Monthly Archives: August 2011
Time to take a deep breath
Sometimes it’s hard to avoid a downward spiral into deep sadness. When you’re already feeling down, already witnessing great tragedy it’s so much easier to notice other sad and tragic things in the world. Sometimes you just don’t notice the beautiful things that are happening at the same time.
So today, though I should be mowing the lawn, I think I will take the camera out into the world and see what I can find that makes me smile. Katie says she wants to GO MOM!! I don’t know. It’s easier to photograph when I’m free to stop anywhere. But still. She’s been picking up on my sadness and probably wouldn’t mind a smile or two herself.
Pretty girl.
Music and trucks
Last night I attended a benefit concert in Ann Arbor. It was a fund raiser to help defray costs incurred by the families of two young people severely injured when their car was rear ended by a semi last week. (You can read about the crash here.) Andrew and Alicia are engaged and plan to be married next June. They are both gifted musicians, and the concert, put together by some of their friends and groups they have played with over the years, was a show of pure love.
They played in a tiny venue that would comfortably hold about 50 people. I couldn’t count the people there, but the crowd was huge. Most people stood, packed together, for the entire hour and a half concert. The windows wouldn’t open and it was hot but no one cared. Sweat mixed with tears on the faces of the musicians as well as the families. Lots of us listened with tears in our eyes too. From the Schubert piano piece, through the cello, the viola, the Argentine guitar, to the Irish band that Andrew preformed with and the folk/jazz group that played songs he had written – it was all beautiful.
I wrote down the chorus of one of Andrew’s songs because it seemed so relevant at the moment. The song is a plea to Jesus to answer a young man’s request for a fancy car and a girl:
“I’ve been there for you
When you wanted me to
Please return this one
Jesus don’t run.”
It’s a plea I echo…because if love and music could cure them, these two would be up and dancing in the aisle. But it’s going to take so much more. Both have brain injuries, both are mostly unresponsive, both are still in a coma. We need a pair of miracles here.
The last piece of music played was written by Andrew and is called Lady Lake Michigan. It talks about missing Lady Lake Michigan’s embrace, the feel of the sand and the water. The last line, repeated over and over…
“Let me come home. Let me come home.”
Please God; if you heard the music last night, please let them both come home.
Sad and angry at the same time
This morning we learned that one of our co-workers drowned over the weekend. He sat across the aisle from me, and he and I underwrote jumbo loans, so we collaborated a lot as the program started up and we worked through the first submissions. We bounced ideas off of each other every day, right up till last Friday.
He was twenty-eight. A smart young man, he majored in accounting at Michigan State. We talked about which accounting class was the most difficult for each of us. We agreed that it was tax accounting and we laughed together at the fact that these days we spend a majority of our time pouring over people’s tax returns. We talked about real estate a lot; and whenever one or the other of us ran across a particularly beautiful or particularly odd home we’d call the other over to take a look. Friday afternoon I heard him tell someone that one of the only good things about underwriting jumbo loans was the opportunity to see some truly great houses.
Josh wasn’t always the most prompt employee, but he wasn’t usually more than 15 minutes late. And he always called if he wasn’t coming in. So after about 40 minutes when our boss had called back to see if he was in yet I began to worry. We decided to wait another 30 minutes, then call him at home and wake him up. We figured we’d tease him about partying too much over the weekend. We laughed a little at the thought.
You know how you always think the worst has happened when someone doesn’t show up like normal? And how it’s never that, there’s always some mundane reason why they aren’t where they’re supposed to be? Well this time the worst happened. And the world is minus one very smart, very funny, very patient young man who will never get married, never have kids, never play golf with his brothers or fish with his Dad again.
Josh was a smart young man with a great future. Josh was also a young man who drank too much at a party and wandered away into the dark alone. So I’m conflicted. Early in the morning I was devastated and sad and confused and feeling that life was unfair. As the day progressed excruciatingly slowly, and we learned more I began to feel the first vestiges of anger. Because this was so ridiculously stupid. So not necessary. So preventable. We all know not to drink and drive. But do people recognize they shouldn’t drink and walk? Alone in the dark in an unfamiliar place?
I don’t know. I’m exhausted. I can’t fix all things that are wrong in the world. And this is just so wrong. On so many levels.
I’m going to miss my jumbo buddy. He taught me a lot of good sound underwriting fundamentals. I wish I could have taught him some good sound thought processes in other areas of his life. All I can do now is hope he’s living in one of those grand mansions we drooled over. And that someone can learn a lesson from the tragedy that is Josh’s final story.
Drinking until you’re stupid is life threatening. Don’t be stupid. Because those of us left behind – family, friends, even co-workers – just don’t know how to think about stupid when we’re so very sad on the inside.
Change Is Hard 