The loss of another young man

 At my age, one might expect to go to funerals. In New Tricks, Jack Halford played by the excellent James Bolam says that he goes to a funeral every couple of weeks. Well, very, very sadly the last five funerals or Celebrations of Life Tom and I have been to have been young men. I’ve written about two of them here and here. In between them there were two others, one a bit older than Margaret, and the other in Michael's class, and then last month was the fifth. This young man was a year, lacking two days, older than my daughter Margaret. He died on the local mountain he loved, doing what he loved to do, snowboarding. 

There were hundreds of people there. The place was up a hill, and we were early enough to park in one of the parking lots. When we came out, there were cars almost down to the main road. He was much loved in the community. I didn’t know him personally, but I know his mother, and his sister is one of Margaret’s best friends, and Tom taught him in school. There is something about the small Middle and Senior High School which all the young men, but one, attended that is very, very special. The kids were close, and they remain close. And many, many of them stay in the area. They love this place with the same passion that we have. Some move further away, but they they come back home and get together with all the friends they’ve known most of their lives. It is an amazing school and area that brings them all together for a lifetime. 

And their parents were there, most of them old hippies like Tom and I. There were no women with dyed hair or facelifts. There was gray hair, and there were wrinkles, and there were a few with canes or walkers. Their “kids” are in their forties now and the parents in their sixties and seventies. Even if we don’t know everyone personally, we still “know” each other. We spent most of our time with the mother of a woman whose daughter was in Margaret’s class, and whose own son died almost a decade ago at whose Celebration of Life all of us were back then. 

The man who died was an early skateboarder when that sport was looked down on by much of society. There is a skateboarding park in town, but there hasn’t been enough money to really make something of it. His sister-in-law had the idea to give contributions in his name to the park, and would you believe that $52,000 dollars has been given thus far. It just makes me cry, and makes me feel so proud of this wonderful community.