Grief

Tonight I attended a funeral of a church friend's 17 year old son. We sat in candlelit twilight, sang hymns in English and Spanish (for benefit of family visiting from out of the country), listened and watched as our pastor's voice cracked and he held back tears, and mourned with a family that will never be the same again.

The young man, taken from them far too soon, was a Jr. ROTC member, a self-admitted "mama's boy", a loving boyfriend, and, if HPD is to be trusted, a gang member. The bad choice he made, out of so many good ones, took him from his family and friends. It was a choice that couldn't be taken back. You and I have made stupid choices in our lives - larger and smaller than this one - and we have been granted the grace or good fortune to be able to "do over" - or at least the time to dig ourselves out of the hole we created. He didn't have time for any of those things. The violence that this broken world of ours doles out far too frequently found him before he had a chance for any of that.

The local paper published a short article today on the arrest of his killers. Immediately the comments section was full of gleeful hatred, racism, and incitements to further violence. The brokeness of this world finds it way into every corner of our lives; seemingly ordinary people can celebrate the death of someone they have never met, only because the word "gang" has been uttered. Let loose that word and someone's child, someone's brother, becomes a non-person. Incapable of love or understanding, these people did their best to violate the memory of someone that others love and mourn. It turned my stomach.

I want to be clear; I am not justifying the bad choices any of us make. But if Christ can still see us as people, as lovable, despite these choices, what gives us the right to take away someone's humanity because of them? Those closest to us - and us ourselves - suffer far more than anyone else ever will from the bad decisions we make.

The last thing I saw before I left was his youngest brother, standing by the open coffin, saying goodbye. This young boy is One's age and his friend; One was too upset to come with me to the funeral, and has prayed for his friend for over a week. The sight of an eight year old boy, looking down at the shell of his oldest brother, split me in two.

When I walked outside, it was still light. I was shocked that the sun was still up. I can't imagine how the family watches the world going by as usual, and copes with that. And will, for the rest of their lives.

This is a broken world we live in, and it is never so clear than at moments like these. This world is not our home. All we have in the end is the promise that there is Christ, who will make all things whole, bring unbroken peace, and lead us to where we belong.