Times Like These...and on it goes

JACK JOHNSON LYRICS

"Times Like These"

In times like these

In times like those

What will be will be

And so it goes

And it always goes on and on...On and on it goes

And there has always been laughing, crying, birth, and dying

Boys and girls with hearts that take and give and break

And heal and grow and recreate and raise and nurture

But then hurt from time to time like these

And times like those

And what will be will be

And so it goes.

And so it goes. The funerals are over. Three. Each a tribute to a son gone too soon. Each a beautiful expression of a family's love, hope, faith, and prayers. There is no planning for a tragedy induced funeral. Reaction and action in midst of chaos. That's what happens.

At times like these, good people hurting do good things for hurt people and in the end, the ceremonies touch hearts and souls. They also make young men and women out of boys and girls. Certainly some childness is lost when young people lose their own. Writing, and then delivering a sensitive goodbye, in front of strangers, to a best friend takes a frame of mind untried by most. At 16, that mind is untested by heartache. That is for most 16 year olds, but not for one young man we saw grow more mature today. Wade Vincent is a friend of our family. He was three or four when we met him. He's sixteen going on 30 something after these past few months.

In April Wade was running back and forth from his house to our's playing and exchanging video games with our boys. In May Wade was walking the same path he and his brother Jason and Aaron and Patrick hiked for years. These walks were different though because Wade was trudging to spend precious time with Patrick to help him heal through Aaron's death.

Big Wade. I remember Patrick at about 1 1/2 trying to tag along with Aaron, Jason, and Wade as they were on their way to some little boy high adventure. Often Wade would stop at the lot line (he was lagging a bit behind the older two) turning to Patrick, and bending down to his size, raising his hand to say "No Patrick. Stay home, you can't come with us." Patrick would turn and run to us. I remember Patrick's floppy mop bouncing as he ran back smiling, with his blue baby(s) in his hand. Cathy and I recall laughing at this routine and can't imagine so much has past since those days.

Fast forward to yesterday. I watched Wade walking over to our house with a sheet of paper in his hand. The parent's of Wade's best friend Matt, asked him to say a few words at Matt's funeral. Wade knew he wanted the presentation to be like the one Jenna gave at Aaron's funeral. He had the first two sentences down and came looking for some inspiration to put his thoughts on to paper.

Wade sat with me at Aaron and Patrick's Garden of Tranquiltiy for Peace and Serenity and shared his memories of times with his friend. This is not an easy task for anyone. Honesty helps and Wade spoke from his heart. When we had the thoughts reduced to notes we came inside to this keyboard and Wade went to work. When he was finished, Wade had his tribute from his soul to his friend.

We watched Wade take his place at the podium and listened to him deliver his gift. Wade's voice toned deep sadness but did not break until everyone, it seemed, was crying. When Wade removed his glasses and continued, I cried in part for sadness and in part for gratitude for Wade. Wade walked down from the podium more of a man than the one who walked up the steps and was met by Patrick. The two hugged until they were joined by Matt's Father. The love expressed from one friend to another in and after the speach was deep.

Patrick is now old enough to follow Wade beyond the safety of our boundaries. I pray they use what they have learned this year to go places and do good together. Too much has been paid in the price of admission to their young adulthood.

At a time of year when Moms and Dads are sending their children off to college, we watched three blessed families release their sons to Heaven. Other parents are seeing their sons and daughters move on to a maturity known only by those who experience true grief. My prayer tonight is for God's compassion and mercy for all parents, sons and daughters where ever their journey takes them.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jackjohnson/timeslikethese.html

At times like these...Peace

Tom

Miracles, by C. S. Lewis... Edited for Clarity

Published in 1947, Lewis opens chapter one with this quote from Aristotle "Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions." The book goes on for 294 paper back wrapped pages to logically break down miracles and their association with prayer. A prayer I have been saying as long as I have been a parent includes "God, I pray that you watch over our children (insert names of sons, neices, God children, and nephews here) and keep them safe and healthy."

C.S. Lewis is a fabulous writer, a man with a brilliant mind. Reading his work is a labor for me and in the end I always feel my mind has been expanded...well beyond the sports page.

