Jeff’s Run

    Yesterday I ran in, and won, a race in Boston that commemorated the brief life of Jeffrey Curley. Jeff was a ten year old boy who was kidnapped, horrifically assaulted, and murdered by two men one dark day in Cambridge six years ago.

     I, of course, never knew Jeff or his family. I consider myself quite fortunate to have never had to experience anything even remotely close to what he went through, and the more I think about Jeffrey’s fate and the horrible frequency with which crimes of this kind occur, I feel that it is little more than dumb luck has allowed me to arrive at this age essentially unscathed.

     Soon after Jeff’s death, I was at a poetry slam in Orleans that counted among its competitors some of the finest poets in the region. One woman, a teacher of creative writing and poetry at an off-cape university, began her reading with a word about Jeffrey Curley, and how his death made her contemplate the fragility, the vulnerability of all ten year old sons and daughters. The incident also brought to the front of her mind her own son’s tenuous bond to her and that of other sons to other mothers. She spoke of how we are all simply attached by a thread, and that no amount of love, or intelligence, or care can absolutely ensure that the thread will not break, that we will not be plunged into a terrible darkness, never to see our loved ones again, nor would they see us. She went on to say that the one thing she can be sure of is that the thread glows; it is from love; it is real. It is by this magical umbilical cord by which mother feeds son, son feeds mother, and by which whoever loves is fed and feeds others.

     The two men who took Jeffrey’s life had long since not seen the thread. For this, they, simply as humans, deserve pity. What they did deserves none. What they did grants any emotion shown their way by anyone, however angry or vengeful, total validity. They snatched something from a mother on that day. They snatched it from a father. They stole a piece of hope from the world. I didn’t know Jeffrey Curley, but they stole something from me. They stole a little more security, a little more sleep.

     Later that race day, when I accepted my trophy, I was on a large stage in front a sizable crowd, next to a man for whom I have a great deal of admiration for as an entertainer and social satirist, Jimmy Tingle. He asked me if I wanted to say a few words and, strangely, I wasn’t the least bit nervous. I felt as if I was being carried by everyone there. I felt as if my self and my victory an hour earlier had both been gracefully removed and rendered pleasantly irrelevant. I considered it an honor and privilege, and a serious necessity, to just be there to run this race. When I spoke, I told the crowd of the poem that the woman read at the slam that night. I spoke of why it meant something to me, why this little boy she never met meant so much to her. I thanked everyone for an extraordinarily satisfying, affecting day. As I left the stage, I met Jeffrey’s mother and father, and Jeffrey’s mother said “God bless you.” For the first time in my life upon hearing those words, I didn’t hear some little voice from my intellect calling on me to reject the gesture or offer some clever retort. I really felt blessed, not by anything in particular, I just felt… blessed.

     I have won races that, simply as races or events, were far more important to my own training history and satisfying to my ego than this 200 person event in Cambridge on a gray fall morning, and yet I have never have been a part of anything quite so unexpectedly and effortlessly beautiful as this.

     In Confucianism, it is said that Grace often arrives on the wings of terrible birds, wearing a mask of horror. However, once on the ground, once recognized and accepted, it becomes as beautiful and inspirational as those who will welcome it. Thank you, Jeffrey. God bless.