Recently a friend began the long journey through a tragedy. For some observers, the event is the moment to focus on. I know that when I sit and try to describe it, I like many others focus on the moment where someone who was always in your heart was torn away. As tragic and soul numbing as that event is, the emotional tsunami that it unleashed has left a tragic void in the lives of a family and network of friends.
I know that there are no words that adequately describe what has happened. As unique as it is, it is also very familiar. When I was thirteen, I left home for boarding school. I had willingly embraced the hardship, knowing that I did not have the discipline to survive the alternative, home school. Soon after my arrival, I found myself going through and cleaning out a room so I could move in. There was a box in the corner of the closet. I turned to the older student that was helping me and asked about the story of the individual. It seems that he had been a student, close to my age. Out of the blue he had gotten sick. They had rushed him to the hospital on the other side of town. A few days later, he had passed. There was no cure for the virus that was attacking his brain.
I have long since pushed this memory to a place I rarely frequent. In the past few days I revisited the memory, reliving the sense of being alone. It is a dark place; yet then and now I can sense hope. I do not have a why answer. I know the world if full of good and evil. The reaction of good when evil wins is sadness. Good longs for the day when evil is put in its rightful place. Good longs for a time where there is no more pain, no more tears, and no more suffering.
David advice echoes; “Exclaim over your offerings, celebrate your sacrifices.” (Psalm 20.3) Love will win.
