Posted by:
Elder Berry
(
)
Date: April 12, 2019 05:51PM
When I was 13 my best friend died of cancer. It wasn't good. And he was the only person I knew when I was young to have died until last Thanksgiving when I visited my family. My mother told me a friend from my childhood had committed suicide - Treavor Jolley.
Oh how the memories have come back today. I've been putting off looking it up until today. Here is his obit.
"Jolley, Treavor D.
Treavor D. Jolley, 33, was born August 26, 1971, in Provo, Utah. He returned to his Father in Heaven on October 22, 2004, and was greeted with open arms by his infant son, Dylan, and his Grandpa Black. He was raised in Orem and lived a short time in Lindon. He met and fell in love with his best friend and true love, Marniee D. Allen.
They were married February 21, 1992; later solemnized in the Salt Lake LDS Temple on August 12, 1994.
He loved his Heavenly Father and from the time he was a young boy, he had a deep love for the outdoors, and all animals. He worked at Christensen Auto Dealership. He later became a respiratory therapist; and, most currently, worked for Union Pacific Railroad as a conductor."
"Published in the Daily Herald on 10/24/2004."
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ut/utah/obits/dh/2004/oct/dh24oct2004.txthttps://images.findagrave.com/photos/2016/187/150899089_1467858358.jpgWhat a strange history Treavor and I had. In grade school he was a bully but he sort of didn't bully me. I say sort of because he was violent and verbally abusive to me but we were friends. I can't tell you how many times he punched me. But I took it. I liked him. He was tough. He was a rebel and I thought that was cool.
His family situation sucked. When I was friends with him his mother was going through a divorce from his violent father. Treavor told me how his father beat him regularly. We didn't hang out at his house until his father left and his mother remarried an retired cop and they started a blind cleaning business. A few years after that they moved to North Orem and then Lindon. His obit says a short time in Lindon but that isn't true. He was there 5 or 6 years. Maybe that is a short time.
He and his stepfather got along okay. I assume his step father left him alone a lot but his mom was really nice once they had moved. They moved into a big ranch house with horses. I remember going to his house in Lindon (I lived in Orem) many times and she would make us food and was very pleasant to me.
She wasn't always so nice. Before she rekindled her interest in the Mormon Church she was a bitch to me. She either didn't talk to me or told me that she didn't like my clothes (I was pretty poor looking) or she would tell Treavor she didn't like my face and stuff like that. But Mormon Jesus made her a nice lady. And I loved going to their ranch. Treavor and I would spend hours riding their horses in the foothills.
He had broken his horse and bragged to me about how violent he had been to it. It was a male horse and I was afraid of it. His hair color and its mane were pretty close the same color. I had the 12 year old brown mare and she suited me just fine. Only once did she spook and almost took my head off with a branch but Treavor rode up and reigned her in.
Ah, the memories.
And to skinny down this post I'll just give you their highlights.
Treavor suspected my bisexuality and once told me that he wouldn't be surprised if I had sex with men. It didn't disgust him but he said that it did surprise him.
We used to hang out a lot at his girlfriend Shannon's house in the poor hood across the street to the North from the Baseball fields in Orem near the Orem Public Library and City Building. It was a shack but they had a Super Nintendo and I would watch more than play. Treavor loved kicking ass on that game. He also loved Shannon's ass and talked to me about hitting it. He thought he was in love. We would listen to the Led Zepplin song "All of My Love" over and over so he could here the "Shannon" part.
Sometimes his older brother Shaun would drive up places in his jacked up truck (suspension.) I thought he was awesome. He blared Def Leppard on his supped up stereo system. I thought he was good looking but never told Treavor that.
The beginning of the end for our friendship was Shaun's wedding. Treavor wanted me to come because there was going to be drinking. We could get stupid for free there. So I went to the wedding. Treavor's mom and stepfather didn't drink but Treavor, Shaun, and I did. And then in the middle of the party when Shaun came over to talk to Treavor, Shaun told Treavor to tell his fag-got friend to leave. He didn't want any of my kind at his wedding.
I never knew how he knew. Treavor must have told him what he suspected. I denied my bisexuality until I was in my 40s so it wasn't like I admitted to it. Anyway I was drunk and I had to walk close to 5 miles to get home. It had a sobering effect. I can place the month and year thanks to the fact that in my searching for Treavor I found this.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/150768472/shaun-david-jolleySad. I don't know if Shaun committed suicide and I only suspect Treavor did because of what my mother told me.
The last time I spoke to Treavor was right before entering the MTC in 1991 and he called me to ask me if I could get some pot for him. I would have never suspected that 3 years after that he was sealing in the Salt Lake Temple.
And I had to laugh at this from his obit.
"He loved his Heavenly Father and from the time he was a young boy..."
Treavor never was religious. He didn't care of there was a god or not and thought his mother was a hypocrite for becoming an active Mormon. Maybe he did convert. I don't know. And if you click the obit link and read the full thing there is something about a Japanese exchange student being like a brother to him? Strange but cool. Maybe he changed a lot when he became a father.
Anyway, thanks for reading this if you made it this far. We were two troubled kids back in the 80s. I was a child of neglect, sexual and verbal abuse and he was a child of verbal and physical abuse. Funny how circumstances make for strange friendships.