Goodbye Derek

Two days ago, an acquaintance of mine was killed while serving a warrant. You know, I've taken a lot of criminal justice and criminology courses over the last seven years and two degrees, but not one deals with how you react when you learn that someone you knew has died in the line of duty. And what did Derek get for dying in the line of duty? Well if you look at that comments section of the link I posted, he gets called a Nazi stormtrooper, a pig, a fascist, and a lot of other things...all for being shot by a coke dealer while serving the warrant.

Over the past two days I've been struggling to process what happened. You see, we shared a few classes but we were never close. He was a year behind me in school, and today on the local news back home, the Dean of our Alma Mater's school of Liberal Arts, and Dr. Noone, one of everyone's favorite criminal justice professors there talked about what a wonderful person he was, and that he was living out his dream of becoming a U.S. Marshal when his life came to an all too sudden end. You see, he went through the internship program that very few people a year nationwide manage to get into and from there he went on into his all too short career, it was a prestigious honor to be accepted, let alone to complete it.

Derek was a good guy. He ran relay for life and the Jerry Dove Memorial Run, which is ironic in a way, as the FBI Jerry Dove Memorial 5K is dedicated to the memory of SA Dove and to all Law Enforcement Officers, Firefighters, Military Personnel, and others who have been killed while serving in the line of duty. He was a devout Christian and leaves behind a family who will grieve his loss, especially his widow Megan.

Tonight I attended a Night of Worship at St. Francis in Loretto, and as people went up to be prayed over, I sat there in the pew to think and pray myself. To thank God for giving me each day as He has, and that for but the grace of God it could've been me. You see, I applied for that internship too and was turned down for being too far along in my schooling; I was intent to drop the weight and everything if I could just get a chance. But I didn't, and so my life ended up along the path that has brought me to pursuing my doctorate. Losing one job and internship opportunity had such a long reaching impact on my life, and maybe even saved it.

And as I realized that sitting in the pew, it hit me I wasn't sure if I was being selfish or not in that thought. Either way, I was happy to be alive, even if it does seem like his life was cut so unfairly short. My only recompense is that I'm sure Derek is up in Heaven right now, and that he's beyond caring about something like the loss of his earthly life.

I dedicated the rest of my prayers tonight for his family and closer friends than I. And as I left the Night of Worship, I realized something, I've started to heal, not just from the shock of this, but from so much other stuff too. Derek lived his dream, and so help me I'm going to finish this program and live mine.