I'm always up for a mild adventure to new discoveries. A memorable trip, not unlike reading Miracles, happened when I dragged and paddle pushed my canoe through a marsh of more mud than water. My expectation was to reach what I thought would be a secluded duck hunting spot only known by the most determined, bold, adventure seeking duck hunter I know... me. Instead, I discovered the same pot hole was easily accessed by the route I drove past hours earlier. People were already there. Having exerted less energy than I, they were dry and content.

When it comes to adventures in understanding prayer and miracles, maybe the adventure is more than the discovery is worth.

Once upon a time I believed that praying to God and asking for "The safety of my nieces, nephews, and children, and the children of friends" was enough to deliver them from evil. Year by year, events kept challenging my Catholic school upbringing. At the end of 1997 I was as confused as a first mass serving alter boy. What went wrong? I prayed for my sister's children the same as my own, yet her son lost his life in a crash where three others walked away. Was this a miracle that 3 of 4 lived? If it was a miracle, how could a prayer of one have a more divine connection? What was wrong with my prayer? Why could the miracle not include the fourth boy? Did I ask too much, too often? The God who created the heavens and the earth is big enough to lift a fourth boy out of harms way. Surely a merciful God would not say yes to three families and no to one. But the reality is this: God appears to have said no.

For the next six or seven years I was in a quandary about prayer. OK, I decided, I am not to ask God for things as if he is a genie in a bottle granting me three wishes. If He is and does, the explanation is easy, I used up my quota on grade school girls or family trips to a root beer stand i.e. "God, please have Dad take us to Dog n Suds tonight, please God." Should I be able to ask for safety of loved ones? No. I found myself stopping short of asking for safe keeping of friends and family. Maybe I thought God was a pushover for reverse psychology. Somewhere in the upside-down-world Bible it probably says "Don't ask and you shall receive". How well did that work out for me?? Not well. For clarification read my earlier posts.

With an open mind I have endeavored to learn more about prayer, trust in God, God's will not mine, and miracles. I hope to learn what is known but not shared with people like me.

This morning we heard the devastating news of three DeForest High School Juniors being killed in single vehicle crash not far from their homes. My family is sad for these families. We know some of what they will experience and of course we have prayed in the past weeks that God deliver others from this awful fate. We met three families who's sons were invited and declined to accompany the young men who lost their lives. It is probably a miracle that these boys are alive. Is it unanswered prayers that the others are not? I'm not comfortable accepting a God who says yes to one and no to another. The prayers are the same.

Back to C.S. Lewis. Well, he's wonderful at focusing the eye of logic on a question. The last paragraph concludes with this nugget of wisdom:

When the event you prayed for occurs your prayer has always contributed to it. When the opposite event occurs your prayer has never been ignored; it has been considered and refused, for your ultimate good and the good of the whole universe.

Did God answer my question/prayer by keeping the children safe for just the day that I made the request? Was I not specific enough? Did I fail to ask one day? Did God think I didn't mean everyday? Is God the great literalist?

Moms, Dads, brothers, sisters, friends, family, I know will not accept the lives of their children being snuffed out for the good of themselves and the universe. Letting our children die can not be for our good. Is the universe so fragile that well intentioned young people surviving could offset the delicate balance? The current good health and longevity of seriously evil people suggests the universe could survive with more teenagers.

Well, I certainly drove past the easy access to take the laborious route again. The nuns told me in grade school: God hears all prayers. That's all we know. However, if God does intervene over forces of nature, (which I doubt) we had better do as Aristotle suggested and ask the right questions of God. For me, I will stay with praying for serenity, courage, mercy toward others, and wisdom. I'm not angry with God. I'm feeling worn out from trudging down a challenging path to get where I could have been by re-reading my second grade first communion book. But I'm happy with God.

To those who are beginning the journey of grief, know that others have started down this road and have grown in their spiritual relationship with God. I'm grateful for unanswered questions for the search keeps me coming back. The best I know about prayer is this: if I pray for other people, I seem to get better. I accept God's will.

Wishing Peace for those in anguish.

