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March 31, 2005
People you never forget
I've thought about posting this before, but it just seems like not enough. I've started this before, so if you're reading it, it means I finally clicked publish.
In college I knew alot of people that I could have done without meeting but only a handful were truly incredible people that I have never forgotten. There was this one guy I can close my eyes and still see him smiling and laughing. His name was Mason Griggs and he was born with a heart defect that caused him to be smaller than everybody else. I mean he weighed like 90 pounds, tops. He couldn't play sports or do a lot of big time physically demanding activity but he'd always be the first one to make you smile or laugh. He could also play the guitar and sing. He played the guitar with it facing up and he could sing...and I mean very well. He had a smooth, soothing voice. I heard him sing a lot of songs, but for some reason there was this one song he'd sing sometimes "Dunk him two times preacher" that I just can't forget. It was about this dirty, smelly fella named Jim that gets baptized and someone in the crowd yells out to "dunk him two times preacher, make Jim a brand new man". There was something else about him though that made him so unforgettable, though, and that was the fact that he never met a stranger. Once Mason knew your name, he didn't forget it. I'd be walking across campus and see him and before I could raise my hand he'd yell out "James!" and walk on over. We'd talk and I was simply overcome with amazement at someone that had every reason to feel "bitter" about the hand "life had dealt him" that simply was not negative. He was always smiling, always laughing and making others laugh. I never heard him say a negative word about anyone and I mean never. Think about people you know, how many of them do you know that have never spoken ill of someone? I knew Mason for 2 years, was around him a fair amount and never once heard him criticize someone else. He would take your hand and shake it, look you in the eye, and just make you feel like a million bucks.
One day I was walking from one of my Criminal Justice classes and he was leaning against the wall in Stubbs Hall(this is at NLU, now ULM, in Monroe) talking to somebody in between classes. We spoke briefly and he mentioned something about eating together later in the week and I then went to my next class. Mason had a heart attack and died about 10 minutes later.
It was so surreal. I had lost my granddaddy a year before and an acquaintance when I was 14 to a firearm accident, but never someone I considered a friend. I wasn't enough of a friend that I knew his family other than casually but I got a call from someone to make sure I knew of the funeral and I of course went. Mason dated only one girl that I knew of and I called her to tell her about his passing. She drove up for the funeral and we went together. Sherry was very upset but we both marvelled how the funeral lacked the wailing you often see at funerals. There was a very different feeling at this service than ones I'd been to before and I realized afterwards it was the first funeral I'd been to of someone that I knew to be a Christian. Oh don't get me wrong, people wept, but not in a "I'm dying" sort of way...it was more of the way you might cry when your best friend moves to Europe and tells you they're not going to be back.
I learned a little better about how to see people from Mason. He always liked you until you gave him a really good reason not to, and then he'd still not talk poorly about you.
Mason was a good example to all around him and he's one that I'll never forget.
Posted by james at March 31, 2005 05:35 PM