To A Trader Dying Young

The telephone call came shortly after Jana and I returned home from the Heard Museum North Gala. We had been invited to participate in the small art market associated with the event. Bill Malone from Hubbell’s brought rugs and Jack, Judy, Jason and Carrie Beasely were there with Navajo folk art. Carol was calling to tell me Jason and Carrie Beasley had been in a terrible accident on their way home, and Carrie had died in the collision. The emotions I felt surprised me. I had known Jason about five years, but didn’t know him well; and didn’t really know Carrie at all. I had seen her a few times, but don’t think we had ever said more than a friendly, “hello” to each other.

Jason’s father, Jack Beasley, is the father of contemporary Navajo folk art, and I had gotten to know him well over the years. When Carol mentioned that Jason, Carrie and their two girls had been hit by a drunk driver, a flood of fears and sadness washed over me. The fears related to my own family, which is always crisscrossing the Reservation between Bluff and Albuquerque; the sadness was for Jason and the girls who now had a gaping hole in their lives and in their hearts.

Just a few days earlier, Jana, Kira, Grange and I had been in Scottsdale for the Gala. Jason, Carrie, Marley and Haley were also there. While Kira and Grange rampaged around the fish pond, Carrie, Marley and Haley calmly and serenely strolled through the adjacent shops and around the pond; I couldn’t help note the difference. I remember thinking how perfectly contented they seemed. Jana, Kira, Grange and I were also happy to be out, but it was more of a renegade, escapee happiness.

Lately I have been obsessed with how a few seconds can change your life. Once I had time to consider Carrie’s death, I couldn’t help wishing that somehow someone had slowed them down for a just few seconds. It struck me that Jason and Carrie would have avoided the accident altogether if they had arrived at that location only five seconds later, or if circumstances had been slightly different.

As I go through my daily routine, and especially as I drive across the Reservation, I often wonder what misfortunes I may have narrowly escaped. Unlike Jason and the girls, my family has been fortunate so far. I often wonder what I would do if Jana and the kids were hurt or killed, and I don’t know if I am strong enough to cope with the loss.

Jana and I have often discussed just how dangerous the Reservation roads can be, especially at night. When we are driving after sunset, we are always doubly cautious. Livestock and alcohol make those roads treacherous. I cannot begin to count the number of friends and acquaintances who have been involved in accidents of one sort or another out there. Many of the artists we deal with have lost at least one friend or loved one to the Navajo Nation pavement.

In the newspaper article relating to the accident, Carrie was described as an exceptional wife and mother; someone completely dedicated to her family. That seemed apparent as I watched her with the girls in Scottsdale. The article reminded me of a poem from my college literature classes. The poem, To an Athlete Dying Young, has stuck with me over the years, and resurfaces at times like these. It is about a athlete who, because of his premature death, is not required to bear the indignities of growing old.

When thinking of that poem in relation to circumstances like these, I have often felt it is difficult to know whether fate is being kind to the dead or playing a cruel joke on the living; maybe both. In my mind, Carrie will forever be the kind and gentle mother shepherding her young daughters around the fish pond. I know Jason and the girls will miss Carrie’s warmth and tenderness, and hope they know that all of us at the trading post are sorry for their loss and ready to help in any way possible. We traders have tragically lost one of our own.

TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high, we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early through the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s

A.E. Housman (1859-1936

Copyright©2004 Twin Rocks Trading Post