I read obituaries. My daughters think this is weird. My mom says it's a small town thing. I liken it to riding in a car down a highway at night and seeing illuminated house windows. Each one offers a fleeting glimpse of a life in progress, whether eating dinner, watching TV, or performing some mundane task. I note the scene and imagine a story.
Obituaries are a similar snapshot of a life. Was the person married? Single all their life but with a "special friend"? Did they have children? What were their interests? I'm also interested in the pictures that accompany the write-ups, and what does it mean when the best the family could come up with is some badly out of focus or horribly-lit shot? Some obits document lives of tragedy, or accomplishment. I'm most touched by the ones that speak of the person's nature and really give a feeling for why that person is going to be missed. Each life is a story full of ups and downs and important lessons learned. I feel that by reading the story, however brief, in an obituary I am somehow honoring the fact that this person existed and that they had a story to tell. They were more than a name.
This is the same reason that I read the list of U.S. military deaths printed daily in the Cleveland paper. I am pretty much unaffected directly by the wars we are fighting, but I feel it is important to pay attention to the fact that they are happening. And each soldier is not just a number, but a name. And each name is a story that has come to a tragically early end. I read the name, age, and hometown, and try to imagine the story that took that person to such a foreign land.
Today, for the first time, I saw a name from my hometown. MY hometown. Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, which, contrary to what the name sounds like, is not a military post at all. It's a town whose main claim to fame is being home of The National Dairy Shrine. I don't live there anymore, but it's where I grew up and it will always be my hometown.
I felt a shock. Lance Cpl. Jacob A. Meinert was only 20 years old. The last name sounded vaguely familiar like a name I remembered hearing while growing up. It's possible I went to school with his parents.
I didn't know him, but I know where he came from. A lot has changed about Fort since I left. I very much doubt that we would have had any of the same teachers. The first school I attended is now an apartment building (Caswell), my first middle school closed (Emory? Emery?), the junior high is now administrative offices, I think (James F. Luther), and my high school is now the middle school. But I bet he went to The Frostee Freeze, and walked along the Rock River, and gazed at the same church spire (St. Paul's Lutheran Church) that is visible all over town.
Unfortunately there have been military deaths of young people from Northern Ohio, although none from Oberlin. I find the stories sad, and see how it affects a whole community, but have never felt personally touched like I did with Lance Cpl. Meinert. I can readily picture his story. He died supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan -- a world away, I'm sure, from the rolling farmlands of southern Wisconsin. But he carried with him some of the same images, I bet, that I treasure.
Suddenly those six degrees of separation seem awfully close.
Into your hands, oh Lord, I commend his spirit.
