Ten
years ago today I rode in the backseat of a college professor's car
with some other students as we headed from the hospital back to
campus. They were talking about what we'd just experienced while I
sat silently, unable to speak at all. It was from the shock, mostly,
but the grief wasn't too far behind.
A
boy I didn't know sat in the front seat. He said he didn't believe in
heaven or any sort of afterlife, but he did believe that our friend
was still a part of the universe...something about his memory living
on in us...I can't quite remember the words. I just remember that it
made my heart ache with empty sadness and the pit in my chest grow
larger.
Just
minutes earlier I had stood in a circle in a hospital parking lot
with dozens of other students as we held hands and prayed together. I
had looked around at all these people that one person had gathered
together, and though I was broken, there was still hope. It meant
something. It had to.
Just
a week earlier I'd spent a 26-hour bus ride to New York next to one
of the greatest human beings I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
He'd let me stretch my feet across his lap as I repeatedly scrambled
the Rubik's cube for him and timed his solutions. They were always
under a minute.
He
was like a brother, except the only time I'd ever been mad at him was
once in the cafeteria when he'd thrown an egg roll at me and gotten
soy sauce all over my favorite shirt. I couldn't stay mad at him for
long – no one could.
And
once, a long time before that, we had sat in his dorm room talking
about life, and he confessed that he didn't believe he would live
until old age. He'd just 'had a feeling'. I told him that was
ridiculous and that one day we would call each other up and talk
about our grandkids.
But
that was not to be.
Charles
was smart, witty, multi-talented – but most of all, loving. He
understood what love was far better than most people twice his age.
His life may have seemed short to so many who knew him, but he had
gained far more knowledge and understanding than most people even
bother to seek in this brief life we're all given. Charles looked at
the universe as though it were something as simple as a mathematical
equation and had a spiritual outlook full of meaning and purpose. He
was unique in a way I have never known anyone else to be.
That's
why it wasn't fair. I couldn't understand why, out of all the human
beings on earth, it had to be him.
Twenty-one years old, so much life left to live, so much more loving
left to do...so much more to give.
It
was a long and painful process for me to finally arrive at the
realization that the answer was, why not? Life
is not fair in the way that we assume it should be, as we all know by
the way it slams us into a wall every now and then. In fact it would
probably be for the best if the word “fair” didn't even exist in
any human language. I don't know why we keep trying to mold it into
what we
think it should be.
Our
natural tendency is to ask why, but perhaps we are simply not asking
the right question.
The
answers to the universe are most likely quite simple. After all, a
Rubik's cube has only one solution out of 43 quintillion possible
combinations – a solution that is as simple as a series of
sequences. Maybe if we just knew all the rules and took it one step
at a time, all these complexities would seem so easy...the solutions
would be clear.
I
don't have all those answers, and it often frustrates me. But I do
believe that Someone does. And I do believe that Charles lives on in
a much bigger way than the boy in the front seat thought he did. I
believe we'll someday have the answers, and I believe that Charles is
thrilled to have them now.
I
believe all that because it makes no sense to be handed a Rubik's
cube that's impossible to solve. The enigmas this life presents have
more to offer us than confusion and surrender. When we know there is
a solution, the puzzle starts to take shape.
Charles'
existence meant something and means something still. We are so much
more than random. We fit together in the most complex-and-yet-simple
puzzle that's ever been designed.
I've
seen too many people give up on the answer because they're holding
onto a piece they can't quite fit into the puzzle. They've got one
side of the cube solved, but the rest of it is still so jumbled up
that they decide it's not even worth it, that it must be impossible.
But
it is possible. It is worthy of our time and attention.
Charles
taught me many things, but mostly that the answers are worth seeking.
Just because I can't see the completion doesn't mean there isn't one.
It just means I need to figure out the steps, fitting in the pieces
as I find them and letting Love guide me along the way.
