Jeremy is dead. The horror of this picture reflects the horror of his death. The horror of his death is too great to explain in words. And there is more.

Jeremy drew this picture ten days before he was killed in an automobile accident.

We can get caught in the incredibility of a young man capable of so clearly pre-remembering what was to come. We can lose ourselves in the pain we see. We can find ourselves pulled into feelings of injustice and hopelessness which the picture generates. We can rebel against looking at this picture, against the need to share it.

We can do all these things. Appropriately. When we are finished, we will still have more to look at, to consider.

The picture rips apart our feeble attempts at denial. Here is death and darkness made visual. Close your eyes! Close your eyes!

The symbols are etched into our consciousness--never to be truly forgotten. As much as we hate seeing, remembering Jeremy's pain--and our own--we can't hide.

If we stop resisting, if we allow ourselves to be in the darkness, if we reach for each other, if we hold each other, not with expectation of immediate comfort but simply for connection and shared experience, where does the darkness lead us?

If we allow our emotions to be expressed, if we are encouraged to allow those feelings to be out of control, if we scream and cry and roll on the floor and tear our clothes, where will it lead?

Jeremy tells us. Look at the picture again. Look in the mind space of the death-head. Look closely at the trains.

There are two of them. Together they form an almost perfect circle. The train at the top has as its central theme a source of light. It is the train which approaches. The second train is a dark train. It is the train which is passing away.

Together the two trains are unified. The two trains become the whole. Jeremy tells us what all teachers before him have told. To be here is to be connected to the journey, to the passing of the darkness and the passing of the light.

If we allow ourselves to pass through the darkness, we will not be overcome. When we again reach the light, the light which conscious mind perceives as a part of, an expression of, our changing moment/universe, how will we react?

When we resisted the darkness, we failed: the darkness came in spite of our resistance. When we were finally again in the light, we tried to attach ourselves to it, in the hope that it would keep the darkness at bay. And we took responsibility for failure when the light slipped away.

In that resistance and attachment we began to believe what our limited conscious minds weighed and measured. We felt separated and so we saw ourselves as being alone. Resistance and attachment created apparent failure, which created fear. In our fear we created an illusion of separateness and believed it was real.

Where are we led when we give up our denial, our resistance to the darkness? Without the resistance to the darkness there is no need to attempt to hold onto the light. We need only experience it. The light becomes most precious because it, too, is passing; our experience of the light infinitely more powerful because we waste no energy trying to hold or control it.

In the union of these two experiences, we find what our hearts cry out for: wholeness. In the wholeness is experience which is transcendental to changing darkness and light. In the experience is what Christ called "the peace which passeth all understanding."

When Jeremy drew this picture, in the midst of his terrible, terrible vision, what was he most focused on?

Oh, the pain was great. The terror was so very powerful. And there was a raging against the injustice, and a terrible sadness. But look at the two trains again. Everything else in the picture is unfinished. But the two trains are complete. Every bolt in the face of the approaching engine is identified. The tracks and the ties are all in place. The trains, the Union, are complete.

It is to that Union that this sensitive musician/poet/artist/skateboarder/lover was most attentive. Jeremy loved well, and was well loved. The grief of those who knew him seems beyond measure, and endless.

Make no mistake about these words. I know they do not comfort. In the face of Jeremy's pre-remembering, in the visual experience of death, words are not meant to comfort. It is not a time of comfort. That time will come, but comfort can't be found in this moment.

But, hopefully, these words not only connect. They help pass through the illusory veil of separateness. Even in the most terrible of moments, there are facets of the Whole.

And in that transcendental experience we are neither hopeless nor alone.

By Bill Schaefer © 1992-97