accidents and aftermath: part I

The news story I posted earlier is sobering, and has been devastating to a Texas family. It’s been on my mind often the past two weeks. Thoughts turn, inevitably I suppose to the poem To An Athlete Dying Young, by A. E. Housman.

Jordan earned a place at the Air Force Academy on both an athletic and an academic scholarship. He was poised on tiptoes, like a competitor on a high dive, moments before release into the world he had prepared for, trained for, entering the water with skill and every promise of success.

I’ve been told about his funeral. There was the massive attendance by classmates. There were two football jerseys draped over his casket, representing his plans to take his highschool number on with him to the collegiate game. There were reports of how it took hours for everyone to process past his casket. The principal who spoke at his funeral said that this New Orleans transplant, who evacuated with his family during Katrina, had a heart as big as Texas. He had made a place for himself. He belonged to them.

Most notable, at least for me, is that the young man who was driving the car during the accident was a pall bearer at the funeral. Moreover, Jordan’s family will not press charges.

Why? It was an accident.

Do you find this remarkable? I do. Oftentimes, the outcome is so much different. The family can’t stop the young man from getting charged, particularly as drag racing is illegal in the state of Texas. But they want him to go on, as best as he can, with his life. These young men were good friends. Some would even say best friends. One was driving and got away with non-life threatening injuries. One life was lost forever. But the family realizes one thing. The loss is the worst thing the man will ever suffer. It is punishment enough. In fact, it is punishment too much – it does not fit the crime.

Boy, but I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. It was an accident.

People like to be good. Well, let me clarify. People like to be viewed as good in the eyes of those they love and admire. But the truth is, we don’t necessarily like being good all the time, because it’s fun to be dangerous and it’s titillating to be wicked, and who doesn’t like being titillating? But when it comes to our core, when it comes to doing the things we feel are right, we all have a little code in our head that we live by. We don’t like to break that code, and we don’t like others to witness it when we do.

So what happens when we break the code? What happens when someone else sees us break it?

I think a lot depends on why you break the code. If it’s something you did deliberately, it means that something vital in you has changed. It means your code no longer applies. In that case, you need to send everyone that memo, because the people who love you need to know and adapt accordingly.

So what if you didn’t mean to break the code? What then?

--Laura