The End of a Life

          I found out today that my wife’s cousin's only son (whom my wife called her 'nephew') was killed in a traffic collision on Sunday, March 16^th. He had had a rough life the past 15 years; going AWOL from the U.S. Marines, being caught and dishonorably discharged, being charged with drug possession and as a sex offender, serving seven years in prison on the latter account, not being able to find much work after being released, and finally, being killed when a teenage driver plowed into the back of his SUV. It’s a horrific end to what had seemed a promising life that somehow was interrupted about 20 years ago.

         In the early 1990s, we had gone to his family’s home for a big gathering, and he was proudly talking about how he wanted to join the Air Force and become a pilot after he graduated. At the time, he was a junior in high school, played as a lineman on the football team, and showed real promise as an artist. His bedroom was decorated with posters of sports heroes, airplanes and NASCAR vehicles. What happened to him afterward is still a mystery. I was told he became involved with the wrong crowd at school, began using crystal meth and other drugs, and let his school studies slip. He joined the Marines after he graduated in order to straighten out his life, although I’m not sure if he wanted to, or was ordered to. Marine life proved hard for him and one weekend he went AWOL. The Marines are good at tracking people, so they found him, put him in the brig for a while, and then dishonorably discharged him. His life seemed to spiral further downward after he returned home, became involved with drugs again, moved in with a young girl and got her pregnant. When her parents had had enough, they pressed charges against him since she was underage. He was sentenced to seven years in a medium security prison as a sexual predator. My wife corresponded with him on a number of occasions. I wrote a few times and encouraged his drawing as he seemed to have an eye for detailed artistic work. (I still have several pictures he drew for me while he was in prison.) One of the more bizarre things he wrote to my wife was how being in prison has strengthen his belief in Jesus and he had become a stronger Christian. When my wife showed me his letters, I couldn’t fathom why he professed a belief in something that, from all appearances, hadn’t done him any good. It was like saying his faith in garden fairies had blossomed thanks to the dread he felt all around him. His letters reflected how difficult and hard prison life was, with constant concern about his well-being and safety. If Jesus was comforting him and Christianity was strengthening him, why all that fear and apprehension? We visited him in the prison about a year before his release. It was a strange place to reunite with someone I hadn’t seen in almost 15 years. He had resigned himself to prison life and was just trying to get to the end of his sentence without going crazy. He said he mostly stayed to himself although he had made a couple of ‘friends’ while inside. We weren’t introduced to any but he pointed out one of them. I got a cold, hollow feeling when I looked at the man. The heavily tattooed, scarred, and scowling convict had the appearance of someone who knew far too much about prison life, and why people were there. I could only imagine what kind of effect he was having on my wife’s nephew.

         The last time I saw him was in 2011, just after his release, when we visited with his mom and dad and had a celebratory dinner with the three of them. He was trying to devise a realistic career path after what he acknowledged was a series of extremely bad decisions and poor choices. Shortly after our visit, he was ordered off his parent’s property by the court. As a convicted sex offender, he could not live near the girl who had his child and she happened to occupy a house very close to where his parents lived, so he was forced to stay with a family friend several miles away. Apparently, this put him back in touch with the people who had gotten him involved with drugs in the first place. Subsequently, he reverted to his pre-prison ways and became estranged from his mother and father. At some point, after the girl moved with her son out of state, he was allowed to return and live on his parent’s property in a old mobile home. We had seen it when we were there in 2011 and it was in shambles; needing quite a bit of repair and rebuilding to make it even semi-habitable. When he moved back, he made it his job to get it into a livable condition.

        When my wife’s cousin called last night, she told my wife that he was returning from community service that was required as part of his parole. He was about three miles from his home when he was hit at high speed from behind. According to the Highway Patrol report, he was not wearing his seatbelt and was ejected from the SUV when it rolled over several times. He died at the scene of the crash. The two teens in the car that hit him suffered minor injuries.     
        (I viewed the Facebook pages of the two teens who were in that vehicle. One of them is in the hospital, according to what he wrote online. He claims they had fun, other than the crash; thanks God that he and the driver survived, (Why didn't God just prevent the crash, or save all three of them?) then asks God to bless the other driver (my wife's nephew), that he is sooooo sorry he didn't make it, and he'll be in his prayers forever. (Uh-huh, I'm sure.) Many of his buddies seem to think its cool what happened. At least three entries end with 'LOL', although I can't tell what they are 'laughing' about. There are several entries on one page about beer drinking, cocktails, pot smoking, getting some easy pussy,  and trolling for more action at the beach. If those entries are any indication, the driver will probably face DUI manslaughter charges. That should stifle any further 'LOLs'. - Italics portion added on 3-19-14.)

        On my wife's cousin’s Facebook page today, along with seeking answers to the tragedy, is a Pinterest card she posted that states prayer shouldn’t be your last resort, it should be your first priority, with the tacit suggestion that prayer somehow works. I wonder, how much good does praying do? How did my wife’s nephew’s life change from all the prayers offered by his parents, his minister, or my wife, who prayed for him on numerous occasions? What good are the prayers for him (as people have posted on that Facebook page), now that his life has been snuffed out? How will those prayers ease the heartbreak and misery my wife’s cousin and her husband are experiencing? Do they truly believe God was watching out for their son, but decided on Sunday to let him die by being smashed against the road when he was thrown from his vehicle? If that kind of being exists, they are cruel and sadistic, and not worthy of worship.

        I am sorry for the loss of this man. I would say 'Rest in Peace', but there is nothing to indicate death is anything like a peaceful rest. I am sorry for the devastation it brings to his family. And I am sorry that so many offer up prayers to an invisible being who did nothing for this man while he was alive. It must give comfort to those who are doing the praying, by thinking they're contributing something useful and that the supernatural recipient will now respond in a positive manner. When that being doesn't answer their prayer, people will claim that we just have to wait, or that no reply IS the answer...unless that unseen entity doesn’t exist…which is the actual case. The nonexistence of an other-worldly super-daddy explains why these events happen. There is no one steering the ‘ship of life’. You are in control - whether you like it or not and whether you accept it or not. There is no script to follow. You write your own script every day. You choose what to make of your time while you're here.  Life is a series of random events. Some make us happy, some make us sad, some make us wonder what in the world is going on, but most are ordinary, mundane situations that we usually take little notice of. None of it is influenced by a cosmic invisible puppeteer, or some supreme being that requires prayers - as if they couldn’t figure out what to do unless human beings kept them apprised of things. Life is not a scenario to be acted out like a Shakespeare play...life just unfolds. It's up to each of us to do the best that we can with it. And life can be summed up in three words…it goes on. It just won't include my wife's nephew any longer, and that's a shame because he deserved better.