Creating Beauty in Spaces. Finding Beauty in Connection. That’s the theme of this blog. Lately, I’ve been focusing more on the “spaces” aspect. But last week, something happened. Something dreadful. Something incomprehensible, unthinkable.

It had been a good day. I’d spend a good chunk of it working on the blog post Greenhorn Farmhouse Interior Part 2 and the Finale. The sun had slipped behind the mountain and evening dark was descending. I fed the cats and dogs, sent Abigail to feed the horses and chickens and prepared to head to town.

Ours is a small community, nestled against a mountain named for a once powerful Comanche chief. It’s a simple place with ranches, and cattle drives, mountain trails and breathtaking vistas. A picturesque lake lies 11 miles to the northwest, further into the Rockies. Another lies in the heart of the community, 5 miles down the mountain. We have a couple of restaurants, a bar or two, and a handful of other shops and businesses.  Nightlife is often found under stadium or gym lights while cheering for the local high school teams, and the local FFA Member Auction and Oyster Fry will draw one of the largest crowds of the year. And yes, those are Rocky Mountain Oysters.

Kids get bored here. It’s not uncommon for them to graduate and move away. Nor is it uncommon for those same kids, with young families in tow to return to this place my childhood friend describes as “magical”.

So, we were heading to town. “Town” is the term for the nearest city. The place where we go to shop, bowl, maybe see a concert, go the State Fair or catch a movie. It’s where two of my daughters attend school, one at the local college and the other at cosmetology school. And this night, Abigail and I were making the 35 minute drive to town to ice skate with a friend.

The miles slipped behind us as Abigail kept up a steady chatter. School, FFA, her friends, which college she wants to attend. Then my phone rang. It was my daughter, Anna. Both she and her younger sister, Alia work at the local barbecue restaurant. She doesn’t usually call me from work.

“Can you come get Alia?” I could hear the tremble in her voice. My heart skipped a beat. Something had happened. What had happened? Was Alia ok?

“Aspen was killed in a car accident.”

Aspen. Alia’s dear friend. Her best friend through much of high school.  Aspen, who had moved to Denver to live with her grandmother following their high school graduation. Aspen, who was there, at the Walmart where she worked when an armed shooter let loose a hail of bullets just a few  short months ago. The girl who loved her family. Who was kind to her friends. Adored her horse and dog. Aspen. Who doted on her little niece.  Alia’s partner in crime. Her fellow FFA officer. Daughter, sister, granddaughter, aunt, and friend.

The details would be sparse. Nineteen years old. Heading home for the weekend, I presume. Traveling the road she’d travelled hundreds of times. The afternoon sun high overhead, it’s brightness masking the bite of the wind. Suddenly, the car was out of control. Off the road. She was ejected from the vehicle as it rolled before coming to a stop. Aspen. Gone. In a hot second, the blink of an eye.

Life cut short. Too soon. Senselessly. Leaving questions and heartache and searching. Searching for some way to wrap our minds around this unfathomable tragedy.

I turned the car around and headed for Alia. I would hold her and we would cry, my heart breaking for Aspen’s family and for my girl, knowing that I could not take this hurt from her, could not kiss it and make it all better. I’d read the pain and confusion in her eyes and wish with everything in me that I could take it and carry it for her. But it doesn’t work that way.  Dammit. I wish it did.

Twenty-eight years ago another nineteen year old lost his best friend. Another family lost a son and brother. Another life cut short. Twenty-eight years ago I held another, my younger brother,  and we cried and mourned the loss of his best friend, Kevin.

We cried with Kevin’s family, our friends, our family, by choice if not by blood. Kevin’s sister, Lori, would stand beside me when I married a few years later. But twenty-eight years ago, we weren’t thinking about weddings and futures. We were aching for a future that would never be.

On that day and the days that followed, our families hugged and cried and clung to each other in a desperate attempt to make sense of the senseless… an effort in futility, but an effort our minds and hearts compelled us to make.

And, then, as now, I wished I could take the pain, could spare those I love.

Twenty-eight years later we still miss Kevin, still wonder who he would have become, what he would have done. His name is still on our lips. Time  has not diminished our memories nor our love.

And, I know that twenty-eight years will not be long enough to erase Aspen’s memory from the heart of my dear Alia. At unexpected times, a memory will burst into her thoughts, like sunlight through the clouds after a storm. She will remember her friend and she will smile. The memories will not fade but the sharp, stinging pain will.

It’s a funny thing, this life. We go about our business and too often our busy-ness. Then one day, without warning tragedy reaches in and shakes our world, right down to it’s very foundations, bringing with it confusion, denial, anger and grief. It assaults our faith. It challenges us to cling tenaciously to the things that are most important. It reminds us that life is oh, so fragile.  It teaches us that love makes us vulnerable. If we didn’t love, we could be spared the excruciating pain of loss. But at what cost?  If we didn’t love, would we really live?

In the movie Shadowlands, CS Lewis put it like this:

Why love if losing hurts so much. I have no answers anymore, only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I’ve been given the choice. As a boy and as a man. The boy choose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.

Or, to put it a slightly different way, “We can’t have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today.” (Joy, Shadowlands)

Today, I will go to my current job site. We will install windows and at the end of the day we will be one step closer to the finished product, to a house made beautiful and ready for the family that will makes it’s home within it’s walls. But today, as I cut holes, and install flashing and check for level, I will remember the reasons why. Always, close in my thoughts will be my children, my clients, the people who fill my life and occupy my heart.

And when I’m home again and the chores aren’t done and the house is still a mess and I’m frustrated I will remember. I’ll remember that even these things are to be cherished. That these precious ones are the treasures. I’ll remember how fleeting, how fragile life is. I’ll be thankful. I’ll seek to love better, more selflessly. I’ll choose to continue making myself vulnerable to love, even if it ultimately means choosing suffering. And I’ll believe that joy comes in the morning.