Last week, one of my oldest son's friends, who was a teammate on his basketball team, was run over by a train on his walk home in the early morning hours of Saturday.
He was a nice, decent, loving young man.
He was an only child.
We found out about it on the morning of Father's Day.
Sometimes the "IS" is tragic... devastating...
I knew the father, and felt compelled to stop by his house on Sunday simply to tell him my heart hurt for him and his wife.
We hugged as he wept - and the fact that we hadn't been close prior to that moment was completely irrelevant. He was a wonderful father. He was in pain.
Last night was the wake, and this morning was the funeral. In a few days, life for him and his wife, went from normal to tragic.
I watched as the never ending line of young men and women came to pay their last respects and tell the parents how special their son had been in their lives.
I watched the discomfort so many have with grief. In many cases working hard not to make eye contact, or simply wanting to move quickly through the awkwardness of grief...
I couldn't take my eyes of dad.
He was taken back by the outpouring of love, by the words of support, by the size of the crowd...
And, I could sense his discomfort, his grief bubbling up inside of him like the molten lava inside the earth's core. I suspect that he wanted to wail... that he wanted to yell at God and at life... "Why ME? Why MY son?" But, he remained somber, loving and present as the awkward hugs occassionaly found lasting, heart felt embrace.
Everyone felt grief... some where just more comfortable in sharing it.
My oldest son said to me, as we walked out of the funeral home, "How can you ever recover from that?"
"You can't", I thought to myself. That is the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart.
While I cannot pretend to know what the loss of a son feels like, I know loss, and it is more an amputation of a limb than a broken bone. There is a piece of you missing that can never be replaced.
You never recover from a grief like that - you learn to live with it. You become stronger. You become more aware of life. You never stop hurting, you just learn to live with pain, and eventually even feel joy with pain. I suspect that is what my parents learned to do.
"Sorry for your loss..." I heard myself say. Everyone was saying it...
I don't know why, I hated the way it sounded as it came out of my mouth.
It sounded so simple, so temporary a statement - yet the loss and the grief seemed so absolute.
"My heart hurts.... with yours... for yours." I started saying to him.
"What do you say to them?" Many people were asking to those around them.
"There is nothing you can say", I thought, "nothing you can say to reduce or dull the pain"... you can only try in a very small way to SHARE the pain... to let them know they are not alone in their grief...
It won't reduce the pain... it won't dull the grief...
But, I think it might make breathing for them just a little bit more possible.
I don't know the right words, nor the reasons why.
I think in situations like this, "WHY?" is simply not a question you can answer - with or without faith. The question moves on from "WHY?".... It becomes "HOW do I go on?"...
Both parents spoke at the funeral today.
I admired their strength.
I admired their hearts and their love and their son.
I admired and loved them - and hurt for them.
I learned a lot more about their son through their words - He was indeed so very special.
His mom said that his favorite quote was 'Leave Nothing"... He wanted to someday wear it as a tattoo. I thought it was powerful and ironic and appropriate and sad... so tragically sad.
Sometimes the "IS" of the moment IS tragic... devastatingly and tragically sad...
And, the "want" is hard, if not close to impossible to find...
Just breathing becomes the objective.
In tragedy, harmony becomes elusive, and simpler... more basic... perhaps harmony becomes simply survival - because the DISHARMONY of "wishing" things were different is so over-whelming and over-powering. The disharmony of WISHING that the tragedy hadn't occurred consumes you... exhausts you.
And you keep trying, but there is no rational answer to WHY...
I do know that because of their son's tragic passing,
The boys who knew him and loved him will live differently -
with a greater awareness of the gift of life, the unpredictability of life, the frailty of life.
As the service ended, my son and his team mates walked the casket out of the church, down the stairs and into the hearst. The semblance of somberness broke. The boys wept and hugged their fathers. Greg's parents held each other as they watched the hearst drive away. The finality of death is so absolute.
They turned once the hearst was out of sight and saw the hundreds of weeping faces sharing in their pain. "We feel your spirit, your energy and your love," mom told the crowd. "Greg's life was his message."
He leaves his friends, and all that knew him with a powerful gift - an awareness of life that hopefully will never fade.
As the clouds clear, I know his parents will find some purpose and meaning in their tragic loss..
They will never "recover"... but they will endure, and their love will grow.
They are special people,
and my heart hurts with them...
and for them...
"LEAVE NOTHING"...
Rest in Peace - Greg
And, rest in harmony,
Nestor