Tom

Discovery

The time is 3:05 on a Tuesday in August. This is about the time of day on a Tuesday in May when I received the call from a Dane County deputy coroner. He identified himself as being at the Dane County Sheriff's department and he wanted to talk to me about my son Aaron. After I pulled over and parked, I discovered it was not a call I wanted to take. The details of that call still make my heart race, even as I write today. Not only did I hear every parent's nightmare, I heard callous speculation based on unconfirmed, and non-scientific opinion.

Our 14 year old son Patrick boldly spoke out to challenge the Dane County professionals. I will be forever impressed by, and grateful for Patrick's confidence and determination to discover facts in the midst of trash. The attorney we hired brought in Madison based Safety Engineer, Chuck Scalia to do the investigation. Chuck has years of experience analyzing this sort of crash data. He explained that the answers to speed questions are found in the known facts. A simple physics story problem is what the discovery comes down to. It is a fact based approach which an 8th grader knew would resolve rumors started by a Sheriff Lt.'s assumptions based on years of fuzzy images and science fiction retrieved from the archives of memory.

Aaron was never a fan of math. Terry Bradshaw's statement "2 plus 2? Don't know. Don't need it. Don't care." struck home with Aaron. Once he stopped laughing at the comment, he owned it. We did discover from a Universty of Wisconsin professor who volunteered to teach Logic to Aaron's class at Horizon High School, that Aaron loved the challenge of logic questions. He is remembered by the Professor for asking for harder questions and saying "This was great fun." As irony would have, events of Aaron's death would become more clear by use of logic and physics.

How much energy does it take for a moving vehicle weighing X to move a stationary Object weighing Y a distance of Z? The formula for Kinetic Energy is: KE=1/2mass x Velocity squared.
A quick explanation is found at http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/energy/u5l1c.html
Knowing Y and Z, and accessing crash test data and photos, Chuck determined the speed of Aaron's truck was within the legal limit for the posted county highway. The statements of the deputy coroner and Lt. were discovered to be far off base. The damage was done though. You don't stop a rumor. In Sunday mass one day as a young person, I heard the priest describe spreading a rumor as comparable to standing on top of the church and shaking all of the feathers out of a pillow case. To stop the damage of your error, you have to retrieve all of the feathers. An improbable task. That image stayed with me for decades. I suspect the words of the county employed persons will too. We've accepted an apology from the Dane County coroner. We would accept an apology if ever one was offered by the Sheriff.

A few weeks ago, we received a call from a kind lady in DeForest who invited us to see the work Aaron did on her yard on his own time. We were surprised to find out Aaron had volunteered to do this work. He repaired a retaining wall, rebuilt a flower garden, and a few more improvements without telling us. We've been blessed to hear other pleasant stories about Aaron from people who met him. We knew Aaron was a good soul, and he was not one to wave his own flag. He is remembered for standing up and taking responsibility. Aaron inspired his brother Patrick to question things that don't appear right. Patrick has found he can raise questions and be heard. We consider all of the discoveries since Aaron's days with us to be gifts from heaven.

Peace and gratitude with humility.

Tom

Life Isn't All Laughs

God's gift to me is another day, more time. What I do with the gift is my thanks to God.

Life is not all fun and laughs. Refusing grief or dulling the jagged edge of grief will not make it disappear, and does nothing for real healing. Life is more than what we desire. God did not take Aaron. Aaron died because of a series of accidents and non-prudent decisions made by himself, myself, and other people...people who have a God too. God did not give me the pain; God did give me a human reaction we term grief. Failing to grieve completely is to not accept what God gives as a gift.

Three months passed yesterday. I can't measure the pain, but it may be just as, or more deep today. Understand that we are doing good healing work. We, Cathy, Patrick, me, are being open to God's mercy and we work closely to grow. A parent who's child is away for 12 weeks will miss their child. We have that same feeling. We miss Aaron. We want to talk to him. A parent who's child is going off to college in a couple of weeks, is aware of a date...Homecoming, Parent's weekend, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc... when they will be together again. We have a desire to know that reunion date and it's not in the plan and that adds despair to the mix of emotions.

There are many things I used to do for fun. None are appealing today as they would be intrusions to, and diversions from, the grief process. With sorrow in my heart, I choose to receive gracefully, the gift of God's mercy: Grief.

Respectfully with Peace,

Tom