Chapter III:
I Didn’t Understand

Continued From
CHAPTER II: Two Stories & A Myth

Over the course of the next few years I would have a lot of relationships that relied quite deeply on the lovers’ myth. It wasn’t until the week before I left Seattle that I even came to realize this.

I was sitting beneath the Aurora Bridge, on a bench on the Fremont side of the canal. There was nothing particularly cozy about this bench, but somehow it had become a regular meeting place for me and Haylie. The bench had become a piece of furniture in our relationship; something that we both had come to appreciate.

If Emily and I had never been just friends, then Haylie and I were the exact opposite. Haylie had grown up down the street from me and was one of those friends who, without question, would always be there. Solid, I think, would be a good way to describe my friendship with Haylie. We had grown up at each other’s house, eating Oreos and milk after school and building treehouses in the woods at the end of the street.

I would wonder, on and off, whether or not I was right in my thinking that Haylie and I would be good friends, always and forever, and nothing more. I’ve seen a lot of situations where one person says they’re okay with friendship while the other burns deeply with a desire for something more. Maybe I’m just projecting my experiences on other people. Maybe I’m completely alone in this observation of what might be called a deep silence of friendship–a deep silence motivated by a deeper desire to not lose the present friendship. Maybe I’m completely off base here.

At any rate, the only reason I mention this is because when I speak of Haylie as a friend, I mean that she and I are exactly that–friends.

Haylie and I had come to the bench to simply catch up. The madness of last-quarter examinations at University meant that it had been weeks since we last spoke to one-another.

She had been curious about how I could move so quickly from one relationship to another. Haylie asked me to list off all of the girls I had dated over the last few years. I had first come up with eleven names but disqualified two of them because I argued that one date doesn’t qualify as “dating.” “One date qualifies as poor judgement,” I joked. Hayle wasn’t particularly amused by my humor.

“That breaks my heart,” Haylie shared, responding to my final figure of nine. “How on earth can you do that to yourself and not be just completely devastated?”

“I still talk to all nine of them,” I responded, as if to justify myself. I tried to argue to Haylie that because I was still on speaking terms with all nine of them, it was okay. But even that wasn’t completely true. Surely I could call all nine, but there are actually only eight with whom I could still hold a meaningful conversation.

We had gone to the bench that afternoon because Haylie was having a particularly difficult time confronting the end of her experience at University. She was confronting the fact that life was changing in significant and unstoppable ways and she didn’t feel particularly ready.

Earlier in the year, Haylie’s sister-in-law Annie had gone on a mission trip to Burundi with some members of her church. Everybody acknowledged from the beginning that the trip was dangerous, and Haylie never told me why it was so important that they go to Burundi, of all places in the world.

Burundi experienced massive civil war for almost thirteen years–beginning in 1993 and continuing through almost the end of 2006. I learned this in a geography class at University. I also learned that the civil war involved “non-governmental and non-combatant targets.” I took this to mean that everything was a target–even those things that should typically have nothing to do with warfare. Things like schools and hospitals; families and schoolchildren.

In September of 2006 the government and the rebels signed a cease-fire agreement which formally ended the war. Because it would take much more than a treaty to begin rebuilding Burundi, various militant and militia groups would come to claim certain degrees of power in the interim.

The short version of Annie’s story–that is, the first of two versions of the story–involves something about armed bandits or groups of roving street children. It would be more than a week before Haylie’s brother or Annie’s family even heard anything about it.

According to the version of the story that I was told, their mission group was traveling outside of Burundi’s capital city of Bujumbura when they were stopped at a roadside checkpoint. Somehow, and the details here are still unclear to me, Annie was removed from her team and driven away by one of the rebel groups.

And that’s the end of the story.

I took this to mean that everything was a target–even those things that should typically have nothing to do with warfare. Things like American mission workers.

If you feel unfulfilled in my telling of the story, or that I didn’t offer any substantial information or any tidy conclusions, then you might be beginning to understand what Annie’s family and Haylie’s brother felt. Maybe more truthfully, what they still feel to this day.

As Haylie was telling the story, I was overcome by two distinct thoughts. First, that sucks. Second, I don’t understand.

The fact that I could say something as trite and trivial as that sucks begins to illustrate very seriously the second point; I don’t understand.

I had told Haylie before that I feel completely unprepared to face loss. All of the grand parents I have ever known, all three of them, are still alive and healthy. I have both of my parents and all of my siblings. A friend from highschool died last year, or maybe the year before, but he and I had never really hung out so it wasn’t something that was terribly difficult for me.

I sound like an asshole. Somebody’s son died and all I conclude is that it wasn’t something that was terribly difficult for me?

I don’t understand.

And I knew it might be a long time before I came to understand. Or it might be next week. Or later today.

The whole situation had Haylie asking questions that I couldn’t understand. It’s not that I simply didn’t understand. It’s that I couldn’t.

“My brother was going to spend the rest of his life with Annie,” Haylie began. “My brother had hopes and dreams for Annie, for himself, for the family that they would start one day…” Haylie trailed off. Her eyes seemed to focus on the flashing red lights on the radio towers across the water.

In the silence I caught myself thinking how grateful I was that I had at least read enough books to know when to keep quiet. In books that talk about grief and loss, a common denominator is the devastation that empty and thoughtless words can have on a delicate situation–especially a situation you don’t fully comprehend yourself. I waited for Haylie to continue. It could have been forty seconds just as easily as it could have been two minutes. The silence hung heavy over our bench.

“What happens,” Haylie eventually resumed, “when all of your hopes, all of your visions, all of your dreams, and all of your aspirations for the future suddenly disappear? And not just hopes and visions and dreams and aspirations for yourself, but for somebody else? What happens when you lose that? What happens when everything you thought you knew about the rest of your life doesn’t just simply change, but disappears or is taken from you?”

Haylie was in tears, and the only thing that I could think was I don’t understand.

For Annie’s family, there wasn’t even a clear conclusion to what happened in Burundi. There even existed the possibility that she was still alive, held captive in a rebel camp somewhere. But this sort of magical thinking couldn’t possibly be productive. In almost any other situation, the loss of Annie would still be difficult. But in almost any other situation, after the funeral and a period of mourning, her family would be able to begin rebuilding their lives in a way that honored Annie’s life, but was faithful to the reality that she was no longer with them.

Instead, the reality of the situation is that for the rest of their lives, Annie’s family would not know. They would not know what happened after she was taken from the group. They would not know if she had remained alive for hours, or days or weeks. They would not know if she was alive today.

They would not know, and for the rest of their lives they would be faced with the question of “why?” Even beyond the question of why, they would be doomed to the question of “what if…?” Annie’s family would have the rest of their lives to ask the question of “what if…?” What if she had missed her flight? What if she hadn’t chosen to go on the trip? What if any single member of the family had encouraged her against the trip?

Would it have ended differently? Could it have ended differently.

“What happens when you lose your future?” Haylie finally asked.

I didn’t understand.

What does happen when you lose your future?