It's Just Not Right

Through most of it I was ok. It was the bell that got me...

Mournful, somnolent, listless... Its steady, incessant tolling seemed to match the cadence of our uncertain footsteps as we lock-stepped our dear friend - fallen brother - into the last car ride he'd ever take.

The weight of the simple casket bearing Tommy's earthly remains was nothing - eight people gladly shared it. The emotional weight, an order of magnitude of about a thousand times more, was bourne by each of us individually. We each had our own prized memories of times spent with one of the most spectacular people you'd ever want to meet.

Multiple Schlerosis is an insidious disease. Captain of the wrestling team, avid outdoorsman, hiker, climber, biker and explorer... Brother, son, step son, uncle, most reliable friend a person could hope for, cut down at the "ripe old age" of 32. With the final 5 or so years spent handcuffed to a wheelchair and caged in a body that utterly refused to do any of the things which came so effortlessly in years past. Gone was the guy who decided on a whim to round up some friends and drive from Massachusetts to the dunes of Kittyhawk North Carolina, then onward to the beaches of Florida - the guy who took the slogan "visit a postcard" to heart the way few could.

Gone? No. Confined. The guy - the soul - was still in there. But never again would his fingers flow easily across the valves of his trumpet as he fluidly broke into almost any song you could name. If he wasn't as quick to zing you with a witty remark, it wasn't because his mind had slowed, it was only that his vocal chords refused to respond as swiftly as they once did.

The true miracle was that he lived his formative years - the years of memories both golden and hazy - with the knowledge that this unspeakable fate awaited him. Did it make him bitter? Resentful? Churlish? No. It made him into the man whos passing brought tears to the eyes of grown men. It made him into the man who was the embodiment of all that a person could want to be. It made him into one of the most singular spirits any of us had ever met.

How did he know this horrid fate most likely awaited him? Because his mom was already wheelchair bound with the same illness. Instead of looking ahead to the possability with dread, he stared Life in the eyes and tackled it with a zeal that few of us could ever hope to match. He tried harder, went above and beyond, and in the process, inspired each of us to do the same.

The bell tolls again. We're sliding his coffin into the back of the car. Traditionally, there are 6 pall-bearers. For Tommy, there were 8. The funeral director can see that none of us is willing to forego the honor of carrying him, so he doesn't fight us, just accepts it. This encapsulates Tommy's entire existence. There is no such thing as 'convention' when Tommy is involved. There is only what's *right*.

At the funeral, Maurice had gotten up to talk about some memories of Tommy and related a story of how when he was in 8th grade, Tommy stood up to someone much larger who was bullying a kid Tommy hardly knew. When asked why he would want to expose himself to potential harm for someone he hardly even knew, Tommy's reply was emphatic, and yet eloquent in its simplicity: "Because it just wasn't right!"

The bell tolls again. Each of us is placing the carnation that marks us as one of Tommy's bearers onto the platform in the hearst and I am searching my memory for the quote that is haunting me:

I was searching for John Donne: "For each man's death diminished me, for I am part of man kind. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee".

The bell tolls again. The coffin is sliding slowly into the back of the hearst. Among the fifty or sixty people gathered, there is not a dry eye. The death of this one singular man has diminished us all. And Tommy? For the record:

It's just not right.

We love you and are eternally diminished for your loss, my friend.

Eternal Regards,
Az