I got bad news this morning from, Kathy, a friend of mine at work. OCHS has lost its third student in a year. By lost, of course, I don’t mean misplaced, though that seems likely to happen in a school with over 2,200 kids. By lost, I mean died. Danielle died in a rafting accident this weekend.
The headline in the Oregonian read “Teen did everything right on rafting trip,” which pretty much sums up Danielle’s life. She was a sweet kid, but somehow a little bit jinxed. A lot jinxed, I guess.
As Kathy was telling me about the accident, I was sad, but not shaken. I’m worried for the survivors. They will have a lot of shame and guilt and anger to deal with. Danielle knew a lot of kids, so a lot of kids will have a hole in their lives. I can’t imagine how awful the adult supervisors must feel. There is the weight of gravity and then there is the weight of responsibility.
But that’s just pain, after all, and pain I understand and accept. Pain, I expect.
Then Kathy told me about what she called the “little miracles” afterwards. A boy ran up a mountainside to try to get cell phone reception. One of the parents on the trip flagged down a train. She made a train stop. What kind of courage, what kind of sheer will power does it take for an ordinary person to make a train stop? I’m reminded of Superman. Maybe Everyman is Superman.
Other things, too. Little things. A couple of doctors on a fishing trip happened upon the accident and helped the other girls set up camp, helped them not think about their missing friend. After the parents of the survivors were notified, they rushed to the woods and managed to find the kids in the middle of nowhere by sheer … luck? Divine intervention? A miracle?
The pain I understand. The tragedy I can deal with. It is the kindness in the aftermath of disaster, the confluence of the decency of human nature and the capriciousness of Mother Nature, the meeting of good luck after bad fortune, that kills me.
Christie and Wrigley went to Jamison Park today for a birthday party. A total stranger brought two garbage bags filled with miniature beach balls and dumped them into the fountain for anybody and everybody to play with.
Danielle’s death doesn’t make me want to cry; that stranger’s kindness does.
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1 comment:
the beauty is often more devastating than the flaws, methinks.
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