Man Knows Not His Time

Tragedy struck this week in the town where I lived for 25 years, the place our children grew up, the place where memories call me back.

Tuesday, after receiving email obituary notices for young boys (ages 12 and 13 years old), I contacted a friend for more information.

Four adolescent boys sneaked out after midnight on Sunday for a joyride.

joyride––conduct or action resembling a joyride especially in disregard of cost or consequences

Conduct and consequences reminded me of what Judge Carl Kennedy said to his own kids. “Nothing good happens after midnight.”

The unforeseeable consequences of that night’s joyride ended in tragedy.

Three of the boys died at the scene of the accident. The fourth received serious injuries.

And this tragedy brought an unexpected answer to the question I asked in last week’s blogpost. “What do you know for sure?”

Someone wrote in the comments section of a website, “. . . they are in a better place.”

I cannot know for sure that they are in a better place. But I do know for sure that their family members and close friends will never see life the same.

Adolescents and Their Immaturity

Research reveals that the brains of adolescents have yet to reach maturity, which accounts for the tumultuous teen years and much of the reckless behavior that characterizes this period of growth and development. [1]

One of my first thoughts after hearing about this accident took me back to the night the Pampa police called us.

“Do you know where your son is?”

Roused from sleep, my husband said, “Which one?”

Our eldest son was away at college. The question brought frightening thoughts.

The police must have indicated it was our younger son, the one in Middle School.

“He’s in bed.” Or so we thought. Both my husband and I bounded out of bed to check, finding instead of our son, a carefully constructed dummy under the covers.

While we were sleeping, our son joined his friends for a joyride.

The 13-year-old boy who drove that night had taken his dad’s panel van, picked up his friends, and they all sneaked into the city pool for a swim. Neighbors nearby heard the carousing, called the police, and the police, when they arrived, opened the back of the van to find 4 soaking wet boys, cowering as the flashlight aimed at each of them.

Our son and his friends were not spared the truth, but in this instance, they were spared serious consequences.

Death: Big “T” Trauma and Time

The closer anyone finds themself to the point of impact, the greater and more lasting the effects suffered from Trauma. The epicenter of loss leaves people reeling from devastating shock waves. Emotionally, waves of grief reoccur throughout their lifetime.

I can attest to the residual effects of trauma that occurred when I was a child. Deaths of my immediate family members altered my perception of life. Certainties dissipate and in place of knowing anything for sure, I braced myself for more bad news.

My own early losses within 3 months of my ninth birthday forced me to think about death. Sometimes, the thought of death trails like a shadow when the sun isn’t shining. Though no one knows the circumstances or hour when a loved one crosses the threshold between life on this side of death’s door, I do view death as set in time and certain.

Sometimes the whole world stops to watch, like when President Kennedy was shot, or when Princess Di’s death brought the fairy tale hopes of “happily-ever-after” to a bitter end.

But mostly, like me, people hide their grief under covers, wishing they could change the way the story ends.

After my sister and my dad died, my mother kept telling me, “I’m going to raise you to be independent because I don’t know when I’ll be taken.” That scared the sense out of me. She would lament, “It’s always harder for those left behind.” She was right. For sure.

How do you and I process trauma and tragedy? How do we grieve for someone else’s loss? How does God expect the living to enter a door of mourning? What waits on the other side? Does God have the power to prevent such losses? Who has answers when a child dies, or when a woman miscarries, or when people don’t drop off at the end of life in chronological birth order? 

My Town and Your Town Is “Our Town”

I keep returning to the pages of the play “Our Town.” The genius of Thornton Wilder’s play lies in helping audiences and readers see our basic human connectedness to each other.

“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.” 

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

Eternal means forever. Infinite. Everlasting. For sure.

The character Emily asked the Stage Manager in the Thornton Wilder play Our Town, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? —every, every minute?”

Sadly, he answers No. “Saints and poets, maybe. They do some.”

People read obituaries, a cursory acknowledgement that life leads to death, at some point in time. Even to consider our own departure, if we’re honest. (I wonder what picture they will choose?) 

Reading the Bible gives substance to faith in what God says about eternity, and life, and death.

Those left behind for a while are given a chance to no longer sleepwalk through the rest of their earth-bound life. The tragedy of trauma, death, and loss reminds me to pay attention to my life, to at least try to “realize life” while I live it, every, every minute.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/