Monday morning (essentially Sunday night) Riley lost Brad*, one of his best pool hall buddies, in a motorcycle accident.
Riley, Brad and i all worked together at Merry Lore.
Everyone was shocked by the news. It was surreal. There is just something very, very wrong for a 20-year-old who loves life to lose his.
Brad deserved to live much more than, say, someone like me, who's already dead inside. The universe is unfair indeed.
I didn't know Brad that well. He was relatively new. One fond memory i have, though, is of this one idle afternoon when i hung out with the guys in the warehouse goofing off. It was probably a Friday.
I walked in on Riley and Brad inventing a new game with the conveyor consisting of metal rollers. They'd prime the rollers by stepping on them and gliding across in sweeping motions, turning them at high speed. Then they'd place a lightweight box of metal handles on, which would be sent flying and then crashing.
I caught a couple of rounds while the boys took turns, and i started laughing hysterically. It was so sublimely absurd!
My laugh irrevocably infected the perpetrators and bystanders alike.
Barely intelligible, i implored, "Do it again!" which totally cracked Riley up.
Once in a while it's awesome to act and feel like a kid again.
Psyched Brad proceeded to prime the rollers again. They were turning so fast you could hear the continual swoosh. Adrenaline was pumping.
Then the anticlimactic happened: Brad's pant got caught in a metal handle, and the entire box uneventfully fell off to the side, contents spilled.
Brad turned bright red while Riley laughed his ass off.
I remember thinking to myself: Brad the biker dude has a sensitive side after all.
Fast forward to yesterday. Riley came in my office hella pissed. Derek I had just dissed him by basically calling him a lazy motherfucker who screwed up on an order (the culprit could not be determined). We've been short-staffed for the longest time. And i know for a fact that Riley, of all people, is not a lazy motherfucker. He's a rarity who actually cares.
"I'm just trying to get through this week!" Lamented Riley. "Um, sorry your order is screwed up, Derek. We're a little short-handed. Newton* [our assistant manager] is on maternity leave. And Brad is dead!"
Wow. When he put it that way, he really made me rethink life.
*Not his real name
Tips for Finding Happiness in Your Daily Life
10 years ago
1 comment:
When I was 23, my best friend, who is the same age as I am, lost her fiance. He was a very young, active model who was just so into life. He biked, snowboarded, etc, and was all over the place socially. He was the only child to traditional Portugese parents and very well known in their community. He was killed with a baseball bat while protecting someone else outside of a party who had been attacked. He was hit at the base of the skull as he crouched over a young man lting on the floor and spent about six weeks in and out of a coma.
My friend was destroyed then, and still feels waves of sorrow from it now and then. At his service, there were so many people in that very large church that the streets were lined and there was standing room only in the back. It was just so tragic.
When anyone dies, it's so sad, but when the young die, it hits even harder. It just seeems like there is so much potential.
I guess that's what I want to say to you-it may seem like sometimes you don't know what you're doing here, but don't forget that you have potential in you. You just have to find your groove, my dear. It's there.
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