tragedy: a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster.
Painfully, recently, the Pepperdine University campus community has borne witness to tragedy.
Around 8:30pm on Tuesday night, four Pepperdine seniors—Asha, Deslyn, Niamh, and Peyton—were killed when struck by a car on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Those four precious students were attending a school-sponsored fraternity-sorority mixer and were standing on the roadside when a high-speed vehicle crashed into multiple parked cars, propelling one to fatally strike the young women. It is a tragedy that is simply beyond words. The driver of the vehicle is twenty-two years old and a Malibu resident, and some in the Pepperdine community know him, too. Words do not exist. An unspeakable tragedy.
This, of course, comes on the heels of the savage terrorist attacks in Israel that has impacted the Pepperdine community as well. Los Angeles has the largest Jewish population outside of the nation of Israel, and that is reflected on campus, including here at the law school where I work. In fact, one of our terrific law professors was in Israel celebrating the holiday with his family when the attacks occurred and ended up teaching a class via Zoom from a hotel rooftop in the war zone. He is back among us now, thankfully, but the pain here is personal and palpable. Add to the mix our students and colleagues with personal and family connections to Palestine. Their pain is most personal as well, along with unique fears and concerns, now feeling a double minority in a terrible, terrible time. Another unspeakable tragedy.
It has been and is a time of great sadness here.
Tragedy. We sit in the audience and watch tearfully as the play ends with both Romeo and Juliet lifeless on the floor of the tomb. As the curtain falls, we’re stunned that Medea gets away with murder—or that Oedipus is heartbroken, blind, and begging—or that Hamlet dies in Horatio’s arms. We sit in the audience and weep for Rose and Jack as the Titanic goes down.
We are all too aware of the concept of tragedies. But when we discover ourselves in close, real-life proximity to those enduring unspeakable pain, we instinctively remember the phrase, there but for the grace of God go I, although there is a gnawing thought that our day will come, too, grace of God notwithstanding
Tragedy.
How does anyone even find the courage to face life in the face of such, well, reality? I am no expert. I only have so many birthdays and personal experiences, but what those have produced so far are the following thoughts, for what they are worth:
- Be kind. Be kind to others, Be kind to yourself. Life is hard enough, and it is too hard for any of us to add any more unkindness to the world.
- Be grateful. That there is anything good in life is an act of grace, and there are absolutely things that are good in life, and grace exists. Life is too hard to neglect anything beautiful that occurs along the way.
- Be intentional. Live well. Make your life count for something. Don’t waste your precious moments. Contribute your verse. Awaken to the penetrating question that Mary Oliver poses of what you will do with your wild and precious life. Life is too hard not to make it count.
This community is in a time of great sadness, so surely not now, currently in the throes of grief, but when individuals are able to get up off the mat, whenever that is, and face life again with tragedy all too evident, I pray that we choose to do justice to the memories of those who have been lost. Life is simply too precious to waste.
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