The shock of death shakes those both near and far.
A few days ago, a very dear friend notified me that his brother - our brother - died in his sleep. Ben Leake was just a little older than myself.
You have to understand that this is no ordinary family. When I was finishing high school, my parents' relationship took a series of really bad turns that wounded my sister and I in radical ways and which drove me out of my parents' households for a time. I had already made best friends with Daniel Leake, and I knew his family well, but I could never have expected that they would reach out to me the way that they did. For that very troubling time in my life, the Leakes took me in as if I were another member of the family. I slept in Daniel and Ben's bedroom, in the attic of the big house on Broadway. My days were filled with shenanigans dreamt up by the three of us. We ate together, went to school together, played together; we tormented our poor English teacher, Mrs. Feil, and we tested the nerves of poor Marci Leake, who I think of as another mother.
Ben's unexpected death has left me in total shock. I want to be at his funeral. I want to see him one last time. More than anything, I want to be with the Leake family, my adopted family. Nothing is more frustrating than feeling trapped inside this country while my loved ones suffer grief and anguish. The sense of helplessness is profoundly paralyzing.
The hardest part of Peace Corps isn't adjusting to the language, wrestling with the culture, or coping with lowered sanitation standards. It's hearing of family trouble back at home or being unable to celebrate a friend's achievement or missing out on both of your parents' weddings or being forbidden to leave the country in order to mourn with loved ones at a friend's passing. Would that I could hop on a jet today and do what I really want to do, more than anything: to be present, to cry with the crying, to share hugs, and to celebrate Ben's life with the rest of the family.
I'll miss him terribly.
A few days ago, a very dear friend notified me that his brother - our brother - died in his sleep. Ben Leake was just a little older than myself.
You have to understand that this is no ordinary family. When I was finishing high school, my parents' relationship took a series of really bad turns that wounded my sister and I in radical ways and which drove me out of my parents' households for a time. I had already made best friends with Daniel Leake, and I knew his family well, but I could never have expected that they would reach out to me the way that they did. For that very troubling time in my life, the Leakes took me in as if I were another member of the family. I slept in Daniel and Ben's bedroom, in the attic of the big house on Broadway. My days were filled with shenanigans dreamt up by the three of us. We ate together, went to school together, played together; we tormented our poor English teacher, Mrs. Feil, and we tested the nerves of poor Marci Leake, who I think of as another mother.
Ben's unexpected death has left me in total shock. I want to be at his funeral. I want to see him one last time. More than anything, I want to be with the Leake family, my adopted family. Nothing is more frustrating than feeling trapped inside this country while my loved ones suffer grief and anguish. The sense of helplessness is profoundly paralyzing.
The hardest part of Peace Corps isn't adjusting to the language, wrestling with the culture, or coping with lowered sanitation standards. It's hearing of family trouble back at home or being unable to celebrate a friend's achievement or missing out on both of your parents' weddings or being forbidden to leave the country in order to mourn with loved ones at a friend's passing. Would that I could hop on a jet today and do what I really want to do, more than anything: to be present, to cry with the crying, to share hugs, and to celebrate Ben's life with the rest of the family.
I'll miss him terribly.
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| Ben loved going to the lake. This is him during a trip we took to Kanopolis. |
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