PLATFORM : The Loss of a Simple Soul

In the early hours of a cool summer morning tragedy cut down the student population of Franklin High School by one. Gary Consecion was denied his chance in life by yet another incident of senseless gang violence. A non-gang member who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When students die we like to think of how they might have found a cure for cancer or invented a way to travel to the distant stars. We amplify the tragedy by invoking the illusion of lost grand deeds. That wasn’t Gary. He was a simple soul. Not unlike you or me. Struggling, working, searching for answers.

Yet he was also a young man of rare qualities, because through his struggles he learned to care for others in a way that did honor to his life. The tragedy of Gary’s death is not the loss of what he might have been but rather the loss of who he was.

Gary had a way about him that put people at ease. His smile and infectious laugh would take the tension out of the day. There is a myth in the teaching profession that students’ need of teachers is a one-way street. Gary broke that myth. I had come to rely on his giving ways.

When I heard of his death I cried for days.

Teachers often give without getting in return. We adjust to that. But sometimes it would be nice to have students thank us for what we do in the line of duty and above and beyond. Gary was the exception to the rule. He would call, simply to wish me well. “Have a good weekend, Duffy. Do something nice for yourself, and thanks for all you’ve done.”

For the past two years I don’t think a week went by when Gary didn’t call me. He talked of his life and his problems, both psychological and medical. He was a young man beset with hardships and at times it seemed to me that he never had a chance. But with all that, he managed to be a friend to those he held dear. He never gave up hope that in the end all would be right.

Sometimes I ask myself what kind of country we live in. Within one generation we cure polio and walk on the moon, while at the same time we are witness to the slaughter of children, by children.

In that sense, Gary’s death is a sign of our times. To others he is a statistic, but I will never forget what he gave me. He let me into his life and by so doing allowed me to give to him the full measure of all I had to give.