None of the kids wanted to tell me their names.The half dozen or so young adults who stopped around 7:30 tonight to put flowers on the natural grave where Brick Township boys Joe Sendzik, 27, and Greg Brown, 29, died yesterday in a burning car said they didn't know the victims well enough to be identified as mourners.
Yet, they mourned. They cried. They shared what they heard and how sad they are that this tragedy happened.
And they shared stories about how their paths had crossed with Joe and Greg, to various degrees. Pop Warner. Brick Memorial High School. A sister's fiance's friend or whatever.
I've watched them come in a steady stream all evening, even though Herbertsville Road there has no shoulders and they, themselves, were at some risk stopping. Traffic is pretty fast and heavy there as people who live in Brick and Point Pleasant travel home from points west. Most folks on the road are locals who've driven it thousands, hundreds of thousands, of times.
The kids, well, young adults, also shared how most of us, when we're heading east, often speed up just before that bump there -- right there at the skid marks -- the biggest of three that make what my kids always called the "wee road," because the descent from the bump makes your stomach jump like amusement rides do, except for free.But if you go too fast on the "wee" bumps, it's possible to lose control of the car. And by the skid marks and tire tracks etched through the scub pine border screening the sports field at Pine Grove Day Camp in Wall, it's possible that's what happened just before the 2000 BMW chopped down one of the bigger pines and burned up with the boys in it.
Everyone agrees that no one ever will know exactly what caused the crash.
Today, the fragrant scent of pine is strong from tearful sap of the broken trees. The earth is charred.
And people have been laying all kinds of flowers, silk and fresh. One glass candle reads, "Joe," and the other, "Greg."One young woman brought fresh-cut lilacs, now at the high of their bloom and ever-so-fragrant. I think the boys' souls can smell the aromas.
For those of us grieving with the families -- Joe's mother, Maria, is a popular English teacher at Brick Memorial High School -- the site is a little disturbing though. There's still charred pieces of the 2000 BMW and ashes of clothing and a book of some sort, now unrecognizable except for the clump of margins now bleeding sepia.
Our hearts are heavy. The students and staff at Brick Memorial are taking donations to help the Sendziks with funeral costs and to buy food to serve the huge number of mourners sure to pay respects to the two friends.
These still are days of shock. The worst pain is yet to come.
Joe and Greg and their families will be in our prayers tonight as we seek comfort for them at this time of deep sorrow.
(Photos by Abby Petterchak)
