Break Your Heart

So here’s what happened. I was at the gym with Jonah, and since I’m ancient and feeble I was done earlier than he was. I was in the lobby reading the Glens Falls Post Star, a back page article about the recent mine disaster in West Virginia. Jonah came down the stairs and, joking, said, Have you been crying? Of course, I hadn’t. I was just sweating. I was in a room full of 11-year-old gymnasts, their mothers, and a bunch of middle-aged tennis stars. But then I said, Listen to this. And I told him what I had just read. About how they had found, I think, 25 bodies and there were still four men missing. Rescue teams were trying desperately to find them. The state governor, a man named Minchin (I think I got the name right),  was in the room where the relatives waited for news. He was talking to a woman (I haven’t got the article, can’t remember the names) whose son and two grandsons (ages 20 and 25, just boys) were among the missing four. Then an aide came into the room and handed the governor a note that said the woman’s son and grandsons had been found dead. (It’s important to note here that this Gov. Minchin had lost an uncle in mine disaster, too.) He quickly ushered the woman into a private room and said, They didn’t make it. Her response was: Were they together? The governor said, Yes. And that put me on my knees because I could imagine her mental process and her value set and her feeling for what was important in death and love. The governor had the guts and grace to tell her himself; the woman knew that if they were dead, at least there would be some comfort if father and sons were together when it happened.

dg