A Third Story on the Way to Justice Co-Mingled with Grief

A lot of us across the State of Texas and the USA are grieving today.  Some of us were able to return to Abilene to say goodbye to a friend and classmate from the MFT/ACU class of 2004. I'd like to share a few thoughts about him, his wife, justice, and grief on this page.

At a larger level, what I think Tracy Fleet did was a matter of justice, that of making the world a better place, even a more just place.  When he graduated in August of 2004, he went about the business of setting up a private practice.  As best I can understand historically, he and another person co-founded Life Renovations.  It moved from a small, two person clinic into one with a large number of clinicians today. That's what clinicians do, they serve the needs of individuals, couples, and families, and by so doing make the world a better place. When they heal wounds formed by traumatic experiences, they make the world a better place.  When they help clients adjust to current circumstances or to change the current circumstances, they are doing the work of justice in the world.

So, here are a few thoughts and memories about Tracy Fleet.

First, it was Tracy and Tina who introduced Charla and me to Ashley Gregory one day in the atrium at the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene.  The words were something like, "This is a friend of ours, Ashley Gregory, and she's going to be one of your students."  I can still recall us chatting. I can see the picture in my head.  Ashley became a student, one of my graduate assistants, worked for Charla and me in our therapy practice for a bit, and then became our daughter in law and mother of three of our grandchildren.

Second, on one occasion Tracy was doing therapy with a complicated couple and I was watching from behind the one way mirror.  I distinctly recall how he used humor and "making the covert overt" in a sensitive manner while honoring the fact that the woman client of his was having nothing to do with his persistence in talking about their sexual relationship.  The dialogue I won't produce here but I recall it as one of good humor and engagement.

Third, in the winter of Tracy's first year in the program, I had a near catastrophic experience with what was a routine medical procedure.  A horrific loss of blood in a short period of time left me lingering between life and death.  Thanks to my wife and our internal medicine doctor as well as an ER that anticipated my arrival, I lived.  Tracy and his class were among those who walked with me back to health.  It is no small journey going from being healthy and running 100 miles a month to just barely being able to walk a hundred yards.  Thanks to Dr. Joe Bell, who told me that it would take a while to recuperate giving X, Y, and Z from his experience as an exercise physiologist.  Another MFT intern encouraged me to eat and stay ahead of the fatigue.

That leads me to Tracy.  Exactly one year to the day after that near catastrophic experience, Tracy paced me on a 5K run through the neighborhood.  We met on the parking lot by Edwards Dorm, chatted a bit, stretched, and off we went. He slowed down his normal pace and encouraged me to run faster. I recall that only one time did I have to stop, walk, and catch my breath, and that was on the hilly Washington Blvd near 10th street headed north.

After we returned from Abilene and the memorial last night, I thumbed through my journal, and there was the time of the 5K and the breakdown by miles.  Tracy led me on a first mile pace unlike I had ever run before.  The overall time was about the same as what I had run a year earlier.  Thanks to Tracy's pace, I knew that I was proverbially speaking, "back in the race."

On the one hand, that's what runners do.  They encourage others.  On the other hand, that was what Tracy Fleet did; he encouraged others.  Surely he had other things to do than to spend his morning hanging out with me.  After all, he was a student and I was one of his profs.  Sometimes those lines cannot be crossed. He dared to cross them and I gratefully accepted his offer to pace me that morning.   So, it is more than the pace of a 5K, it was about one human being gracing another human being who had been limping, so to speak, for a year.  The relationship and the run shaped me toward believing that I had recovered. Tracy was an influential part of that recovery.

Part of the journey through grief was showing up at the funeral yesterday.  Unbelievable that his 56 year old body was lying in that coffin, and upon that coffin was draped the American flag.  Yes, he was a veteran and is deeply respected as a veteran.  Others who had been shaped by Tracy were there, associates, undoubtedly current and former clients, and his classmates. There was little time before hand except to hug and exchange pleasantries. That was rich.  Afterwards, however, a smaller group of his classmates invited Charla and me to go to lunch at Oscar's near the ACU campus.  So, there we gathered. Much laughter. Deep conversation. A group of people connected to each other: Kristi and her husband, Jason, Kirsten (and their two children), Lisa, Lynn Anne, Mel, Andy (and his son), Amanda, Mike, and Charla.  The attachment that they felt to Tracy and to each other was evident and intense. And the food was good.

For a long time, I have been saying that there are as many "griefs" as there are people in a sanctuary at a funeral.  Our grief is shaped by how close we are to the deceased, how much we anticipated the death, and whether or not the deceased had fulfilled his or her obligations upon the earth.  So, with Tracy, our grief is deep and will be excavated for a long time.  We were close to him and Tina, he was young and was doing his giftedness upon the earth, and we were blindsided because we did not see it coming.

While this is about Tracy, it necessarily involved his wife, Tina, and their children and grandchildren. Tina has earned her MSW at ACU. One of the best decisions I ever made was hiring her as administrative coordinator at the Marriage and Family Institute.  She was an organized, get the job done, and do it with grace and mercy.  Students loved her as did our clients. She and I had touched base off and on through the years around her academic programming and a project or so related to justice and black farmers.  I remember skyping with her and her partner on one occasion and sharing resources.

At one graduation banquet for the MFT students, I remember saying in front of the audience, and to three women who graced my life, the line:  "Tina, you are my left hand, Dionne, you are my right hand, and Charla, you are the beating of my heart."

So, today and for the forceable future Charla and I will grieve.  A person doing the work of justice in the world has left his mark upon the world and his departure has left a hole in our hearts and his work and its significance will linger on for years to come.