I have a bad taste in my mouth. I keep feeling the tears trying to make their way out, but I turn them off just as quickly. I keep staring at his picture and wondering why on earth bad things happen? I get the concepts: Where there is bad there is also good. Without suffering there would be no compassion. I get it. I just really hate, when the bad hits so close to home.
This morning I received a call from my mother at 6 am. My alarm had gone off and I had just hit the snooze button when her name lit up. She told me that a friend of the family had died in a motorcycle accident late in the night. He wasn't someone I was extremely close to, but he was my cousin’s cousin. When we were younger we’d all see each other several time out of the year when our cousins from Georgia would come down for a visit. Since we were all pretty close in age as we got older it wasn't uncommon for me to see him around at some of the same places I frequented.
After high school he joined the army, did his tours, and when he got out he went back to school. I don’t know many details about his life but since all of our families kept up with each other I’d hear how he was doing from someone. That’s the wonderful thing about family. Everyone keeps up with each other in some way. The last time I had actually seen him was last year when he arrived at our house with one of my cousins. It was brief, and they were leaving as I was coming. But he wore that smile of his. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw him go without one. And that’s the look I’ll always remember. That’s the way I’ll always remember him.
The details are still blurred about how things happened. I won’t know much more until our family from Georgia arrives. I've tried looking at our local papers, including the surrounding counties. So far nothing has been published. It all seems so unreal. My mind keeps rejecting the idea, and I feel I need to see proof to believe it. I need to see an article, and read his name in it. Something; anything. After I got off the phone with my mother I felt like I didn't have a right to feel so saddened by this. It’s not like we were close. But I still felt like my heart was hurting. And as the morning has progressed that hurt has gotten worse. This was someone I knew. Someone I definitely cared about as one would an old friend. He was young, with a bright future. And now it’s all gone. Wiped away, just like that. And it really, really sucks.
My prayers go out to his family. To his mother, who I can't even imagine the pain she's feeling right now. He had such a love for her and his sister. I pray for his little brother, for the grief that he must feel as well. He had someone amazing to look up to in his older brother, and I'm so sad that he was taken away. But I'm glad that they'll always have that to carry with them; the tremendous love he had for each and every one. And I pray for him; that he's in peace.
I was truly blessed to have known such a wonderful and bright man.
And I'll carry that with me always.
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