Matt Klee

Saturday

I've been pacing around all afternoon sort of obsessing over my friend Jen's facebook page. I took the girls to run some errands this morning and we got home around noon. I put some things away, started a load of laundry and absentmindedly checked facebook like I often do. There were several posts from friends to my friend Jen letting her know they were thinking of her, had her in their prayers and were so sorry for her loss. She's a dog lover and I'm thinking at this point that she and her husband Matt have lost their dog, Bear. Before I send my condolences, though, I think I'd better verify that this is what has happened, so I go to her facebook wall. Here, I can see more posts people have offered and it quickly becomes apparent that she is in the middle of a much bigger tragedy than losing a beloved pet. My mind races and I sort of panic for her. It's been less than two years, I think, since she lost her dad to a tragedy while he vacationed in Mexico, so I'm reeling at how this could be.

I shoot a message to a mutual friend of ours because at this point it's apparent that it's not their dog, Bear, but her husband, Matt.

Rewind twenty years.... Jen and I are sorority sisters from the same graduating class. We share a major and friends, though neither of us are members of the other's tightest circle. We graduate and more or less lose touch with each other until facebook reconnects all of us. For me, this is 2008.

You know how you're friends with someone, you lose touch and then reconnect on facebook and wonder why you were ever friends in the first place? You realize you actually liked this person more when you knew them less? And then there are others who were your friends, you lose touch,  you reconnect on facebook, realize you have so much in common and wonder why on earth you weren't even closer friends in the first place back when you were actually friends? Well, Jen is in the latter group for me.

In knowing her through social media I found we have a lot in common. She's a total foodie. I am not, but she writes about the things she loves to cook on her blog and I wish I could eat them. We connected over blogging. She is a teacher who loves summer. Matt loves fishing. She and Matt love mountain biking together. Shane and I have talked about leaving the girls with family in Bend so we could ride in Hood River (Jen's Hood) and have them show us around their local trails. Last weekend when we rode the Mckenzie River Trail I thought of them. Just before we'd left for the weekend she'd posted that her mountain bike + dirt = cheap therapy. I'd commented that we were going to get us some therapy up the Mckenzie River that very weekend. Shane and I have found that mountain biking is something we love doing most together and that it's a rare thing to want to do most with your partner. Through her posts, Jen and Matt seem to me to be head over heels for one another. But what's even better is that they really seem to be great friends. Best friends. Not because she ever said so, but because when that's true you can just tell. And in getting to know her online, years later, I think I saw some of us in them. They can laugh together, for crying out loud and if there's not that, then what is there?

So when our mutual friend messaged me back that the tragedy had, in fact, happened to Matt and that he died following a biking accident yesterday at Whistler, a place Shane and I love to ride, I just sat staring in front of my computer. Stunned. In disbelief.

Then I busied myself. I paced. I folded laundry. I packed our bags for a trip we're taking and checked her facebook wall. Then, I started more laundry, fussed with a school project and checked facebook again. When this happens to someone you care about whose life looks, in many ways, similar to your own, you start scrambling for what to do. As if there's something to do. What is there to do? There is nothing that can be done. Or undone. It's heartbreaking.

Monday

I find myself just teary. Teary over the idea of just going back to our routine because it's Monday. Teary because while I'm doing Monday, Matt's family and friends are immersed in what will forever be among the hardest days of their whole lives. Teary over the idea that the cliché about living life to its fullest and tomorrow not being guaranteed, isn't a cliché at all.  For those who loved him, it's today's reality.

I never met Matt. I thought I would. In reading what is quickly becoming his legacy it's a shame I didn't. He was loved by so many, and he clearly lived his life to the fullest. I know he loved his family and loved the outdoors. The impact he had on his community is far reaching, yet he's described by those who knew him as a humble leader; a kind soul who could make things happen. You can read more about him here. Then, if you feel compelled, you can make a donation to a scholarship fund in his name here. In knowing a bit about who he was it's not surprising, then, that the girl he married got on her mountain bike today for some cheap therapy. Though I think it's brave, I imagine it's exactly what he expected her to do.

Hang in there, Jen. We're so sorry. Shane's heart and mine are aching for you. May you always find your Sweet Sweet Love with you on whatever trail you're riding.