So reads the opening line of our first mailing of the year
for the charitable foundation started in
memory of my brother Stephen M. O’Grady, Salem Little League VP and Executive
Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salem, killed by a drunk
driver in 1999 at the age of 30- those last few words rolling off my tongue
with disturbing ease as I’ve repeated them hundreds if not thousands of times
over the past 13 years.
Losing someone you love is painful. Losing someone you love in a senseless
tragedy at a young age is more than painful- it’s a reality check to everyone
breathing to remind us that the only guarantee in our lives is the moment we
are living in. It’s as much that shared pain and fear of our own mortality as
it is the love for our son/brother/friend who left us behind that begs us to do
something more. To do something to remind us that while he is gone we are still
here, trying to do something to leave a
positive impact in this world for the honor of living another day. To do anything to make sense of the fact that
our lives go on, when one with so much promise was ended so violently, leaving
us to wonder the day after or even 13
years later, ‘why him and not me’. It may seem straightforward to be on a small foundation board, and in a way I guess it is. You create a mailing list, ask for community support, tell your friends and family when the events are and hope they show up. Behind the scenes you edit the website, update the Facebook page, and print flyers. But there are those times when you stare at the computer screen and his photo stares back at you, and you wish you could ask him if this is what he would want, if it is making a difference, if he’ll really be waiting at Heaven’s gate to say “good job”. Then you wonder if you’ve done enough good in the world to even make it to that gate, and if not can he at least try to stick his foot in it to hold it open. You stare closer and try to remember how tall he was next to you, what his voice sounded like, how big his hands were when he shook yours. You take a moment to think of the cowlick that drove him nuts, how he was constantly trying to lose a few pounds, or how he never stopped liking spaghettios.
As the years go on the man and the foundation seem to drift
apart as guests and scholarship recipients no longer know who Stephen was, and
others who knew him their whole life join him in Heaven. You see the faces of
those who have lost their own loved ones in the crowd, and want to tell them
“this is for you too, for everyone who has lost someone they love”. You
struggle with how much to remind people about the tragedy, without taking away
the fun they are having. You wonder what
people want to hear, what they need to hear. You wonder where they were when
they heard the news of the accident, and know you’ll never forget where you
were.
You think of all of this, and then you relax a little bit
when you hear a small voice inside of you that tells you “do what you need to
do”, and you realize it really is that simple because you can’t imagine not
doing it.
So you stuff the envelopes, sealing inside of them dreams of
what should have been, hope that one day
you’ll find out if he still has a cowlick in Heaven, and gratitude for the
honor of living another day.
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