~Upstream and Down~

Kevin Preach It was snowing the day my son called from his college dorm to tell me that a former high school classmate, a Marine, had been badly injured in Afghanistan. The truck he was in had driven over an IED. Kevin had lost both legs and was badly burned. Kevin was in a coma, Dave said. Could I get him the family's address so he could send something? Friends were rallying, supporting Kevin's girlfriend, collecting money for the family, gathering on Facebook to console. There was hope; there always is, especially when you're young. After I hung up, I pulled on boots and gloves and went out to shovel the driveway. I cried . . . because Kevin is too young to suffer like that, because he is one of so many who suffer, and because I didn't think he'd live. He didn't. He was buried today [Feb. 2009]. The funeral and procession to the cemetery were covered on the local news, like so many we've seen through the years: small town, friends and neighbo...

Some days I don't make time to read the paper; others I go from front-page headlines, to Op Eds to obits. The obits I scan, mostly to see the age of death and maybe the cause. Some days are "good" days. The good died old. Other days . . . not so good. Today there was the story of a 17-year old girl whose last hours were spent in a swamp . . . I can read dry-eyed the stories of the men and women who die in their 90s with accolades and acknowledgements. But a child's death brings a pain sharp and cold to my heart. It matters not that underage drinking likely played a part. Who, reading this, can say they have not, by the grace of God, or the luck of the draw, or fate, escaped the consequences of a foolish act? Not I. But this girl paid the consequence of partying with friends, drinking, and then saying good-bye . . . but wandering into a swamp instead of her car. "This is why you have to know where your kids are at all times," my husband says as I read the sto...

Yesterday when school reopened after spring vacation, teachers learned through a whispered grapevine that a high school girl-- a junior in the district-- had died during vacation week. The details were sketchy as they often are in such stories. People try not to be overly graphic when sharing details, which is probably for the best, but this leaves me grappling with images that come anyway. She was crushed by a car, we heard. Later a friend said the girl had been sneaking out. Not wanting to wake her parents she didn't start the car. Instead, she shifted into neutral to let it roll silently down the driveway. Something went wrong-- she was half in, half out of the car. The car wouldn't steer-- and she was crushed somehow. The paper carrier discovered her body at 4:30 in the morning. Her family was still asleep. Her friends know things-- and her family must, too-- that I don't know. Like, where she was going. To meet a boyfriend? To get together with girlfriends? To drink? S...