By all accounts, that’s how Chelone
Miller lived – big and friendly and real. Like his big brother, Bode, he liked
to go fast. He liked to fly through the air flipping and twisting with a
snowboard strapped to his feet. And he was good at it. Really good. He’d had
his share of challenges, including a motorcycle wreck that left him in a coma
for a couple of weeks, but he made hitting big airs on a mountain look easy –
and really fun.
Chilly died this week,
suddenly, unexpectedly. He was looking ahead to the Olympics next winter, striving
for a spot on the snowboardcross team. He was looking ahead to a life well
lived.
When somebody young and
beautiful and full of life dies, we are anguished by the complete,
heart-wrenching sadness of it. We look back, yes, at the happy times and
adventures. But we also look forward at the empty years, time that should have
been filled with that person’s dreams, struggles, celebrations, family, and the
process of growing old one day at a time. The death of a young person seems
maddeningly unfair.
When someone from a small
community dies, the pain is acute. Even those who didn’t know Chelone know his
sisters or his parents or his friends, and we are heartbroken for them. We feel
helpless, and we are. We want to do something to make them feel better. But
there is nothing to do, no words to say, that can make the sadness less real.
“I’m so sorry,” seems grossly
inadequate. “What can I do?” becomes a rhetorical question. What can any of us
do in the face of the sorrow that comes with the loss of a loved one? Perhaps
the best we can do is say that we care, offer the kindness of compassion, and
look to the example of living that Chilly provided – go big, smile often, enjoy
every minute you can.
Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, at Writings from a full life and in the Record-Littleton.
