A Community in Mourning

17 years of life on this earth, FFA member, 4-Her, popular with the students at multiple local schools, a loving child, from a well-established farm family, and a Christian.  Based on the obituary, Riley Sutherlin and my sister, Heidi Ross, had these things in common.  Riley was only 17 months old when Heidi died, and his parents probably held him a little tighter during the fair that year when they heard that she had passed in the prime of her youth.  I know that I held my son a bit longer when I heard about Riley's accident this week, especially as I thought about how much my son, even at 21 months loves the machinery that was part of Riley's accident.
I also know that this community very much understands how important it is to support those family members who are left behind when lives are taken from this earth at a young age.  The entire county heard of his passing within the day of it occurring.  Even though texting and social media wasn't as advanced when my sister died, the word of mouth spread similarly in 1998 as well.
When I drove by the funeral home tonight on the way to pick my son up from daycare, it didn't take me but a second before I realized that it was the viewing for Riley.  There was a line of young people woven through the parking lot of the funeral home.  The vehicles were parked in the nearby Greencastle High School lot as if there were a big sporting event happening at the school.  There were parents consoling their children as they walked away from the building.  Teenage boys were standing in their Sunday best with stoic faces as their girlfriends had tearful expressions.  It was if I had been teleported back to July of 1998.
Tears streamed down my face as I knew that, inside that building, there was a brother and sister who were trying to figure out what life would look like without the brother they had always known. There was a set of parents who were realizing that the dreams they had for their little boy would never be realized.  There were the grandparents who were wondering if they could have done something to prevent this from happening.  Then there are the hundreds of teenagers, who can't understand how someone who had lived such a by-the-book life as a Christian could die while other people who live carelessly are still here.
Fortunately, from what I know of Riley, he and my sister have the hope of Heaven in common.  Their lives were not lived in vain, but they showed others what a youth spent in service and living for the Lord can look like.  It is that knowledge that will comfort those who did and did not know Riley, and it is that knowledge that will be at the heart of conversations as the community heals from this loss.
To this day, people who knew my sister tell me that her death changed them for the better.  I pray that the same thing can come from the death of this young man, 16 years later, to enrich and strengthen our community and world.  

Whether at 96, like my grandma Hurst, or at 17.... we all will die.  I just don't want my death to be what people talk about and remember, but, rather, the life I lived for Him.  I hope that those who knew him talk about Riley's life as we grieve and recognize that God has truly blessed the Sutherlin family and this community, may he continue to do so.