This morning, we all received an e-mail giving notice that Brad Reetz had been in an accident yesterday. He was on his motorcycle. His helmet was shattered. Brad was the head of maintenance for the seminary. The e-mail said his injuries were severe and that he was on life-support. During Evensong tonight, we were told that he had died.
I spoke to Brad late last week. He was a man’s-man kind of guy. Tall and strapping with grey hair combed back. He was they typical Italian looking guy from Brooklyn. When we first met, I had on a Kent State t-shirt and he asked about it. Turns out, he went to Hiram College! Of all places, in the middle of know where, why would a life-long New Yorker pick a little liberal arts school in the middle of no were in N.E. Ohio? He said he wanted to go to school away from the city and most of all, Hiram offered him a baseball scholarship. I wouldn’t have even thought Hiram had an intercollegiate baseball team!
I have this strange and overwhelming sense of the fleeting nature of life. I was told he liked to go fast on his motorcycle, and his death may have been because of his own negligence, but he was not old enough to simply die. I saw a person late last week and on Monday, he dies. I’m not sure why I feel this way – so strongly – by someone I hardly know; yet, I do. There is a strong sense of community on the Close. This seminary is small and you can easily know everyone. Maybe the living day-in-and-day-out in a small, enclosed campus, in a peaceful and serene place in the middle of loud Manhattan has something to do with it. I’m not sure.
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