Humboldt crash victims will be forever young
When we think about it, when we are honest with ourselves, we know that very second of every day we get closer to departing this world.
Yet when death finally comes, even in old age, even for those of us who believe in an afterlife, it is the shock of our lives. So what must it have been like for those kids and their statistics keeper—none of them older than 21, the youngest barely old enough to drive a car—let alone the coaches, the driver and the radio broadcaster on that bus on that winter road in rural Saskatchewan?
A nation wept after that semi-trailer crashed into the Humboldt Broncos team bus about 300 kilometres north of Regina.
For the awful arbitrariness of a world where a journey that began like a lyric from a Tragically Hip song — a team of young men heading out across the iconic, empty landscape that has defined us, to play this game that speaks to much that is good in our national character — could end in such tragedy.
But, as much as anything, for those lost, barely begun lives, because as David Eggers the novelist has written: “the death of a young person for no reason is an apocalypse,” making the death of so many something akin to the end of days
We feel this seeing dead Syrian children suffocated by the nerve gas dropped in the recent air strike there, when we learn of the 62 children from the Philippines gone after being inoculated with a controversial vaccine, when we read of the teens dying in droves in London, England’s out-of-control gun-and-knife violence. As citizens of the world we feel all of that; How could we not?
But we are Canadian, so we feel it most acutely when it is the kid down our street, the boy who used to deliver our newspaper and eventually took our daughter to prom, the toddler, over the years, we saw grow into a young man.
It was all out there waiting for them, we feel when we look at those pictures of the players in their team jerseys, with their expressions which try to exude the blasé confidence of a McDavid, but seem perpetually on the verge of holy jeez, can-youbelieve-this disbelief over their good fortune of playing hockey for the Humboldt Broncos. I have no idea who among them had NHL speed, or hands, and who would put on the muscle and bulk necessary to have the kind of pro career enjoyed by other Prairie kids named Howe and Toews. From just scanning the coverage you can get a vague sense of a few of them: that Evan Thomas was a good all-around athlete and strong student; that Stephen Wack made great gingerbread houses; that Jacob Leicht possessed “a smile that lit up every room;” that Logan Boulet was selfless enough to remain on life-support until his organs could be harvested for others.
But the fact that they were fine young men isn’t really the point. We get just one life as far as we know it. These guys will be forever young, forever Humboldt Broncos.
But they will never get a chance to be a great dad, husband or colleague.
They won’t get to see those youthful friendships deepen, to tell someone that they want to spend their lives with them, to lace up their own kid’s skates like their mothers and fathers did for them in the rinks of Western Canada.
It is the columnist’s job to find some glimmer of hope in the grimmest of moments. So I feel we should all take some solace with the way the country has come together, joined by grief, around the team, their families and communities. We should also heed the emotion-choked words of Toronto Maple Leafs coach Babcock that “you’ve got to embrace each and every day, and each and every day you’re with your … your family better enjoy it.”
Yet tragedies like this rock us and, in their randomness, even make us question the order of our universe.
There are no explanations. No great lessons learned, unless it turns out there are safety measures that could prevent such an accident ever happening again.
If that turns out to be true maybe that will diminish some of the family’s pain from the senseless loss of these young promising lives.
I just can’t imagine this being so.
No one gets out of here alive, we all know that. But if there is justice in this world death wouldn’t wait on a stretch of winter road for a group of young men, in some cases boys really, who had barely gotten started.