Good Lutherans

A major storm made its way through here last night, dropping several inches of snow on the ground. The wind has been blowing it across fields and highways and the roads are tricky and dangerous. School was closed today, and so I am home, working in my room.

There’s been a death in the opposite house. Four teenagers from the town where I teach are dead, killed in a horrible car accident. Nine people stuffed into a small sedan, a drunk woman behind the wheel.

Everyone asks, did I know them? Were any of them students, or actors, of mine? I learned the names and thought about it, and no, I did not know any of them. Unfamiliar names, unfamiliar faces.

Later, other names and faces I know start to appear in the reports about the deaths. Kids that knew them. Andrew, from seven years ago; Shane, from the beginning, from class, from the stage.

Old photos of the students, looking at some of the faces, and I can’t quite remember all of my students’ names any more. Too many years and too many names I suppose, and some of that stuff fades into the back of the mind.

Other photos, from just a few years ago, old friends I haven’t talked to in a while, friends I no longer talk to.

A few years ago I lost control of my car, near the river, not far from where the kids died. A quick bump into the medium. Flat tire.

I had been drinking, you see, and didn’t realize the condition I was in. A friend of mine, one of those friends I no longer talk to, was driving behind me and took me home.

That was the beginning, or I guess it was the end, of a lot of things that took place over the next few years.

I can look back on it now and realize what kind of person I had become, can point to the mistakes and bad decisions and see where the right turns and the wrong turns were. I was a very unhappy person, seeking solace in a dream and refusing to acknowledge the state I was in.

Last fall there was a memorial service for a man from back home. The father of one of my oldest friends from childhood, a member of my family’s church, and a good friend to my Uncle as well. A death that happened too soon, to too good of a man.

I sat in the Lutheran church and listened to the words spoken, and sang the songs that Jim picked out himself, and I thought about the life in full, and the measure of a man’s worth, and the things that are said about someone when they pass.

I thought about my own life, and what I had been doing with it, my successes, my failures. Stubborn fool of a man, a warped, frustrated lonely young man.

What will they say about me?

The tears started to overwhelm me, as my Uncle looked at me from the choir, and I felt small, horribly, horribly small, next to all of those good Lutherans.

Four funerals this past year, four times I watched the dark parade in the small country towns. Four times for the message to be driven home.

I’ve lost a lot over the past few years, and it’s taken a long time to get it back. This horrible, wonderful life of mine, broken and mended, whole again but still incomplete.

I’m looking outside the window, thinking about those kids, and my friends, as the snow continues to fall, covering the blackness of the roads, covering the fresh flowers by the river, making everything seem new again.