This was the only point at which my life
touched the lives
of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York.
I came to realize that life lived to help others
is the only one that matters and that it is my duty,
in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me,
to help others He has placed in my path.
This is my highest and best use as a human.
Faith is not believing that God can. It is
knowing that God will.
Ben Stein
Corporal Kyle Grimes' USMC Charlie Company takes Fallujah, Iraq:
Earlier in
the day that Kyle’s Aunt Debbie informed me of her nephew’s tragic death
in western Iraq, I received an email from my uncle who lives in
Wisconsin. The email contained a moral lesson that I believe has been
making the rounds of the Internet lately. This morning, as we
memorialize and honor the life of Corporal Kyle Grimes, USMC, and having heard
today’s gospel reading in which Jesus teaches his disciples about the
pathway of blessedness―what this moral story identifies as “choosing a
life that matters”―I thought it good to share that moral lesson with you
as a way to focus our reflections as we contemplate what God may be
teaching us through the life of Corporal Kyle Grimes.
The moral lesson
reads as follows:
Ready or not, some
day it will all come to an end.
There will be no
more sunrises, no days, no hours, or minutes. It won’t matter where you
came from or on what side of town you lived. It won’t matter whether
you were a “10” or a Rhodes scholar. Your gender, skin color, ethnicity
will be of no consequence whatsoever.
Your wealth, fame,
and temporal power will be rendered irrelevant, as if you never
existed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will
disappear; but so will your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists.
The wins and losses that once seemed so vitally important will
instantaneously be rendered meaningless. It will not matter what you
owned or what others owed you. Everything you collected, whether
treasured and displayed prominently or stored away in the attic or
basement, will pass along to someone or else be transported by a garbage
truck to its final resting place in a land fill.
So, what will
matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is
not what you purchased, but the life you lived; not everything you
acquired for yourself, but what you gave others.
What will matter is
not your depth of your competence and or the breadth of your skill, but
the content and quality of your character. What will matter is not your
success, but the significant way you touched others’ lives. What will
matter is not what you learned, but what your life taught, not the
number of people you knew, but who will remember you and for what. What
will matter are not your memories, but the memories of those whose lives
you changed for the better. In short, how you gave life to others as
well as how you enriched and encouraged them.
“Remember, you are
dust and to dust you shall return.” Living a life that matters doesn’t
happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstance or Fate but one
of choice. Choose to live a life that matters.
This moral story
is a 21st-century version of the message Fr. Anthony just proclaimed
from the Book of Ecclesiastes, namely, there is a “time” and a “season”
for everything “under Heaven.” What each of us chooses to do during
those times and seasons is not unimportant and devoid of purpose. No,
what we choose do is vitally important, because our freely‑willed
choices during those times and seasons will determine whether we live a
life that matters.
Cpl. Kyle Grimes, USMC
in Fallujah, Iraq
As we contemplate
the specter of a 21-year-old Marine corporal’s tragic death, we need to
recognize how we oftentimes choose to live a life that matters in quite
the wrong way―as we follow the pathway of materialism―which equates a
life that matters with the acquisition of things like money, fame, and
power or the acquisition of a quality of life characterized by ease,
pleasure, and being served by others. This pathway is steeped in a set
of values by which human beings judge their worth and success in terms
of a materialistic “quality of life.” If that is the true pathway to a
life that matters, then the life of Corporal Kyle Grimes―like the life
of Jesus―was a dismal failure.
In today’s gospel
reading, we heard Jesus propose a different pathway. To be a disciple,
Jesus teaches, is to love God and neighbor as we love ourselves.
Foreshadowing what that would mean in terms of his life, Jesus also
teaches that the greatest expression of this form of selfless love is
when “a man should lay down his life for his friends.”
Last Wednesday
evening, the Channel 10 News at 11:00 o’clock in Philadelphia
memorialized Corporal Kyle Grimes. I recognize a few people seated here
today because you appeared in that televised memorial, each describing
who you knew Kyle to be as well as what Kyle and his life meant to you.
Thinking back to
that televised memorial, what I recall, in particular, is a photograph
that was taken of Kyle, I believe, when he was four years old. Perhaps
you remember that photograph, too. Kyle was dressed in military
fatigues and his face was painted, all with the intention of
camouflaging Kyle from the enemy. I don’t know who the enemy was―it
might well have been his sister, Rachael―but, no matter who it was, Kyle
was poised and ready to engage the enemy in battle.
