A Death

My mom told me that a childhood friend committed suicide last Tuesday, leaving behind his wife, two young children, parents, and a sister who was supposed to be getting married in a month but now might be postponing the wedding.

He spent the day working on a construction site with his dad, then went home and put a gun to his head. The funeral was on Saturday.

Poor Carter, to have felt so miserable and to have seen no other way out.


I was stuck in my own misery of trivialities last week, now I don't even remember all the details of all the world's transgressions against me but for some reason everything just felt so terrible (no it was NOT pms). I had a feeling some real tragedy might come along to snap me out of my silly wallowing. Then I heard about Carter.

I remember a similar thing back in 2001. On September 7 of that year, I turned 23. It was a Friday night. I went out celebrating with a ton of friends (here I am on that night with my friend Ginny), and at the end of the night wound up toppling to the ground on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall, an outdoor pedestrian mall paved with bricks. My friend Alex fell on top of me. I cracked my head open, bled all over the place, had a huge circle of late-night concerned onlookers around me, and then went to the emergency room in an ambulance to get 5 staples in my head. I cried and cried, wondering how to tell my mom that The Good Child got drunk and fell spectacularly. I spent three days at home depressed in my apartment. On the fourth day, I went to the post office before going to work, stood in line behind one of my former coffee-shop customers watching the TV above the counter, and both of us wondered aloud if the plane flying into the building was some sort of hoax.

It was not.

I leapt out of my pool of self-pity pretty darn fast.

This photo was taken in October of that year, when Jessica, Brian, and I (L-R) went to New York for the CMJ Music Conference, which had been postponed from Sept. 14 to Oct. 13. Andy's old photo of himself inspired me to look through my archives...

I have no analysis or final word on tragedy. I do hope to have compassion and at least a small sense of perspective. E.g. if it rains and is generally meteorologically miserable at Sea Otter this weekend, I don't think I'll burst into tears and claim it's the end of the world. It's just bike racing. Just a small part of life, and one that's there to make us happy.