Waiting On A Train

I'm stuck in traffic in downtown Necedah. Backed up into town. Waiting for a train.

And waiting.

Being stuck by a train I ended up thinking about a recent train accident in Mauston. Well, not so much an accident as a tragedy.

Two young kids, 19 years old, decided to end their lives together in each others arms, standing in the middle of the railroad tracks when the Canadian Pacific came rolling through, just after midnight.

In a flash, two young lives were over, before they'd even begun.

That's what we always think when young people die, especially in such a tragic manner: the things they could've been, the things they'd have learned and experienced. 

I know when I was 19 I had absolutely no clue about all of the things I would learn and experienced since then. Zip. Nada. None.

There's been great things, bad things, beautiful things, people I've met, loved, and shared time in life with and developed lasting connections with and experiences I've had that I could have never imagined.

When I was 19, my life was no picnic. Actually from 19 to 31 and beyond in ways, was a nightmare.

But I never ever considered ending it. I always believed in tomorrow. I always believed things would get better. I was also afraid that I would miss something. In my worst moments a passing thought would say "hey, all you gotta do is... and it's over". Those thoughts would always glance off and head back where ever they came from. I'd just instantly think "ok, but what if this problem magically went away tomorrow?" The answer was always, I'd want to be here.

Another reason is I seem to have a very long term irrational fear of dying anyway.

Last summer going through and organizing the garage I found a drawing I did of being chased by death or something. When I was a little kid. I know where the picture is, but I try no to remember what I really wrote & drew. It just freaks me out.

I believe in something. I have faith that it's all a big circle of life and it just is, but I've always been a guy who can't be 100% without knowing 100% of the facts. I've never had a gambling problem because I would never bet on anything, even as a kid, unless I knew 100% I'd win.

Why we're here, how we're here and what happens when we're not is something I've done a lot of looking at all my life and I haven't come up with something I can know for a 100% fact.

That being the case, I'm in no hurry to check out the other side.

And I'm 48 now. There's no way I'd have been cool with it at 19.

So then I wonder about these kids. Like everybody my first thought is all they'll miss out on in life. Then I think how could they do it.

Then I begin to see beyond the tragedy and I realize that maybe, just maybe these two young kids might have just gotten what they needed in this life, and maybe the things they'll miss didn't matter in their spiritual life.

I did not know these kids, but I know some of what they learned and experienced in this life.

They learned courage.

You cannot look at voluntarily jumping into the great unknown without courage like most of us will never experience.

They developed faith.

They had to have had an incredible belief and faith that not only was what they were doing the right thing to do, it was going to be ok. They had to have an incredible faith that whatever they believed comes next was safe. Whther that was God and Heaven or just rejoining the One or whatever. They believed in something.

They experienced hope.

Whatever their reasons for deciding to do this, they had hope that their decision would be for the best, and that whatever was creating the situation would be better.

They learned and experienced trust. They learned and experienced honor. They learned and experienced loyalty, integrity and all the things we strive to be.

To trust each other to be in that decision and action together I can barely imagine. To trust someone to stand there with you and hold you while you die together and not change their mind and jump and leave you stranded is a lot of trust. They honored each other and the agreement they made. They were loyal to each other and followed through.

Most of all, and probably what lead them to having all the rest, they had experienced love. Love with a capital "L" Love.

You have to be incredibly, incredibly, incredibly in love with someone to, at that age, decide together for whatever reason, to do such a thing and follow through with it.

At a mere 19, they had all this.

I didn't have that at 19. I certainly wouldn't claim to have all that today. 

So while the initial reaction is to think of all they'll miss, (especially when you consider that obviously kids with the traits these two had could have gone a long way in life), maybe, just maybe they didn't miss a thing.

Not anything that was important anyway.

Maybe, rather than a long life filled with great family and great careers and all of the stuff we all hope to have to feel that we've accomplished something with our lives, maybe they had a short life so that other people could look at things differently, be more aware of the value and shortness of our lives, regardless of how long we live.

I never met them and knew nothing about them until this happened. I haven't even seen a picture of them. 

But they caused me to think enough that I will probably not forget them.

If I have no knowledge of them and they've affected my life, how important and influential are they and their tragic death to their family and friends?

I hope that through the pain, the loss and all that their friends & family experience now, they'll allow themselves to not trouble themselves with what might have been, but focus on what was and what lessons these kids lives and deaths have left behind.

I am not in anyway condoning suicide. I am merely looking at this one with a different set of eyes.