Last week, the biggest thing in my nine-year-old daughter’s life was that she and I went to the pet store to buy her a hamster. The little puncture marks in my fingers are testament to the fact that no matter how sincerely kids promise to take care of their new pets, the responsibility falls upon the parent. But, it meant so much to her. She giggles when she holds the hamster she named “Grace”.
Also, last week a bus carrying our Beaumont girl’s high school soccer team crashed and rolled 1 ½ times, in bad weather on Highway 90, heading to Houston for a playoff game. Two precious girls were killed, one a sophomore and one a senior. Two doting fathers were irreparably afflicted by the broken hearts that they will carry until the end of their lives.
My son knew Ashley Brown from a meeting at friend Aaron Morgan’s house. He said she was very nice. Aaron’s sister is one of the friends left behind to be irreversibly scarred and defined by this event. My wife works with Alicia Bonura’s father, Mike Bonura. He is a fine employee of Exxon-Mobil, who with his wife also has two handsome sons. Mike was back at work less than one week after the event, no doubt trying to escape the words, songs and memories that his daughter had so lovingly, generously left for him. Alicia’s MySpace page is now the cyber-meeting place for her friends and her memory, where their words plead with her to make sense of it all.
A National Honor Society member, Alicia dreamed of playing soccer at Texas A&M, and majoring in Engineering. She wrote that she loved God and couldn’t wait to meet Him. Her faith and future were like her smile: brilliant.
These are the times when we scratch our heads and utter with resignation: “Well, we must remember that God has a plan.”, despite the sense of inadequacy that we assign our own words.
My wife didn’t want a hamster: they run their treadmills like a buzz-saw in the middle of the night. Their cage constantly smells like a port-a-john in August. They bite.
My family attended Alicia Bonura’s wake at her family’s Catholic Church. I was struck by the poise and silent dignity of her family at a time of such despair and vulnerability. It almost seemed that they willed themselves to live up to her wondrous memory by being the best they could force themselves to be. Still, nothing anyone could have said to them could have soothed the unquenchable, smoldering despair caused by the loss of their family’s most shining light.
Alicia’s friends write angrily on her MySpace page that their school is trying to move forward, but they’re not ready. It’s just too soon for them. Still, they’ll have to move onward. We all will. And, I'll be stuck with this hamster while I await my daughter’s release from school. And, I’ll be there early to pick her up because I'm reminded that every moment with her is my privilege and a blessing.
