“Max wanted to cry, but he was too angry. Max could feel a rush of breath rising from his stomach, moving almost as fast as first time his grandfather let go of his bicycle handles and Max was able to ride down the street, by himself. Remember the breaks his grandfather shouted, the breaks, and just as quickly as Max sped past the neighbors he was able to allow the bike to slow down. And that too was the feeling of Max’s anger pushing down on all of the tears trying desperately find their way to fall like rain from his eyes. Max and his GrandPal,(Max considered his grandfather more like a friend), made a pledge a FOREVER pledge, that they would always be together. One day, on his way home from school, kicking the brown and yellow leaves waiting to crackle and as Fall approached, Max found a stone, and the stone had the word FOREVER written on it. Rushing home as fast he could, knowing that his GrandPal would be waiting to greet him in the kitchen with a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk, Max presented this FOREVER stone as a gift. Now it’s for sure, said Max, you and I, Grand Pal will be together forever, always! A promise is a promise thought Max. Max wanted to cry, as he stood by the coffin of his GrandPal…how did this happen, why did this happen, it was never supposed to happen…”(a chapter from the book The Forever Stone, by Gerald W. Buncher)
It has been a week, for some the longest seven days ever, for others an unbelievable swish of time, moving so fast as to not even permit one to catch their breath. It has been a week of death, destruction and desperate measures taken by devious people. Nothing is forever, but we are promised at least one more day. Nothing is forever, but we were assured that time could and would prepare us. Nothing last forever, but to have moments, memories, and minutes just wiped away, in a flash, by a stranger, by a hate-filled empty facade of a monster…that makes you want to cry, but that provokes an anger filled with something so many questions of WHY!
There are always words, at the ready to try and explain the tragedy. They are eager to be said when the distance of hurt is at least one or two degrees of separation. But there are no words, nothing that fits right, that slips off the tongue, that has a true meaning when the tragedy belongs to you. You want to cry, you become angry. Your heart, your brain your gut decal a civil war, and the battle takes its toll. In the story of the Forever Stone, max finally discovers that as long as he remembers, then his GrandPal will remain with him FOREVER. And I believe we must never forget, also!
