on the death of a young man

i know 4-5 posts stacked tightly together in one day is just garrulous and excessive, but this is america. excess is what we do. besides... there is a lot going on right now and there is something important and lingering that i have yet to address. on the death of jerome jakie coston, my nagging question was why did it bother me so. it didn't reconcile that i had only seen the man 2 or 3 times over a space of 5 or 6 years, yet i was so distraught about the whole ordeal. it seemed like logically, i should be able to shrug and say "that's too bad" and feel sorry for those closer to him. this hit close to home and i was determined to find out why, because i didn't even know i lived anywhere close to the site of impact.

last time i felt this way was over the death of aaliyah. to me, she symbolized youth, vitality, potential, seeds, and signs of things to come. i was with my mother when i found out and i went into fit of disbelief and panicking. my mother didn't understand what the problem was. she asked me, "did you know her personally?" i didn't. and then i felt ashamed making such a show for someone who was neither a relative, close personal friend, or even an acquaintance. was i being dramatic? possibly. but there was some tangible impetus for the grief. even now, the discomfort has subsided, but by no means has it gone away.

in 2001, i wasn't bowled over by her new music, but i recall having a hopeful sense about where it was going. it was becoming intelligent and mature, being sung by a gentle, yet increasingly confident voice. no longer hiding under baggy clothes and hip-hop sunshades de rigueur, she was nascent and inspiring and vibrant in her freshly liberated loose curls. i was proud of her and intrigued by her as some archetypal figure of sister/mother/lover hybrid everywoman. i was looking forward to seeing what she might be like as a 40-year-old woman retaining supple curves from her youth, but finally being honored with lines of wisdom and esteem in her face. all of this i felt though unspoken. in someway somewhere along the lines, i took ownership of her. she was mine and we walked together. when she died, something that belonged to me was taken away. i felt it go and it still feels missing. it was part of the scenery that i was used to seeing while walking through my daily routines. i couldn't find a piece to replace what was taken because it was a one of a kind unique creation. so i had to adapt my routine so that i didn't have to pass by that place with the vacant spot and feel every day like injustice had only freshly been done that morning.

when biggie, tupac, and left eye died, it was sad, but they weren't part of my scenery. they weren't in my house. even when 9/11 happened, the tragedy was in my neighborhood, but it wasn't in my house. apparently, jerome lived in my house. ever so quietly, i didn't know he was there. he must have been like a table or something in the corner with a lamp on it where you walk by it everyday for years upon years without noticing it. yet as soon as you remove it, everything that once sat comfortably upon the table is upset.

like aaliyah, jerome and i were the same age, born 18 days apart. and we walked together in a way. from strong-willed children who played and fought and learned to forgive because there was no one else to play with, to grown men with completely different lives and aspirations and personalities worlds away from each other, we were still connected. if you look at life as a battlefield, we were marching in step not far from one another. enemy fire that could have grazed me easily met him spot on and took him out of step forever. he was mine and he was taken away from me and his absence is not unnoticed.

if i had known he was dying or had some premonition that it was to come, i think i would have tried to warn him or save him or, if that was beyond my control, at least touch him and let him know he was loved. maybe i did have a premonition. maybe that weird sense about the train coming that i had a few weeks ago was about him. but if so, how unfair that i wasn't fully informed so that i could try and reform God's plan with my own hands. alas, better that i not try an operate in that capacity, lest i damage more than i can repair. still, it would have been nice to look forward to seeing him at family reunions decades later and with him share stories about our crazy childhood to delight our own children. that won't be now. not the way i had expected. fortunately, i don't think anything necessary was left unsaid. i believe he is with Christ now, and i have no regrets.

however.

it stands to reason that anyone who narrowly misses being in a car accident will be obviously shaken for at least a moment of time, possibly gunshy and very careful for his life. as of late, that gunshy and thereafter circumspect man has been myself. jerome's life was truncated in a way that seems arbitrary, unexpected, and unforeseen. which means that apart from it being a portion of omniscient God's perfect plan, there was no apparent reason it couldn't have been me elected to leave at an early age.

normally, i prefer to drive late at night because it's easier on the eyes, and i find the night environment to be relaxing. yet tuesday night, even though i was clamboring anxious to escape the perimeters of bakersfield and the premises of my mother's home, i forsook my haste. i was tired and concerned that even i couldn't make the full 90 minute trip without wanting to take a nap. so i curled up on the floor by my mother's king-size bed. she insisted that i get some warm covering and a pillow or better yet, just stretch across the foot of her bed, so i did. then she adjusted some more and told me, there would be more room if you lay diagonally, so i did. then she said to go ahead and take that side of the bed and be comfortable. so i did. it was much warmer than the floor would have been. i awoke 2 hours later with my forehead against her shoulder and my hand clasped about hers. though still anxious to get back to my own world, i hesitated a little longer remembering how my mother said she begged my father not to rush out on the morning he was killed. i just thought that if there was something tragic awaiting me on the road or elsewhere, that holding my hand for just a few moments longer might have meant the world to her.

"A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." - Psalm 91:7a.

i wonder if my father had any foreboding of his own death. i've heard that he was planning to move to santa barbara, and was going around town saying goodbye to all of his friends before he died. that comforts me, that God would give him a chance to personally deliver his own closure in a way. to write his own epitaph before dying. it comforts me because i would want at least that much control over my own life for myself. there are significant things, even powerful things within me, that i haven't yet had the opportunity or ability to say yet. i was slightly afraid last week because i thought that if i did die unexpectedly that the greatness gestating in me would never be known or acknowledged. as if it were never there in the first place.

recently in california, some subway restaurants have ceased accepting their frequent buyer "sub club" cards. i didn't know this and i was left holding two cards worth one free sandwich each that i was told could no longer be redeemed. i called my mother and found that restaurants in bakersfield were still accepting them and i was overjoyed. even though i wasn't going to taste the sandwich for myself, i was inordinately excited that somebody close to me would still get the benefit of it and the roughly 70-80 dollars spent acquiring that value was not in vain.

i have invested time in this life and learned from my experiences which continually adds value to me as a person. even if i am not a currency-wealthy man when i leave this earth, what i know i have is much wisdom that the bible says is more precious than gold, and i have fought hard to earn it. that is my treasure. and even if i were to receive untimely discharge from service in this world, i would want someone to be able to redeem my value so that my life will not have been in vain.