Friday, April 20, 2007

Tragic Losses

April has delivered a sobering reminder of our frailty. It takes only a moment to shift from celebration to mourning. The events of last Monday at Virginia Tech are impossible to comprehend. I was also reminded by Matt, a student who is fast becoming a teacher, that we were approaching the anniversary of the April 20, 1999 killings in Columbine.

There is little solace in times of such tragic loss. How sad it is that such things happen. I read the profiles of each of the victims in Blacksburg. Their pictures showed people so filled with life. I was especially taken by the grin of a young man named Jarrett Lane. Jarrett, his classmates and teachers, were taken in horrific fashon and the shared grief of strangers throughout the world cannot bring relief. This community of compassion presents those who loved him a sense, at least. that they are not alone in their suffering. Jarrett’s infectious smile reminds me of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson called “In Memoriam”. It is my offering to all who mourn this young man and those who died with him. May peace be with you.

YET, O stricken heart, remember, O remember
How of human days he lived the better part.
April came to bloom and never dim December
Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart.

Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a being
Trod the flowery April blithely for awhile,
Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing,
Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.

Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished,
You alone have crossed the melancholy stream,
Yours the pang, but his, O his, the undiminished
Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream.

All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason,
All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason,
Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing season
And ere the day of sorrow departed as he came