Later, when Kyle
was seven years old, he completed a homework project entitled “All about
Me.” In the booklet Kyle produced, he wrote, “My name is Kyle. I have
a dog named Mike. I want to be a Mreen.” Also included in that
booklet―and giving me reasonable suspicion that Rachael may well have
been the enemy Kyle was prepared to battle with in that photograph taken
three years earlier―was a picture of Kyle’s sister, Rachael.
Interestingly, Kyle placed that picture on the booklet’s first page. He
inscribed the picture with these two sentences: “This is my sister. She
has a big fat butt.”
Fourteen years
later, here’s what Corporal Kyle Grimes wrote about his sister in a
letter:
I and her are closer
than any other siblings in the family….We…had to depend on each other at
an young age….it made both of us grow up a lot faster and depend on each
other a lot more. I feel that Rachael is most proud of me. She never
tells me that but I can tell just by talking to her.
Kyle Grimes was a
son, a grandson, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a “Christmas cousin,”
and a friend. What made Kyle different from all of us is that he viewed
these relationships in terms of what Kyle believed was his purpose in
life, namely, to belong to the “band of brothers” we call the
“United States Marine Corps.”
Just as some of
us gathered here today appeared in the Channel 10 memorial to Corporal
Kyle Grimes, some of us were recipients of Kyle’s telephone calls and
letters. In these, Kyle expressed his love for his family and friends.
What many of us did not know until this week, however, is that Kyle
oftentimes would use much of his pay to purchase calling cards and then
stand in line for two hours so that he could make those phone calls,
speak with his family members and friends, and assure all of them that
he was fine.
Whether it was
through a telephone call or letter, Kyle worked real hard to connect
with everyone in a special way. He personalized his communications,
tailoring them to meet each person’s individual interests. In doing so,
Kyle reminded each recipient of the particular and unique bond Kyle
shared with them. No one person was more important than any other
person; each person was special.
In addition to
making each recipient feel special, Kyle’s letters provide a glimpse
into what was transpiring in Kyle’s soul during his last years of an
all-too-short life.
After completing
basic training on Paris Island and finally achieving his dream of being
a United States Marine, Kyle was focused more intensely upon choosing to
live a life that matters. Now, in retrospect, his letters chronicle
what Kyle thought was crucial to living that kind of life.
In one letter to
his grandmother, Phyllis Hazler, Kyle admitted that she had been right
all along. Hearing Kyle’s words, it’s easy to imagine a young teenage
grandson named Kyle rolling his eyes when Phyllis preached her sermons
about the importance of God and faith to a disinterested teenage
grandson. But, as a Marine, Kyle wrote his grandmother:
One thing you might
find interesting. I found God at Paris Island. I’ve been going to
church for the past few weeks. It started when my rack mate asked me to
go to church with him and I figure that I’d give it a chance. We went.
I loved it and I cried my eyes out because I was so happy. We got to
sing songs, smile, and just feel good. Now, that is what keeps me going
when I’m feeling down or scared. On the rifle range, I was really
nervous. I went to church and asked God to give me confidence and help
me relax. And I qualified. I know you are going to say “I told you
so,” but sometimes people only find God when they need Him. I guess I
never needed Him until now. And I’m not the only one.
We might conclude
that those who “only find God when they need Him” were Kyle’s band of
brothers. But, Kyle was also speaking of all of us. Who among
us―burdened by the weight of grief and the pain of loss―doesn’t need God
and right now?
In letter Kyle
wrote on the eve of the battle in Fallujah, Kyle told his Uncle Kendall
that he wasn’t afraid of dying. What Kyle did fear, were two things.
Here’s what Kyle wrote:
My biggest worry is
not the fact that I might die. It is the fact of my family having to
carry on without me, them being in so much pain. The grieving of my
mother losing a son, uncles losing a nephew, Kayla and Gabe losing an
uncle, a father losing a son, sisters losing a brother….
The second thing
Kyle feared was that of a fellow Marine―and especially one of his band
of brothers―being injured or killed. As Kyle expressed this fear: “I
have made some friends that I could not live the rest of my life
without. I couldn’t imagine one of these guys getting hurt.”
