Ken

Ken wasn't always the way he was.

Not to say that's a bad thing, mind. He used to be a lonely kid, crying in bed as he thought thoughts years ahead of his age and felt feelings no child should. He never wanted intimacy, like with a girl or anything, but he was plagued with a special type of loneliness. A type that, for the longest of times, he couldn't isolate or identify.

Ken was smart. Smart enough to get all A's, but deep down, he knew that the grade would be meaningless. He thought that nobody would care 60, 80, 500 years down the road whether he got a good grade in a test or not. And so, he slacked. With his negligence, he gradually lost comprehension of the subjects he was to learn. But he kept up.

In the summer right before his Junior year in high school, his mother committed suicide.

It was very traumatic for Ken. Her boyfriend at the time had broken down the bathroom door. Ken's memory was hazy, blurred from that point on. He tried to recessitate her lifeless body, he called the police, he went to life with his drug-smoking dad.

Ken had experienced lethargy immediately after his mother's death. Ken wanted to die, he didn't think that life held more than the tragedy he knew, he wanted an escape. He laid still, motionless on his bed for weeks. He refused to eat, sleep, smile. But he also refused to cry. He sat there like a statue, trying to rationalize reality.

It was only a month later, when his best friends mother was going through a divorce that Ken got up. He realized what he had to do. Ken, who hurried into the life of responsibility and hardships out of choice and circumstance, went over to his friends house. He comforted him, told him that theres a light at the end of the path. Ken smiled, however hollow, and a spectacular sadness pierced him.

Ken enlisted in the Army. He did pushups until his arm muscles shredded up, he was screamed at, he went through hell. And yet, whenever Ken noticed someone else not handling it as well as himself, he would always help. There were telltale signs: the hesitation, the wanting to be alone. Ken would always try to brighten their day, and with the discipline he learned in Basic, he became an excellent soldier. Smart, subservient, determined. He went abroad in his service, and saw beauty that he could only have dreamt of in his high school years.

Yet throughout all of that, through all of the Armys rigorous training and his experience, he never cried. And so, when he returned home, a spectacular sadness pierced him.

He met a woman named Jeanne, and after a few dates, they got married. It was love, as true and pure as diamond. They set up a home in Wyoming, where he worked in a local hardware store, having a generation of grandchildren under him. And throughout the 60 years of slow, peaceful, beautiful life, he never once cried. He felt happy. Sure, there were hardships, but their love kept them from the worst of the effects.

One day, while he was out, Ken had a stroke.

He was rushed to the hospital, but his condition was too fatal. His sons and daughter were living their own lives, seemingly lightyears away from him. All he had was Jeanne, who held his hand until the very end. He was afraid, afraid of death and what lay on the other side. Jeanne only smiled, and kissed him. A spectacular sadness pierced him, and for the first time in 80 years, he wept. Later that day, he died, at the age of 96.

No, Ken wasn't always such a standup man. He wasnt always the joke cracking, life of the party geezer. But what he became, and who he touched, will never leave.

Weep not, as he would have done, but instead brighten someone's day. Smile and be there for those who need you, or find someone that does. Ken may be gone, but never forgotten. Ken would have wanted you to live a good life, a charitable and beautiful life as he did.