The last few days have been unlike any I can remember. I guess I’ve never grieved a stranger.
But, then again, I guess I’ve struggled with the passing of Graeme Turnbull because he wasn’t really a stranger. He was a Dawg brother, a kinsman as only the red and black can make us, a friend by way of this wonderful and maddening community we all love for one reason or another. Some days I love to hate it. Some days I hate to love it. But in the end the love prevails, like I said, for one reason or another. Ghost was one of the reasons.
I was busy Tuesday, so I didn’t check the DawgVent until well into the afternoon, very unusual for me. When I did, my heart fell. On one hand, deep in the back of my all-too-human mind, it didn’t surprise me. I remembered all the posts over the years alluding to his “demons” and apparent disappearances from the board for some kind of recovery. I remembered his own posts celebrating a hard-charging lifestyle. So, in that way, I’m never surprised when the hottest of comets suddenly goes black. But on the other hand, I’m always floored when a 34-year-old man is dead. That’s a heavy word, dead.
Maybe it’s just me and my quiet love affair with this place--my own private addiction--but I cared what Ghost had to say. Just like I do so many others whom I don’t know--Hack, Roe, Savannah, Kathy Sue, Tursiops, DawgFaced Gremlin, ParadiseVendor, TCDevilDawg, jasons, Potimus Willie, Captain, atco, KeithRichards, lowcountry, BeachDawg, KeyStone, RoyDawgMercer, 10,000 Islands, UGABEN1, Canada, IBDawfan82, Chardog, maugwa, Kincaid82, Boost Assendahm, FivePoints, and Baron, an on and on go my anonymous friends. Some I line up with. Some are just too dadgum liberal. But I do care about every one of them, and more than just in a wireless kind of way. It’s strange, but upon learning Ghost had died I swear I felt the similar twinge of disbelief you feel when you learn someone like Elvis or Michael Jackson died. In a not-so-small way, Ghost was a celebrity in the world at my fingertips.
I’ve surprised myself a little. On this one, I can honestly say I haven’t had to battle my usual fleshly thinking and start trying to ascribe blame for his death. Sure, I had my immediate thoughts because it’s easy to judge and chalk up another premature death to stupid choices. Maybe that was the case here. Maybe it was just cumulative, and a strong body finally gave way. It doesn’t really matter. The point is I haven’t dwelt on the whats and whys nearly as much as I’ve simply mulled the loss. The suddenness. The finality. Maybe lifestyle had nothing to do with it. Don’t know. What I do know is that I grieve a stranger and I hurt for a family and for his friends, and this darned thing has bothered me more than I ever conceived it could have. What I do know is that a young man with gifts and wit and charm and P-A-S-S-I-O-N is gone. These are the ones we notice, aren’t they? When someone has so much to bring to the table--even when they bring it in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons--and now their place setting is unattended, the void is remarkable. A keyboard in Atlanta lays forever quiet--and we all, every one us--hears the silence.
I don’t believe in being larger than life. Life is too big for that. I know this because I believe in an Author of life, and it doesn’t get any bigger than Him. I’m a minister, so bear with me whatever your belief or unbelief. Part of these unsettling hours, frankly, has been my concern over Graeme’s spiritual condition. Did he know the Lord? Where is he now? I grapple with this stuff because I care. I do remember his referencing “the Good Lord.” I hope there was a time when he bowed to the risen King and asked Christ to forgive his sins and pull him from a pit we all deserve. I hope Graeme tasted that grace.
And I do hope that the sudden death of a 34-year-old man with seemingly more passion than a thousand men stokes the spiritual questions in us all. I hope God uses this to make someone somewhere look deep into his or her heart and take stock. Do you know that you know that you know what will happen when it’s your time? Are you just guessing? Are you ready? Or are you full of questions? The only thing that is at stake is eternity. That’s all.
I scrolled through thread after thread last night, taking far more time than I ever thought I would to reflect on a young man I never really knew. Whatever his frailties, he was somebody’s son. He was somebody’s brother. He was somebody’s love. He was a lot of folks’ friend. I watched K94LIFE’s video tribute and read the great story in his other pushpin. For the first time, I went to Graeme’s Facebook page. I spent close to two hours just reading about Ghost, this alternately hilarious and inciting of posters, this most passionate of Dawgs, this hottest of comets that suddenly went black across the great DawgVent expanse.
Funny thing about comets. The rest of us ordinary earthlings have to look up to see them. And they always leave the longest of trails….
May the Lord Jesus bless the Turnbulls, Graeme’s loved ones, and his DawgVent family.
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