I have had better weeks, which is really self-centered because nothing really bad actually happened to me this week. Really bad things happened to people I care about and yet I am here, unscathed, but thoughtful about the nature of life and death.
In less than four days, two friends died. They never knew each other and they died in very different ways, but their deaths will always be tied together in my mind because they came so close together, so unexpectedly and both as a result of violence.
Brian died in Iraq, blown up by an IED. He made choices that put him there, based on patriotism, integrity and an underlying belief that he would come back alive.
Deanna died in Sacramento, stabbed to death by her own husband. She made choices that put her there based on love, commitment and an underlying belief that even in divorce, the father of your children wouldn't knife you to death.
Our society doesn't like to look at death, hell we aren't even very good with age. Those damned wrinkles and spots remind us far too much of the rotting that will soon enough set in on flesh as it returns to the dirt from which it was formed. We like vitality, youth, speed, light, and sound. Youth isn't supposed to die, it is supposed to live, so it is profoundly shocking when someone who isn't ill or aged has their life snuffed out.
I remember talking to Deanna just last week about what jobs she wanted to work at, how her diet was going, what she wants to do in retirement. Today, all of that is just the breath of words and nothing of those dreams is left but the meat that they will bury.
Brian wanted to work as a firefighter, probably for the same reasons that made him a Marine. He left no children, or wife to grieve. His memory will only be carried with his friends who knew him well, to die with us each in turn as we too are lowered into the ground.
But enough of death, what about life? What I have learned is that most of us, the vast majority, simply want to live our lives, have jobs, families, vacations, and good dinners. We end up on the path to pain, misery and early death at the power and behest of a few. A few who are not happy to simply be and let be, live and let live, a few who strive for power over men, land, and nations. Whether he be a man that cannot bear to see his family leave and must take the life and power from his beautiful wife, or a man that cannot bear to see another he abhors in power and must take a Nation, both are guilty of overreaching. In their evil grasp is the life or lives of others that they so brutally misuse.
It is our job to stand up and say that it is wrong. We are willing to punish the murderer for his heinous deeds, but he only ended a single life. Are we willing to point our finger to the biggest murderer of all, the one who sent Brian and his friends to die in a foreign country that was never a threat to me and mine? Are we willing to say, "No More!" Until we are, we are doomed to hear about more Brians, and hear of them we will, much as we might want to change the channel.