Around this time of year it is easy to think of all of the things that we are thankful for - that's what the holiday is about after all, but I keep coming back to one story that I did around this time of year about two years ago.
It was the start of the high school track season and I was at a meet talking to several of the coaches when I stopped to talk to one in particular. Always on the look out for a good feature article idea, I asked him pointedly if there were any kids who would make an interesting feature story. I made sure to clarify that when looking for feature ideas I am not necessarily looking for the top athlete, but rather someone who might have a good story.
He said, "My son would make for a good story." And with those words, my career was about to have it's first foundation rocking shift, I just didn't know it then.
"Oh, really?" I said. "Tell me about him. Is he here?"
"He should be here," said The Coach.
"Well, where is he? I would like to meet him!"
"He died a couple months ago," said The Coach. "He should be here, but he isn't."
Tears were welling in his eyes and he kept scanning the bleachers as if his son was just running late, or had missed the call to start his race.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said bewildered and confused. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"
And this is where the story got interesting. The Coach told me that his youngest son had found his older brother, the one who should have been at the meet, strangled in his room. The police called it a suicide. The Coach didn't believe that his son meant to take his own life.
I agreed to write a feature on The Coach's son, feeling a sense of purpose that maybe I could help tell a beautiful story of this boy's life which ended far too soon, leaving behind a grief stricken family and community.
When I told my friends and family about the feature article I was going to be working on they each expressed concerns that this subject would prove to be very difficult. I couldn't understand why they thought that - this, to me, was a story of an aspiring and gifted runner, a thoughtful and intelligent young man who died accidentally and who's story was never fully told.
I had four weeks to work on the article and in an uncharacteristic move, I procrastinated. I never procrastinate. Working in newspapers, I am not used to having long deadlines, therefore procrastination is not really an option, not that I do anyway. But I found myself delaying when it came to set up the photo shoot; I delayed worse still when setting up a time to go interview the family.
The more I procrastinated, the more the story changed in my head. Emotionally, it morphed from writing a beautiful feature article about the life of a wonderful young man into writing an obituary.
As part of journalism training, we are all taught to write obits - some people are gifted at it, while others struggle. I could write them, but found myself wanting to write the back-story instead. I wanted to know all of the little details about why they moved to Arkansas from Miami, or how they came to marry a woman named Frangelica.
All of the obits that we practiced were for older folks. there was no training for writing something on a young person.
I felt obligated to do a good job on re-telling this kid's story. I felt like I owed he and his family that much.
But the thing about being a journalist is that all of the stories you tell become part of you. They change you in ways that you might not realize.
I finally made myself call the family and set up a time when both my photographer (whom I have known and worked with since college) could go up and talk to the family all together.
The Photog took pictures as I sat in the home of The Coach and his family and listened to their stories. The stories of his son who was no longer there. The house where his son had died. The house that they hadn't slept in since their son passed away. I listened as The Coach, his wife and their two children - the younger brother and sister of The Runner - told me stories of his life with tears streaming down their faces.
I felt the prickles of tears behind my eyes. I squinched up my nose to keep myself from dissolving into a sobbing mess.
I wanted to cry. The story was heartbreaking and complected.
Younger Sister didn't cry. Her voice was fairly monotone and her gaze was distant. She told me about her big brother and how much she missed him. I later asked her parents is she was close to The Runner and they said that she was so close to him that she was suffering from traumatic withdrawal. My heart sank. Little Sister wasn't even 10-years-old.
As I listened to the stories of The Runner's life it became apparent that he was by all accounts a happy and connected not only to his family, but to his community and to God and God's greater purpose for him. So I began to wonder - why?
Why did this happen? What was going on in his head the moments before his death? There was no suicide letter. There was nothing that suggested that The Runner was in anyway un-happy. There was nothing to suggest foul-play - so why? Why did this happen? It was the question that kept coming up over-and-over again.
Then I realized that my heart wrenching stuggle to figure out the reason why this sweet, smart, young man was no longer alive was but a few moments of agony. This family had been experiencing the same struggle to piece things back together for months already.
What to me seemed like an eternity of trying to live for a moment inside The Runner's mind just before he died - examining it, running through scenarios and possibilities - was but a fleeting passage of time, one that I could put down and walk away from, but his family couldn't.
In the space of a second - the second that it took for my brain to register the sorrow and loss The Runner's family was feeling - I was changed forever.
I would never be the same again.
I asked The Runner's parents if they told him that they loved him before they left to run their errands. Hoping with every fiber in my body that they had and that he in turn had told them that he loved them too.
They said that of course they had. That they always tell each other that they love one another before walking out the door because you never know if it might be the last time you get a chance.
As soon as they said that the dam broke loose - I started to cry. Not the sobbing, uncontrolled wreck-like cry that I felt inside, but just hot streams of tears running down my cheek.
I have a family. I have a family whom I love very much and would be devastated if anything happened to them. I have experienced death. I know the pain of grief and yet, I still took for granted the simple act of telling my loved ones that I love them before I departed their company.
I sat silently for a few minutes on the couch with The Coach. I had so much to take in, so much to process, so much sadness and hope to sift through and I had one heck of a story to tell. At that moment Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, had nothing on me.
I can't remember all of the things I said as I said my goodbyes - I know I thanked them for letting me share in part of their lives. I'm pretty sure that I reassured them that I would try to do justice to their son's memory. But I can't remember, however, if I told them that they would be in my heart forever.
On the long car ride home I cried. I cried the way I wanted to cry when I was sitting in their living room. I cried the way I would cry if it was my child's story and not theirs. I tried to listen to music. I tried to roll the windows down, but nothing could clear my head - or my heart - of the grief that I was carrying.
The Coach had told me a story about how when he would run, there was an eagle that liked to perch up in a nearby tree and watch The Runner glide over the track. The Coach thought it was pretty poignant and I agreed, if for no other reason that it was comforting to think that The Runner could have been so beloved that even an eagle wanted to taken in part of his splendor.
The Runner and The Coach are now part of the tapestry of my story, not because I went home and suddenly became like The Coach's family - where I tell my loved ones that I love them every time I part company (I'm still working on that one). And not because I had fallen into a pit of grief and despair.
They were part of my tapestry because never before had anyone opened up such a raw and tender moment of their life with me - entrusting me in the most intimate way to take care of their story. I had never experienced that kind of responsibility in my job before and I was honored.
