A Good Man Died Today

Twenty six years ago this fall I wrote the following…

A good man died today. He won’t be honored with fancy tributes by eloquent speakers. He won’t be memorialized by having his name left behind on a building. The famous won’t bow their heads in grief as they recall their friend. That gesture will be left for his family and friends.

He never found the cure for cancer, the evil that eventually conquered him. He never wrote a timely novel. He never solved the energy crisis.

He did live a quiet life never asking for recognition. He did what he had to do for his country, for his family, for his God. He quietly touched the lives of people in a simple way that can never be measured.

I know he is better now that he no longer has to suffer from his illness. I know any concerns he had about the everyday problems of life are now gone. Still, it all seems so unfair, even cruel. Here was a man who was good and decent, gone long before he should be, yet, tonight on the news we’ll hear how someone drove while drunk and caused a horrible accident in an irresponsible way or how a dangerous criminal has been released from prison on a technicality.

We need more good men like the one who died today. We don’t need more movie stars with their phony images and shallow standards. We don’t need more politicians who only have regard for their reelection. We don’t need more athletes pouting because their multi-million dollar salary just isn’t enough.

We need more good men like the one who died today. We need men to live quiet, decent lives. We need men to do what they have to do for the things and the ones they love. We need men to quietly influence people in ways that cannot be measured or taken away.

As unfair as it seems, I know this good man has gone home. Maybe it’s selfishness or maybe even anger that make his death seem so wrong. While his absence will place a great void in the lives of so many, it is good to know part of that void will be filled by the influence he left behind.

Now faith takes over. Now is the time for the words of that old hymn to ring more true than before,

“Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder

Why it should be thus all the day long

While there are others living about us

Never molested though in the wrong

Farther along, we’ll know more about it

Farther along, we’ll understand why…”

For those of us left behind, life goes on. And somewhere tomorrow, someone will say “a good man died today.”

God, help us all.

As I write these words another good man I know died this past week. When he died something made me think of this piece I had written, in some ways, a lifetime ago. It made me miss my friend who passed away in 1992. It also made me miss my friend who had just passed away. It also brought to mind so many other men and women in between these two who are no longer here but whose lives spoke louder than their words ever could.

I know that death comes to each one of us. It comes to those we love. It comes to those we have a hard time loving. In retrospect, maybe that is one thing about life that is fair, or, maybe, more appropriate, equal. None of us get out of it alive. That is a pretty level playing field. While I don't always understand why people die when they do, I understand in a different way than I did in years past that those we cherish do die and there is a certain peace that can reside there. That doesn't necessarily mean that the sting of death is less painful when it happens, it just places it in a perspective for me that seems to make some sense, maybe not in my heart, but in my mind.

And while that reconciliation of sorts seems to make peace with some feelings, I am not so sure some of the words I wrote then are any more positive today. I say that because when I re-read the piece several times, I became very sad at words I had written years ago. I was sad because the things that so dominated so many lives then still seem to reign over so many lives now: crass celebrities, greedy politicians, arrogant athletes. Throw in today’s sewer stream of social media where many say things with their fingers and a keyboard that they would never dare verbalize to someone’s face and it can be rather disheartening that we, as a whole, just seem to refuse to learn what the important things in life are while we are still living.

As I said before, God, help us all.