In a letter to
his mother, Mary Beth, Kyle described the living conditions confronting
him when he arrived in Iraq. “They’ll either make you laugh or cry,”
Kyle wrote. Because Kyle viewed serving in the United States Marine
Corps as making his life a gift that would benefit others, Kyle chose to
laugh at his living conditions. Kyle had learned that choosing to live
a life that matters requires accepting personal responsibility for one’s
choices as well as for all of the positives and negatives that follow
upon those choices by fulfilling one’s responsibilities, even if it
required laying down one’s life for one’s friends.
For those who
knew Kyle when being a Marine was his “dream,” Kyle’s experience on
Paris Island seems to have sparked in Kyle the realization of how
important love of God and neighbor would be if he was going to choose to
live a life that matters. It might be said that Paris Island prepared a
young man named Kyle Grimes to serve as a United States Marine; but, it
was his life as a Marine through which Kyle became the adult God created
him to be, a man strong and brave, a man who carried himself with
dignity and grace.
In that letter to
his uncle, Kyle also noted:
Today is 11/05 the
eve of one of the biggest battles in a long time. I really don’t know
what or how to think. Everything seems kind of trivial. Me and my
buddy were talking about the ignorant bliss that most people live in
back home. We see on TV people at football games and people doing
everyday things and their biggest worry is whether or not they get that
promotion, or pay the phone bill, or pay the rent next week. I’ll be
happy to be alive next week….I feel lucky to have made it this far and
still be alive. I am, and will always be thankful for everyday I get
because it is in places like that you realize how fragile life is and
how fast it goes away.
As a Marine, Kyle
possessed a sense of mission and, when he completed his tour of duty,
Kyle very much looked forward to returning home, getting on with his
life, and―as Kyle stated in a conversation―responding to the stirrings
of God’s grace in his soul by studying about his faith and perhaps even
getting confirmed.
In our second
reading, St. Paul described the time when we shall always be with the
Lord. Following the description, we heard St. Paul sound a warning:
About dates and
times, my friends, we need not write to you, for you know perfectly well
that the Day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night….all at once
calamity is upon them, sudden as the pangs that come upon a woman with
child; and there will be no escape.
As we memorialize
the life of Corporal Kyle Grimes, it is understandable that we also
contemplate the reality of a life tragically cut all too short for Kyle
to experience everything all of us hoped and wanted for him. As we
experience this loss, our feelings of grief and the pain are just as St.
Paul described them. The loss seems today, as St. Paul says, one from
which “there will be no escape.”
But, this is what
Corporal Kyle Grimes feared most and did not want any of us to bear.
Kyle closed one letter by stating: “Tell everyone I love them and miss
them and I will be home before they know it. The later I come home the
better. I think you know what I mean. Semper Fi.”
Just as Kyle
willingly sacrificed his hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists to
achieve his dream of being a United States Marine and as he willingly
served his nation, so too we must accept the painful fact that all of
Kyle’s hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists were not meant to be.
What was meant to be is that Kyle Grimes always dreamed of becoming a
Marine. The price Kyle willingly paid for his freely-willed choice to
pursue and to achieve his dream required Kyle to demonstrate what Jesus’
taught was the greatest example of love, to “lay down his life for his
friends.”
St. Paul told the
Christians of Thessalonica not to “grieve like the rest of men, who have
no hope.” St. Paul then went on to describe an image of what will be
for those who possess this hope. It is an uplifting and inspiring
image, one that adverts our eyes away from the grave and fear of
judgment and toward the heavens and thoughts of eternal life. St. Paul
tells the Thessalonians, “Console one another, then, with these words.”
In this Liturgy
of the Word, we have memorialized Corporal Kyle Grimes; despite our
grief and pain, we experience hope in the fact that his mission is
complete and Kyle has returned to God. It is our mission, however, that
remains incomplete. Moving forward, if we are to honor Kyle, we must
imitate him by choosing to live a life that matters as we “console one
another with these words.”
“You are my
friends…I chose you,” Jesus taught his disciples. “I appointed you to
go on and bear fruit, fruit that shall last….This is my commandment to
you: love one another.”
V.
Eternal rest grant unto
Kyle, O Lord.
R.
And let perpetual light
shine upon him.
V.
May Kyle’s soul and all
the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.
R.
Amen. |