I'm wrestling with some different things this morning. Over the weekend, a younger man (39) that I know drowned in a local river. At first, this is all that I knew. But the next morning in the newspaper, a brief front-page story provided more details. Apparently "Gerald" was on the side of the river opposite a campground. No mention was made of anybody's being with him on his side of the river. Several campers saw him wade into the water and start swimming their way. A couple of them reported that he seemed inebriated, which detail, because this was little more than conjecture based, I assume, on his behavior, I thought it rather tacky of the newspaper to print. But print it the paper did. Anyway, in the middle of the river, Gerald seemed to be struggling and began trying to make his way to a rock raised out of the water. He didn't make it. He called out for help and went down. No going once, going twice and gone the third time, as on TV. He went down, and that was it. A couple of the campers apparently jumped into the water, but when they got to the area where he disappeared, they couldn't find him.

The authorities drug the river for a time, but they were unsuccessful. Finally divers went in and found the body some 20-30 feet away from where Gerald was last seen. The current in that section of the river is gentle, and while it probably had little to do with his drowning, it was strong enough to float the dead body beneath an underwater rock ledge.

I know this drowned man's mother. She is completely devastated, which is understandable. She screams and cries and wants to die, apparently completely thoughtless of the husband and son and grandchildren she would leave behind. But this is the way of many people around whom I've grown up and lived. I don't call it ignorance or selfishness, although these must be in the mix somewhere. Maybe it's some long learned tradition in the vein of sack cloth and ashes and the wailing wall. Whatever its component parts and influences, at its most genuine it seems a witless abandonment of life and reason inspired by a simple and overwhelming grief. Sometimes it seems like a performance for the benefit—whatever that might be—of the pitcher of the fit, but not this time, I think. Hers is raw emotion devoid of reason and driven by grief in its most beast-like form. I shudder at it. Until the beast releases her and reason begins to make its way back into her soul, she is a thing that I can't deal with except to watch in horror.

I have children of my own, and if I should lose one of them I suspect that my grief would attack me in similar ways, although the outward signs of its grip might not be so freely and wildly expressed. What I might dread most of all is facing for years the realization that my child apparently died for nothing—a prey to drunkenness, perhaps, or some moment of "watch-this" machismo. If he should die in such a place and in such a way, I would, of course, prefer him to be in the act of trying to rescue somebody else or to be suddenly and unexpectedly overwhelmed by careless nature.