A Firefighter’s Funeral, Part 2

Chief Jesse Youngs as a child on his father’s fire engine.

In my last column, I began an account of a funeral my husband Mike and I attended last November for Mike’s beloved chief, Jesse Youngs. Mike was to give a speech on Jesse’s behalf, a task which was heavy and heartbreaking. I couldn’t even begin to write all that I experienced on that day in one column, so I ended it about halfway through. Here is the continuation.

 

The bagpipers have just entered the U.S. Naval building after making their procession down the streets of Seattle. Their music has set the stage as only bagpipes can do.

    

The ceremony begins. The speakers are both funny and respectful. The songs are beautiful and touching. Then it is Mike’s turn to speak. I see him sitting there alone, his head bowed in a silent prayer for strength, and I say one, too. He is shaking as he takes the podium. I’ve watched Mike speak all of our married life. He’s a pro, a natural–unflappable. But not today. His voice breaks as he begins to speak. He first addresses Jesse’s family and tells them how much Jesse loved them. They all begin to wipe their eyes. Then he addresses the firefighters themselves, saying, “I now want to talk about you, because I know this is what Jesse would have wanted. He loved you. As I sat with him and held his hand (toward the end), the Sunny Jim fire came on the news. Jesse said, ‘Look at ’em–look at ’em go!’ His face lit up as he said this ; he was so proud of you.”

 

Heads bowed all around me at these words, tears flowed down every cheek. It was as if Jesse himself were there speaking, for he truly did love the fire department. He had dedicated his life to making it better and safer for his firefighters.

 

Mike’s voice cracked and broke as he choked out the rest of his speech through tears. Once again, he brought down the house, only not with his usual strength of a powerful, gifted speaker, but with the brokenness of a dedicated friend and fellow firefighter who had just lost a brother. I watched him suffer, and I suffered with him. It is a painful thing to witness, your beloved’s grief in a public setting.

 

I didn’t know Jesse as well as Mike did; I grieved him but not to the same degree. My grief was just as intense, though, for I was forced to feel something I generally wished to ignore. Something I kept buried deep inside me was now brought painfully to the surface: the fact that this could happen to Mike.

 

Line-of-duty deaths are a reality for firefighters–not just fire-related deaths but cancer-related ones as well. Mike has more than 25 years of firefighting experience. Because of his many years of smoke exposure, he is now 3.5 times more likely to get cancer than the average citizen.

 

I am forced to think these thoughts as I glance at Jesse’s widow Marie. Marie’s pretty blonde head, up front and center, is bowed as she wipes away her tears. Her slender shoulders shake with grief. Brave, dedicated Marie has just lost her soul mate. She stood valiantly by his side to the bitter end; she truly walked through the fires of hell with him. Marie is, in her own right, a hero as well. In the emotion of the moment, I am struck by the thought that that could be me. I may have to someday go through all that we watched her go through.

    

I glance at my fine young son, so like his father, sitting next to me. He doesn’t want to be here either, for it causes him great pain as well. He could lose his dad someday, a thought he doesn’t want to have. Ironically, I am reminded that it was on the night of this same son’s 7 ^th birthday party 15 years ago that Seattle lost four firefighters in the Pang Warehouse arson fire. On January 5, 1995, Martin Pang torched his own warehouse to collect the insurance. Lt. Greg Shoemaker, 43; Lt. Walter Kilgore, 45; James Brown, 25; and Randy “Terly-Bird” Terlicker, 35, all perished in that fire. Randy was in Mike’s recruit class and shared a bond with him that only fellow classmates understand. That firefighter funeral had been my first (this was my second), and it was so overwhelming as to now be nothing but a blur of pain in my memory.

 

Rick has no memory of it at all. But on September 11, 2001, then 13-year-old Rick was changed by firefighter deaths forever. When he learned that 343 firefighters were killed as the towers went down, he went through months of panic attacks every time his father worked a shift. This earnest young man beside me today, now 22, is trying to get into law school or the FBI or eventually the CIA with the hopes of working to stop terrorists from ever murdering firefighters again.

 

These thoughts all race through my mind at this intersection of life and firefighter death, for the impact it has is not just on the spouse but the children as well. These thoughts bombard me, overwhelm me, threaten to crush me. Families of firefighters must live with this, but we learn to suppress our fears. That is why we do not like to go to the funerals, because we are then forced to feel the pain we so anxiously try to avoid.

 

The service is over now. The bagpipes begin to play “Amazing Grace.” The hope of heaven lifts our spirits. The hope of seeing Jesse again, of believing that his indomitable spirit lives on, buoys the room. The bagpipers begin their slow march out. They separate. One lone piper ascends the stairs that lead to a balcony that surrounds the room above us. He is moving on alone. The others make their way out the door, back into the world; we can hardly hear them now. But the lone piper plays on, still with us. He then begins to walk away; his sweet music begins to fade. Then it is silent. Jesse is gone.

    

Death may be a strange thing to write about at the beginning of a new year. But it is my New Year’s resolution to remember this funeral and all the feelings it has aroused in me. I wish to dedicate this year to loving my firefighter with all my heart and strength, every day, and to never take him for granted, for he could be gone tomorrow. But he’s here now. Life is precious, especially for our heroes; make it count.