and laughed a little. "Yeah I know." And then I didnt know what to say. I wanted to hug him or something, but instead he just took my hand. "Come on, I want to show you something." And suddenly the void turned into a dark back allyway. Like the kind you would see in the movies or something. It was old, stinky and filthy. We started walking along it and there were bums all along the side. Except they were actually his relatives. We talked to them all (they were all nice) and laughed. I remember looking at Jonathan and thinking "He looks really happy now". When we came to the end of the road, he simply turned to me and said "I'll see you later." and I woak up. Needless to say, I felt a lot better about his death afterward. I dont want to speculate on if I was really "visited" per say or if I just imagined it in order to make myself feel better. All I know is, it made me feel a lot more at peace. Okay so strange story I know. I just thought I would share it in case it made anyone else feel as at peace with his passing as it made me feel. Contributed by Mink Like many others, I first learned of Jonathan Brandis from watching The Never Ending Story 2. I was about twelve years old at the time and I had never had a crush on a celebrity before. But something happened when I watched that movie. I just fell so hard when I saw that gorgeous face. I was never the same again. I became obsessed! When I told my cousin I liked Jonathan, she gave me some posters of him that she'd gotten from those teen bopper magazines. I excitedly put them up on my wall that same day. They weren't even up an hour before my parents made me take them down. They said I was too young to have posters of a guy up in my room, and they never let me buy magazines with posters in them. That didn't stop me though. I had friends and cousins who would give me their Jonathan posters all the time. I just kept them hidden under my bed and would take them out and gaze at them when I was alone. In a few years I had over a hundred posters, but alas I still wasn't allowed to put them up on my walls. I remember how excited I was when Sea Quest first aired. I watched the show religiously with my dad every week. He watched it for the science fiction and always thought that's why I was watching it too. But I secretly watched it for my beloved Jonathan. I was fifteen years old when one of my friends told me she was going to write to him and try to get him to come to my sixteenth birthday party. She never did get that letter to him in time, but she managed to get it out before my seventeenth birthday. Never expecting to hear back from him, I was surprised when she came over with a gift on my birthday and told me it was from Jonathan. Inside the box was a note from him apologizing for not being able to make it to my birthday, and some autographed pictures. It was the best birthday gift I've ever gotten. I am now twenty-four years old and married to a wonderful man. But the day I heard of Jonathan's death, it hit me just as hard as it would have if he had died when I was just a teenager. My cousin told me about it. The same cousin that gave me my first posters. She called me at work to give me the news. I couldn't focus on my job the rest of the day. I was trying so hard to hold back the tears. I cried while I drove home that afternoon. It seemed silly to me that I should be crying over a guy I had a crush on so long ago. A guy I had never even met. But I guess that's how much he meant to me. I went home for Thanksgiving about a week later. I found my posters in my old room. I cried again when I saw them. I felt sorrow over his death and I felt so ashamed of the fact that I didn't have the guts to stand up to my parents and hang those posters up when I was younger. Now he was gone, and those posters were still hidden away where they had been all those years. I couldn't stand to leave them there again. I took them home with me, and in my spare time put some of my favorites (including the autographed ones) on a poster board and wrote "In Loving Memory" at the top. I had it framed and I put it up on the wall over my desk at home. My husband wasn't too happy about it, but I didn't let that stop me. Jonathan's beautiful face was hidden away in my room when he was alive and I will not let that continue now that he's gone. I owe it to him to keep his memory alive. Besides, I think my husband is finally coming around. He bought me The Never Ending Story 2 on DVD for my birthday! Contributed by Stacy F, Fremont, CA. Fan since 1993 Jonathan Brandis was a wonderful and caring actor. He portrayed many characters in his films and shows. My two favourite movies of his are "Sidekicks" and "LadyBugs" because I am a huge martial arts and soccer fan, having played the sport for over 10 years. I used to be obsessed with Jon because well when I was 15, he was hot! It's amazing what you find out years later after your obsession stops and I was shocked to hear that Jon had committed suicide. Being a person who was just about took their own life, I understand now what it means to live. Life is such a precious thing and those who take their own lives are either deeply troubled or just have no where else to turn. I, myself, was very frightened when I thought of how suicide could hurt someone's family, friends and acquaintances. It's a scary feeling, and I only wish Jon was still with us today, because in my heart I know that he would have turned out great. My sympathies go out to his family and friends. Jonathan was a great actor and inspired me to try and reach out to others about the subject of suicide on a personal level because it is a tragic thing to have to deal with in one's life and wish that upon no one. I struggled through my suicidal tendencies to get where I am today and I am a different person. Four years ago, no one would have thought I would ever think of committing suicide and when I mention it, they're shocked. I have surprised many people with my committment to my job and my goals have become more my own because I've learned to think positively. Suicide is no laughing matter, so please think twice before you take your own life. In the long run, you'll realize it wasn't even worth thinking about in the first place. Contributed by Léa R.L. Schroeder Jonathan's birthday On April 13, 1976 a special person was born into the world. He was special to his parents, special to all those who love and know him. I am not sure if I should say, Happy Birthday, Jon. But maybe on April 13 a special day to remember Jonathan Gregory Brandis. In remembering Jonathan's birthday, I will never forget about Jonathan. Love, Joanne Kelsey I passed a playground one autumn evening, paying no heed toward the bold and misspelled vandalized writings along the foundations of a child's entertainment source. I did not plan to read the words, but my familiarity with the English language keeps an unconscious tab on words that I see. I read them before I know I have read them, but most are not kept in memory do to unimportance. While