The pain on their faces was evident.
They arrived at a funeral home in West Chester to come to grips with a kind of reality with which they were unfamiliar.
There is a weird irony in that.
Clad in black to match the mood, they had come to pay their respects to their friend, Ryan Dunn, star of the ‘Jackass’ reality TV and movie series.
Among them was Bam Margera, the leader of the troupe that gained fame by performing a variety of wild pranks and stunts, the kind of reality that draws millions of eyeballs to TV and movie screens.
That was not the reality they confronted last night.
This reality was, well, for want of another word, all too real.
Reality is what happens when you drive 140 mph. Reality is what happens when, as police allege, you get behind the wheel when you are two times over the limit for driving under the influence.
I'm not here to condemn Dunn. We've all done things that we regret. Most of us live to talk about them, to shake our heads at things we try not to remember. I know I did plenty when I was young.
That does not change the extreme sense of loss that has permeated the last few days since Dunn, 34, and a passenger in his car, Zachary Hartwell, 30, were killed when Dunn’s car careened off Route 322, flew over a guardrail into the woods and burst into flames.
I saw it again last night as I drove home past the accident scene, and again witnessed a large crowd gathered there, standing in the twilight, many lighting candles. I assume many of them had just come from the service.
Dunn clearly had a thing for fast cars; he has a long list of driving infractions, most involving driving too fast and at times under the influence.
But last night was not the time to dwell on that.
If anything good can come out of this eerie tragedy, it is perhaps the word of one mother who took her daughter to the crash scene, not just to gawk, but to learn a lesson.
It’s a very tough lesson that was inscribed on the faces of all those people going in and out of the funeral home last night.
This is reality. It’s not a TV show. It’s not the movies. You don’t get another take. It’s final.
That’s a kind of reality none of us is prepared for, that we don’t think about, that intrudes on the good times.
It doesn’t care. It comes anyhow.
That’s reality. And it hurts.
They arrived at a funeral home in West Chester to come to grips with a kind of reality with which they were unfamiliar.
There is a weird irony in that.
Clad in black to match the mood, they had come to pay their respects to their friend, Ryan Dunn, star of the ‘Jackass’ reality TV and movie series.
Among them was Bam Margera, the leader of the troupe that gained fame by performing a variety of wild pranks and stunts, the kind of reality that draws millions of eyeballs to TV and movie screens.
That was not the reality they confronted last night.
This reality was, well, for want of another word, all too real.
Reality is what happens when you drive 140 mph. Reality is what happens when, as police allege, you get behind the wheel when you are two times over the limit for driving under the influence.
I'm not here to condemn Dunn. We've all done things that we regret. Most of us live to talk about them, to shake our heads at things we try not to remember. I know I did plenty when I was young.
That does not change the extreme sense of loss that has permeated the last few days since Dunn, 34, and a passenger in his car, Zachary Hartwell, 30, were killed when Dunn’s car careened off Route 322, flew over a guardrail into the woods and burst into flames.
I saw it again last night as I drove home past the accident scene, and again witnessed a large crowd gathered there, standing in the twilight, many lighting candles. I assume many of them had just come from the service.
Dunn clearly had a thing for fast cars; he has a long list of driving infractions, most involving driving too fast and at times under the influence.
But last night was not the time to dwell on that.
If anything good can come out of this eerie tragedy, it is perhaps the word of one mother who took her daughter to the crash scene, not just to gawk, but to learn a lesson.
It’s a very tough lesson that was inscribed on the faces of all those people going in and out of the funeral home last night.
This is reality. It’s not a TV show. It’s not the movies. You don’t get another take. It’s final.
That’s a kind of reality none of us is prepared for, that we don’t think about, that intrudes on the good times.
It doesn’t care. It comes anyhow.
That’s reality. And it hurts.
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