Sitting On the Edge of the Grand Canyon.

A few years ago we took a trip; one of the stops was at the Grand Canyon.  We had stopped by the visitor center and got some information about what we were about to see. Making our way to the south rim we couldn't see anything from the trail we were on. when we finally got to the rim of the canyon, we were awestruck. Never having seen anything like it in person our minds couldn't grasp the concept of what our eyes were seeing. The sheer wonder of this sight just amazed us. After a few minutes I was able to walk to the edge of the canyon and look straight down. The view of this enormous canyon had my complete attention and for a moment all that was before me was all that existed nothing and no one else was there. That was an experience that one will never forget.  Along with encounters with the wonders of nature and moments of extreme joy such as the birth of a child or the day you wed the love of your life, these are the moments that cause you to fixate your total attention on the event at hand. For those few minutes or hours everything else has faded away.

Unfortunately this also happens when you experience the loss of a loved one. But this one lingers on, sometimes on the surface of our lives but most of the time it lies just beneath. Just like sitting on edge of the Grand Canyon it’s hard to see beyond what is in front of us.  From the moment we lost Matthew and Ricky the heartache and pain was tremendous, nothing was the same, yes we saw and even talked to those around us. But they were our children and now they were gone and the loss of them is devastating. Everything we did afterwards was just a façade of the life we live before. The impact it had on me, Patrick and Brain (the survivors of the crash) left us so deeply affected that you could see it on us aside from the physical injuries. It was the physical manifestation of the devastation of losing a son, a little brother and best friend that we could not see past leaving us with only memories and questions.  How could this happen to them, these two boys who had so much to offer this world.

 Matthew my son, my baby boy was so full of life and potential I knew him from the moment he took his first breath till the day he took his last and remember every smile, laugh and tear in between. Ricky the little boy from across the street, He was my friend. I meet him when he was around five or six, a little while after we move into the neighborhood. He was a good kid with a kind heart and a fluffy head. I watched him grow up into a young man with everything to look forward too. My boys and Ricky, his brother Petey and Brian (our neighbor from a few house down) gave me an excuse to be a kid again, we played basketball had water balloon fights, which almost always turned into cups of ice cold water fights. So when a drunk driver took Ricky and Matthews’s life it was as if a Grand Canyon of sorrow opened up in front of us.     

So that’s where we live our live just a few steps away for this canyon of sorrow and we just go about our lives accustom to it presence. So the other day when I got a call out of the blue from old friend from church, he had been my boys Royal Ranger leader( it’s like the boy scouts but in a church setting) I didn't think anything of it other than it was a call to say hey. We exchanged greetings and then he told me that he was getting ready to move and was going through some old boxes. In one of the boxes he found some old pictures from church and as he went through them he found a picture of the boys from the Royal Ranger troop. With a choked up voice He said “Matthew is in it”, then came a long pause. With tears welling up in my eyes and through the silence he conveyed this message to me “I remember him, I loved him too and I miss him.”  At that moment I realized that he was not speaking to me from some far off place but that he too was sitting on edge of this canyon. He was experiencing some of the same hurt that I was.  The call was a reminder that although we as the parent, spouse, sibling or child may be experiencing the loss of a loved one firsthand, we have to remember others lost them too. So as you sit on the edge of this great grand canyon of sorrow and you can't see beyond it remember to look to your side and see that there are others with you and so am I.

Edward