Luckily, I have not known many people who have died.
I think, maybe, only five.
At least only five who have really left a mark.
David Moseley was my first real choir teacher - a gift from heaven for an awkward 7th grader. He was talented and he was good and he made sure we all knew we had something really special to offer. And he taught me how to sing. And be a leader. He did handsprings for us in the grass outside of the music building. And he died of AIDS. Years later, my girlfriends and I went to the cemetery where he is buried and laid the printed words to Flying Free, "our song", in the urn in front of his gravestone. We wanted to leave part of ourselves with him just as he had left part of himself with us. I don't know how long the paper stayed in the urn before it was taken out, or just flew away, but it made us feel better that it was there. If only for a little while.
Colin O'Connell shot himself over Thanksgiving break my sophomore year in college. I loved him because I had no idea how his brain worked. He was so smart. And I had never met anyone like him before. I still have paragraphs of prose printed on a dot matrix printer that he wrote on my computer freshman year when we were supposed to be studying. Poetry. Prose. Music. Philosophy. That was Colin. And I remember him standing on the steps to the Andrews dormitory that November as I was getting into my car to go home. "You're staying here?" "Yeah." "I'll see you in a few days?" "Yeah." It broke my heart that he lied to me.
Trevor Eggleston had big feet and a bad haircut. He played A LOT of computer games and loud music and really loved the movie Braveheart. He even had a sword. He was a menace on the soccer field. We would compare bruises after games. And he was a sweet, sweet kid. I spent a lot of time with him. And he had a big crush on me that I humored....but ignored. When they found him and the shotgun the day after Valentine's Day, I blamed myself. "If only I had....." I could never, and still can't, finish that sentence. It doesn't make sense.
I was first on the scene of Lauren Burns' car accident. She was a student of mine. And a friend. I knew how to size up a scene. I knew to not commit to caring for one person before identifying all the patients and their conditions. But, for some reason, I never made it to the second car - to Lauren's car - that night. I stopped at the first. I didn't know it had been her in the other car until the next day. And I'm glad.
My grandma Vivian was 91 when she died 2 nights ago. She lived a long, full life. She was married to my grandfather for 70 years, had 2 sons, 2 grandchildren, and 5 great grandchildren. She was a great pinochle player. She would buy Fruit Loops especially for me when we visited, and she gave me a fake pig named Porkchop. She would send cards for every holiday. She was a wonderful Grandma.
Four of these people died way too young, and I am still hurt by the ways they died.
All five of them, though, were amazing people who touched my life in such profound ways that even now I can see their faces as I write about them. I can remember their smiles and habits and how they made me feel.
I remember them for how they lived not how they died.
And I remember what they taught me.
In some ways, this thirty-three year old is still a lot like that awkward 7th grader - wishing I knew what role I played in their lives.
But I know what role they played in mine.
And I'm thankful for every second.
There is a place I call my own
Where I can stand by the sea,
And look beyond the things I've known ,
And dream that I might be free.
Like the bird above the trees
Gliding gently on the breeze,
I wish that all my life I'd be
Without a care and flying free!
But life is not a distant sky
Without a cloud, without rain.
And I can never hope that I
Can travel on without pain
Time goes swiftly on its way,
All too soon we've lost today.
I cannot wait for skies of blue
Or dream so long that life is through.
So life's a song that I must sing,
A gift of love I must share .
And when I see the joy it brings,
My spirits soar through the air.
Like that bird up in the sky ,
Life has taught me how to fly.
For now I know what I can be
And now my heart is flying free.
And now for something completely different
13 years ago
3 comments:
There's a kind of thread running through your last two posts. I can't capture it exactly but it's there; you can see it out of the corner of your eye. Some of it is that all lives have a limited duration, even our own. In that time, follow your bliss. What is bliss for many of us in this day and age is very different from what our grandparents and parents sought out. Many people don't know their own hearts. They are unable to follow their bliss. They can only follow paths laid down by their elders. Following your bliss is trail blazing, bushwhacking. No one can do it for you. No one can point to your path. And since I have yet to meet the future, we can't foretell our own path; we can only be sensitive to our hearts and select carefully as our path unfolds. I'm fifty two and much happier as a flounder than when I was on a successful career path. And it was the random events of my past that brought me my wife and my good friends. There was no plan to bring those people into my life, perhaps only an open heart and open mind. Be mindful. Follow your bliss Barb. Oh the places you will go.
My own grandfather recently died; just a month ago. His death is still fresh with me, and I have lost 3 grandparents in 4 1/2 years. Up to that time, I was over 30 and hadn't lost a grandparent.
And, yet outside the loss of a couple of my pets, the only of the few other deaths I've truly had to experience was that of my philosophy advisor when I was an undergrad. He was the greatest man and committed to me whenever I asked for anything; he died suddenly at only 50 playing basketball. I was going to visit him (on a spring break grad school visit) the next day and had postponed a trip just two days before, that would have allowed me to see him alive, that might have changed his course so that he might still be alive today.
I don't know about what Ranger Bob writes in "following your bliss"; often it's hard enough to figure out what that is or what it means or how to narrow it down. But, I think there is something to it all the same; all I know, though, at the same time that we are often too unwilling to consider death and life, often too willing to pretend that we can paper over death so that we can go on living. The past has to live in us, the people, the pain of the loss, the regret ... it's all good. We have to let it all be there, or these lives now gone will really forever be gone.
Thanks for sharing.
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