Do all deaths shock you? Not me. I was terribly saddened by the passing of all of my grandparents. But their deaths were natural. Sad. Yes. Shocking. No. But there have been two deaths which have astonished me. And they are connected remotely across many years.
When I was in 7th or 8th grade, I can’t seem to remember which, but it was middle school nonetheless, I played tenor saxophone in the school band. Next to me sat the baritone horn section. Section. Sounds large. It wasn’t. Two guys actually played baritone horn, Leonard and Jimmy. Leonard and I were friends. But Jimmy who sat between us, sat near me in this class alone. We had no other significant contact except band. I did know that he was also the student manager of the high school varsity football team. So after school in the fall, he went to the high school field for football practice when I went to the high school swimming pool for swim team. Our paths would cross when both of us were done. But we never spoke except for band class.
One day, swim team practice was over, and I went shivering into the locker room to change for home. On my way to my locker from the showers, I saw the football players coming in, many with their heads hanging down. I asked what was going on. They said Jimmy had been hit by a car and he was up in the parking lot. I hurried into my clothes to go out and see him. I hadn’t even asked what his condition was. My mind was thinking that he was probably sitting out there with a broken leg. I’d go up to make sure he was ok. I don’t know what I thought I could do. I just had this impulse.
When I got up there, the EMS workers were on the ground working on Jimmy. I peered over their rapidly moving arms and there he was. There was the guy who only sat next to me, nothing more, with his body torn up and plenty of blood and gore. He was distinguishable in that mess. He was Jimmy. But he was not going to survive even if he was still alive at that moment.
I was shaken up. This was not a natural death. Natural only to its causation, but not natural in the course of ordinary life. This was shocking. I couldn’t bear it. Jimmy’s death rattled me but not in a grown-up way. I was still young and that meant I was invincible like everyone under thirty behaves as if they are. So I wasn’t rattled into an understanding of my own mortality or at the very least a fear of it. No, the sensation was one of actual horror and disbelief. In a moment, a skinny kid playing the baritone horn could become a lifeless mess of blood and gore. I relived those images bouncing back and forth in my mind over and over again. I grew desensitized to them as I got older. They have never actually gone away.
On the football team that Jimmy managed was a golden boy named Joey. Joey was the kind of kid movies are made about. He lived two doors down from me. His dad was a big guy who adored his talented son. He recognized his son’s true athleticism. This wasn’t a guy trumping up the kid’s actual abilities because he had some vicarious need to live through him. Joey was really that good. We played all kinds of games as little kids that gave way to baseball and football as we got a little older. Joey led all of them. He was the home runner, the long passer, the far jumper.
And he only got better. His dad knew it. Strangers knew it too. Joey started getting scouted pretty early. And by the time he was in high school, he was moved over to a parochial school which was known for its football program. It was the right move. As good as Joey was, our high school was no place for him. He was a star there. But a bright star on a dismal team wasn’t going to get him to where he needed to be. Our school was known for an unusually bad record. We went completely un-feated at least two of my high school years.
At his new school Joey was a star in the right sky. Out of high school, Notre Dame got him first. But Pitt got him when he had to take a medical redshirt and transferred. He was a reserve quarterback. My understanding is that his record at Pitt of the longest pass to not result in a touchdown has still not been eclipsed.
My brother stayed friends with Joey over the years. I saw him last somewhere around 1987. He was a guest at a wedding that I also attended. He was always such a nice guy. You wanted to be around someone like him who exuded charm and confidence. And you also liked that his talent wasn’t fake. He was no poseur.
Yesterday, I got an email from my mother that Joey had died. He was 47 years old. He died napping on a couch. What happened? Again, like Jimmy 30+ years ago, this just didn’t seem natural.
The messages started popping up on Facebook about his death. There was the death notice in the paper but it only stated his death as unexpected. My mother gave me information that she knew but I didn’t want to share it before it could be verified. I kept reading all the posts to see if someone could tell us what had really happened.
Well, Joey it seems had had some medical issues, that reading the posts from friends and acquaintances it didn’t appear as if he spoke much about them. He had diabetes which doctors said he acquired due to trauma associated with intestinal surgery in his youth. While I still don’t know what the actual cause of death was, I’m sure it was related to his illness in some way.
I cannot say that Joey and I were friends these many years. But like many people, I easily attach myself to those from my hometown fondly. It makes me proud of where I’m from to know that we came from the same place.
Joey’s death made me think of Jimmy’s. They knew each other. I’m sure they knew each other better than I knew either one myself. And I think about both of them and how shocked and sad I am for both of their passings. Neither one seems natural to me. I accept them. I honor them. But I won’t call them natural deaths. They were both taken too young.
