5.21.2014

How many blog posts start with "Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged, but…"

Too many. I'm just going to jump right into it.

5.21.2014 marked the 10 year anniversary of an absolutely exquisite pain that cascaded down my high school class. It rushed in with the force of a waterfall but brought none of it's peace.

My mom woke me from a deep sleep - the type of deep sleep you can only accomplish as a teenager when she handed me the phone. It was a friend of mine that I've known since I was 9. I've seen heard her stressed twice. Once, she was studying for the MCATs. The other was this phone call. Her voice was quivering because she told me that Brad Conklin and Andy Donahue were killed in a car accident. A horrific cliche that our star basketball player was stolen too soon, not to mention classmate and friend. One of the popular kids that was always nice to us theater geeks anyway, usually tormenting me about the Yankees or teasing me about Global History study guides.

There was a plague of accidents that hung over Broome County, with  tragedies surfacing every weekend and ripping away students from new high schools every weekend . It was like a sick Russian Roulette that was inevitably going to hit our school. For some, it was our first intimate experience with loss. For others, self included, it was another fucked up instance to add to this fucked up period of my life, which I believe is translated into Latin as "adolescence."

Our world stopped. We searched for explanations where there were none. We searched for acceptance in a seemingly unacceptable situation. 

5.21.2014 marked the day our beloved high school priest and theology teacher was arrested on charges of child pornography.

I'm not particularly religious, but I've always believed in something.  There have been times where I've had to; when I've had to surrender that the pain I was enduring made sense in the scheme of something greater than myself; that there was an explanation to this cruelty; that it was bigger than me but not too big for me. I've also had faith in moments of brilliant joy, in people choosing to live instead of choosing to die, in resolving addictions and demons, in persevering when there is simply nothing left, add in my own growth.

This "priest" was a part of this. He was one of two religious leaders that I ever really connected to. He spoke to us, not at us. He taught us without lecturing us. He just had an innate inclination for human connectivity. And now the same high school class that was cut by such sharp pain is wondering how someone inclined to human connectivity could be so monstrously inhumane? How can someone that we relied on to get through what broke our collective hearts a decade ago to the day turn out to be an agent of evil?

Our world has stopped. We're searching for explanations where there are none. We're searching for acceptance in a seemingly unacceptable situation. 

It's amazing how such sickening news can recall the vivid pain we were in a decade ago. Such a different tragedy, but evoking such a visceral reaction. I hope that my high school family has found wisdom in our scars - in some cases battle wounds - from ten years ago, and has continued to find wisdom ever since.

For green and white
For honor bright,
For loyalty and pride.