passing idly underneath the slide, I noticed the familiar symbol of someone claiming their ground by stamping a bold statement that always comes out as JEREMY WAS HERE or the like. Who knows when Jeremy put this statement on a slide. Who knows if Jeremy ever existed at all. These words are left only as a silent memory to the people who have passed here. These words mean little to most, but for those who knew Jeremy, it would mean that he did exist. I wrote long and hard to perfect the images of such things. I wanted to leave my mark on all that meant so much to me. I failed miserably, taken aback by the enormous amount of criticism I recieved for my hard work. No thank you or other simple phrase could save me. I am not made for this. My strength is short and I don't ever see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is what I live. Then I learned that he died. Lucas Wolenczak was no more. Ten years had passed since he first started to show his character, but no more than a decade would pass in the end. I was hit like a thousand crows to a glass window pane as I felt the last of my being fall. Suicide was a word that followed me since my father took his own life when I was three-years-old. The word haunts me like a ghost in the hall that only passes by the corners of your eyes. No explanation, no good-bye, no understanding of this death. My stories became foreign to me as I confronted long lost feelings. My words felt like filth as I described the character of a dead man, and I felt like I had betrayed his potrayal of the boy genius we all grew to love. The agony of a broken heart that hadn't yet healed left me limp and unable to cope. I was told my intense amount of stress caused me to progress into a Multiple Sclerosis state of muscular and nerve damage. I was not built to carry such a trialsome matter, and I felt awful that I would feel so much for a man I never really knew. His parents lost their only child. How would they survive this? Why can I not be as strong as they are? Why are there so many feelings in this? I felt that it was not alright to cry for someone I never touched. I felt alone as I tore up inside for someone I believed in too late. I had known him since the beginning, but I had not understood him until a few months before his death. Lies they must be. He cannot be dead. I have not yet been able to tell him that I was a fan. I had not seen him yawn or cough or stare at the sand. I saw no body, so he must not be dead. Was I only fooling myself? Turmoil still wraps itself around and within me almost a year after his death. Many state that it only takes a year to get through grieving. For me, it always takes so much longer, and it can feel like an eternity in purgatory. I wanted to believe that it was just a dream. I waited for him to appear in the public again. I watched all of his movies after weeks of searching for them, and I prized each video like it was the Olympic gold. I even taped small scenes of his appearances in Full House and Saved By the Bell. I spent hundreds of dollars to retrieve every episode of SeaQuest DSV so I could chart his entire career. Obsession? Maybe. Then it began to appear around me, and I was forced to reveal that he was dead. He would not be able to call up random fans just to show them that he cared. He would no longer be able to sneeze or laugh or comprehend the world that we call our lives. It is like a child's favorite toy being taken away for no reason. No one is left to tell you why, no one knows if it was planned, no one can say exactly what he thought of when he decided it was time to go. Human nature states that we need this understanding to move on. Without this understanding, I cannot seem to move on. It was hard to believe he was real for a while. It was hard to understand. But I began to see visions of him in the corners of my weary eyes. I cried a thousand tears with no answer to each one, but when I slept I swore I dreamed of him in a place so far from here. I wrote letters and stories and tried to make things okay, but on quiet days I would feel something that was not quite ordinary. Someone could tell me that it isn't him; that it is only my mind and body playing an elaborate game to ease the overwhelming pain inside. What matters most is that I believe it is him. If it isn't true, I would rather live a lie. On simple evenings when I walk near the playground, I search through the symbols of long forgotten people. Somewhere deep inside I think I am looking for the one that will say HE WAS HERE. Then I will know for sure. Contributed by Kristine I grew up loving Jonathan, so it was a great shock to find out that he is no longer here with us. I live on the other side of the US. in Cleveland, Ohio. I never heard of his passing until a few months ago on one of those "Child actors - Where are they Now?" shows. They talked about him for about 3.5 seconds and moved on to something else. To tell you the truth I was really hoping that I heard wrong. I asked all my friends and family if they heard the same thing and of course they had not. After a strange dream I had of him last night, I decided to look him up on the internet. As you know, I found out it was true. After a few tears I decided to write to anyone who will read this. I can say that I was a true JB buff! Of all the pics on these sites, I had everyone of them! My bedroom walls where covered with his posters, pictures I cut out, and anything else I could find of him. I would dream of meeting him face to face one day, but when you live a thousand miles away it can be real hard to do. To the day I heard, I still had that secret wish!!!! I am sure that I still have most of the posters, but after moving over 12 times in 10 years I hate to say that I am not real sure. I don't remember what happened for me to have stopped collecting his things. It seemed like he was just faded out of all the Teen Bop mags and movies. The posters may have come down, but I never did stop loving him. I had a wonder feeling that he was making a come back one day when I say him star in a Life Time move about being lost at sea on a life waft. It was not more than a week later I found out he was gone. I kills me to know that JB was gone for more that a year before I heard anything about it. I may not have been his biggest fan anymore, but I am still a fan. Why did the news not make it to this side of the country? Why did I not see anything in the news? Or the news paper? Why did noone I know heat of it? I guess I am one of the many out there saying that it is not fair. That his light went out way to soon. I didn't know him but I miss him. To any one lucky enough to have gotten to met him, you are blessed to have had a true angle touch your live. All that I have is the saddness in knowing that he was born on my fiance's bithday and died on mine. Contributed by Jennifer 
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In memoriam, Jonathan Gregory Brandis 1976-2003 |
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