Two things I hate:
1. Hurtful words; straight up my friend, I hate these.
2. “What could’ve been;” the quotation marks are important here…I have never seen good of any form come from “what could’ve been,” and I know a lot of bad of all sorts that’s come from it.
Two pieces of wisdom from a dayhike to Camp Muir:
1. Put on sunblock the second time. Always; period.
2. As calories begin to seem positively delicious entirely because they simply are calories, so does any/all food begin to seem positively delicious. Finishing a long hike at 5:00pm = hello you beautiful lukewarm Burger King Sausage Biscuit that I left on the dashboard 11 hours prior. Mmmmmm.
Two aspirations:
1. Have a porch and make real nice wooden chairs for it.
2. Tend a small garden, and keep a planter box (for the aforenoted porch) of flowers; I think they’d be Carnations.
We people like to remember stuff about our big accomplishments, especially lasts. I had a cool job last summer; I was given a big project and got to drive around a cool car. That’s a good feeling. I don’t recall my first day on the job, but I do very well recall my last day. I had some final stuff to do: tie up loose ends in my company email account, finish a final status report for my supervisor to use, get all my company equipment together, clean out the aforementioned cool car, et cetera. But that is not all. That last day is forever etched deep into my heart. My friend died.
At around 8:30am, I got a call; it was my older brother Jason. I stepped outside.
Hey Jason, what’s up?
Uh–Dave–just…something to pray for…
His voice wavered and was slightly gravely. Something was wrong…something was very, very wrong. A horrid cold fear set in; my mind flew: what happened? The first thing I wondered was what could’ve happened to his girlfriend/fiance, Meggan. I knew they couldn’t have broken up. Fear set harder in my bones; maybe Meggan was injured or worse, dead. Jason spoke again after a brief silence, before I had time to think any more; his voice cracked badly as he spoke.
Joe White died in Afghanistan
There was a silence on both ends. We each knew there was nothing else to say;
OK–bye Jason.
Bye Dave.
I hung up. The horrid fear in my bones, realized, curdled to shock. I forgot to breathe for a bit, then took breaths, slow shallow breaths. I prayed, but I can’t remember what I prayed.
I stood outside the office. I don’t remember hearing any noises from the shop or the yard or the freeway. Nothing. Deathly still. I walked over to a rock wall, set down, and cried and cried and cried; I don’t know how long I cried for. I called a few friends to ask for prayers for Joe’s family, but realized I couldn’t make it through a call like that. I called a few other close friends, but sent text messages to the rest. I sat down again and cried more. All at the same time I could not get my mind around it and it hurt like hell and I was cold and numb. I prayed more as I cried; I don’t recall what I prayed then either.
My friend had died in war serving his country; he left behind his newlywed wife and brothers and sisters and mother and father and many dear friends. He left behind a church and youth group that loved him. He left a gaping hole in countless hearts and knit communities. He died a soldier at war for his country.
Joe, I hope you can see this; today so many of us down here remember you, love you, miss you, and weep for you; I hope you can hear it all, or even just a little bit of it; Joe, I don’t feel worthy to say it, but if you can read this, thank you.
U.S. Army Specialist Joseph V. White was born on July 24th 1988 and killed in action in Afghanistan on September 24th 2009; husband, brother, son, friend, good man, follower of God, paintball and ultimate frisbee extraordinaire. He was Airborne certified and loved to jump out of planes.
Way back in the day, my family took a road trip up there; we took the ’88 Ford Club Wagon all the way, Coleman camping trailer in tow. Ah, good times.
Sadly, there’s not much I clearly remember from the trip: one or two particular vistas, a very cold night, a campground-meandering moose, so on and so forth. I only remember a few things well–most of all, the beauty.
I’m sure that if I were a better writer, I could put it into vivid prose, but all I can really say is that the beauty of Alaska is different (on the safe assumption it hasn’t changed too much since then).
There was a peculiar quality the beauty had–a sort of stillness.
It was more than audible noise though–I’ve been to beautiful places, far enough from civilization to be just as quiet as the places we visited in Alaska. It may well be my long term memory embellishing things, but I swear there was some quality of the beauty itself, this tranquility of sorts.
Now, zip forward a few years (ten, twelve, maybe more?).
By it’s nature, rural education is a risky proposition; there are so many barriers to overcome. I guess I was always aware of that to some level or another, but I never really thought about it. Than again, I never really thought about education too much till a few years ago.
Since I’ve started thinking about education (I don’t know if that happened before or after I decided to go into education–chicken or egg, if you will), I’ve been thinking about rural education. Questions began to drift into a perspective of sorts. Why, why educate kids in the middle of nowhere–will it really mean anything for them, in the long run? Should they be pushed to “escape”, get away from the sticks and “make something” of themselves? What does it really mean for a teenager in an isolated, rural area, to make something of their life?
Whenever I think of rural, I think of a few places: Alaska and Montana come to mind first. “Alaska is what America was.” It’s so pristine and beautiful–so isolated. It also consistently makes the first spot in teenage suicide rates.
So much beauty and peace, and so much emptiness and need.
Disclaimer
If I were to be moving there, I definitely would say so. I’m not moving there..yet. One never knows where all the road ahead leads.
Sometimes, I wonder how those guys managed to put so much into this song; it just baffles my mind. That’s art, I guess.
Sometimes I cannot forgive
And these days, mercy cuts so deep
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep
While I lay, I dream we’re better,
Scales were gone and faces light
When we wake, we hate our brother
We still move to hurt each other
Sometimes I can close my eyes,
And all the fear that keeps me silent falls below my heavy breathing,
What makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder
We all feel the need for wonder
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the thunder
Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven
All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give
Babies underneath their beds
Hospitals that cannot treat all the wounds that money causes,
All the comforts of cathedrals
All the cries of thirsty children – this is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers – this is our greatest offense
