Enough
Someone set up a Facebook page after Dave’s death so people could share memories, photos, videos. There was a discussion board, and it only took a little more than a week for people to start fighting—over who he had been really, his faith or lack of faith, what he thought of the church, what he would want for people to think and do after his death. This is what you become, apparently, when you choose to die young, a topic for discussion, everyone’s story. Some people were offended at the memorial service when the pastor began to talk about God, about Heaven and Hell and how to live and what Dave did right and what he’d done wrong. I read the transcript, and I can understand. It was heavy-handed, and while I didn’t technically disagree with what he said, I was a little put off by how it had been said. I know the pastor meant well, though, know his heart was in the right place. How do you preach at a funeral like that one? I mean, really, is there anything to say, is there any right word, is there any appropriate sentence?
What bothered me, and what bothered me about the discussion board, was that in those words Dave became an object lesson. An example, a warning. Dave wasn’t a lesson. He was a boy, he loved music, he had a girlfriend, he was going through something heavier than we can imagine. He was just a boy.
I think if someone is going to see Dave as a warning, they’ll see the warning without being told. If they’re going to see something in his life that screams at them turn around, they’ll know it, they’ll hear it, they don’t need anyone to point it out.
And all this focus on the actions, the drugs, it just seems misplaced. Turn your life around, get off drugs, stop the manic lifestyle, the painkillers and second-hand smoke. I don’t think Jesus came to give us advice so we could live our neat little lives a little more well adjusted. He didn’t come to make us better Americans, to keep us off drugs, to get us to wear cute little acronym bracelets. He came to have a relationship with us. Isn’t that it? Isn’t that enough? To show a deeper reality, to open up possibilities and activate senses long dulled, to say things silence never would. The possibility of a clear conscience and a broken heart, the duality of joy and sorrow, life more abundant. I just want to scream, it’s not about cocaine or the absence of cocaine, and staying off drugs will never be enough, and doing the right things at the right times will never be enough, and living the “Christian life” will never be enough, and keeping the grass mowed and going on a mission trip and not being racist and saying hi to your neighbor, it’s never going to be enough by itself. It’s not the point.
I didn’t chime in on the message boards because I didn’t feel it’s my place. He wasn’t my friend, though I am mourning his death. I have no claim on him, do not know his family, have only second-hand memories, have only what he was to Jesse. But I do wish I could say, enough, let Dave be Dave, let him be complicated, let him be the unanswered question. Can we stop pretending this is simple? Can we stop pretending life is black and white, that God doesn’t color outside the lines sometimes? Can we stop acting like doubt has no part in faith?

