Procession

Our[5]  workshop leader, William, a young gentleman farmer and musician with remarkable poise, asked if people felt the need for a few words about John.  He responded to our nods by quietly gathering himself, then he offered up a kind of prayer for the slain, a kind of remembrance of a man who was a stranger to us all, a kind of imprecation against war.  A few of us wiped away tears.  We were quiet a moment, gathering ourselves back into the world at hand.  We thanked William[6] , and slowly wandered around recovering our tools and our gradually evolving instruments.

Traffic moved on the main road again.  Life was returning to whatever normal would be now.  In time, one of the ferries and a section of main road would be named after Lieutenant John Ferris, age 20[7] , killed in Afghanistan.  Three years later the landscape is still dotted with  hand-made signs saying “We love you, John!” adorned with hearts and exclamation marks.  I salute the signs as I drive by, paying my respects to a total stranger for all he was denied: life, maturity, his own family yet to be.  John’s lost future always brings[8]  into sharp focus, for me at least, every loss of those we’re sure we can’t live without.  What seemed fundamental to life gets skived away, and we are diminished by its loss; what had been cardinal is surrendered, until it feels like more and more of our lives are moot; there to be lost; waiting lessons in how to survive without.  So bullets fired in the ragged mountains ofAfghanistan find their target in all of us a world away.