A Conversation over French Toast

Gun's Quote-of-the-Week:

“Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.”

-Hubert H. Humphrey

Articulating the Gun's Quotes tonight is particularly difficult. There are a lot of different things swirling around my head that I don't quite know how to pen down. One has to deal with heroism. Another has to do with strength. Yet another has to do with will and resolve, and finally a fourth has to deal with support and coping.

I met Keegan for the first time at Boys State two weeks ago. We were both on staff together. For him, it was the first time back as a staff member, having been a citizen last year and a newly-minted high school graduate this time around. For me, it was my 10th year back. I always enjoy getting to meet the new guys and so we did our basic introductions and got to know one another. From the moment we first met, I knew this guy had a story to tell.

On May 21st, he graduated from EMT school. On May 22nd, he graduated from Joplin High School. 15 minutes after he left graduation, he began saving lives.

The stories can't be repeated here, both because I fear I would get something wrong and also because they are too numerous to list. The jest of it will be enough. His fellow high school graduates showing up in blood and mud. A few hours earlier, they were getting a hand shake among family applause. Now, he was mending their wounds. Then there were the bodies he uncovered. The little girl with a fence post through her arm. The man lying on the ground complaining of a headache with a metal pipe lodged through his neck and poking out the back of his head. Later Keegan would find out his best friend, Will Norton, whom I wrote about some time back, didn’t survive.

Will was memorialized at the end of the Boys State Session this year. He and Keegan went to Boys State together.

It's one of those stories that you know continues to unfold and evolve, and know that it will not end soon.

“You're kind of a hero now,” I said this morning at brunch. Keegan came up last night to watch the Royals with his cousins and paid me a visit on his way back down.

“Naw,” he said. “They just interviewed me that's all.” CNN had interviewed Keegan and several others telling their stories and accounts of the tragedy and broadcasted it to the national stage.

"Have you had time to process it yet?"

“No, haven't thought about it. Yeah, it sucks. You've lost your town, your high school, and your best friend, but you've got to get up and just move on.” Keegan knows the work is just beginning. “Just don't forget about Joplin,” he said. “In three months the media will be gone and the volunteers will disappear. We are going to need help in three months, too.”

I wonder how he carries on as he tells his tale. There is no stuttering or tearing-up. It seems as though he is telling the stories for the umpteenth time and they are a distant memory. He’s just working non-stop on debris removal and EMT duties, and has been doing so after starting right after the storm with some of the most traumatic medical emergencies that even the most seasoned veterans have ever seen. He got a break for Boys State and another this weekend, but he left by noon to get down there and tear into it again. For now, “It's just life,” as he puts it.

“What can a guy do who you just met two weeks ago?”

“Pray.”

Far removed from the devastation, his humble request seems inadequate. I don’t know what kind of man has the willpower and strength required to drive back to his hometown so mangled by the EF-5 that he gets lost because all of the road signs and local landmarks are gone. Yet, maybe such a man walked into my house this morning, ate my French Toast and went home to get back to work again.

Please join me in prayer for Joplin and support whatever relief efforts you can. This page lists a few links: http://www.joplinmo.org/tornadoinfo.cfm

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!