Won't You Please

Last evening I sat in the bleachers of my son's high school gym among 1000 other mourners at the funeral of a young man of twenty-four who had died in an accident Thanksgiving morning. While my family and I were preparing for our feast, sliding garlic beneath the skin of a stuffed 26-pound turkey, peeling potatoes and making cranberry sauce, another family opened the door to a policeman whose horrific news would forever change their lives and the lives of their community. My community.

I listened as young men and family members recounted tales of friendship, athletic prowess, of a short mighty life marked by exhuberance, stories of a big-hearted, tousled haired youth who played hard, had a way with a paint brush, charmed the ladies, had a penchant for country music, owned a big truck, loved fishin' - stories that made me smile while tears ran down my cheeks.

His bass fishin' boat rested next to the simple, unadorned wooden coffin that was shouldered in by his heartbroken friends. His snowboard and guitar were there too.

His varsity hockey coach told about a time when the young man and his teammates were at an away game, several hours from home, in northern Vermont. The coach was ready to rouse the team to victory in a fiery, pre-game pep talk, but as he looked around, he noticed that the young man, the captain of the team, was nowhere in sight. "Where in hell is J?" he wondered with some annoyance. Then J poked his head in the locker room and beckoned his buddies outside where a gentle snow was falling. These husky high school athletes opened their mouths and stuck out their tongues, catching snowflakes, as children do, while the coach paced nervously, imagining what the other team would think of his boys, should they catch them at play.

When it was the time for family tributes, a female cousin grabbed a microphone and fearlessly belted out Lee Ann Womack's rendition of I Hope You Dance:

And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance

As she ended the song, the cousin reached out with one arm and the young man's sisters rose and folded into a sad, swaying slow dance of an embrace.

But, the moment that I will carry seared and stinging in my memory was when one of J's friends, a childhood friend of my own son's, a boy who built snow tunnels and grew his own pumpkins, who read the Narnia books in second grade, offered a tribute of his own: a rollicking, roaring, anguished, YAWP of an improvised country western tune, neither coarse, nor raucous, but a full-throated, belly-deep YAWP of mixed, powerful feelings: loss and outrage, despair and celebration. We 1000-plus howled as one.

I want to say to these surviving young men, to the enormous grieving circle of aquaintances, family, sweethearts and friends - for this is the second buddy my 23-year-old son has lost in a senseless tragedy: TAKE CARE.
Won't you, please, take care?