By Eugene Platt
Published in The Post and Courier

The tragic fire that took the lives of nine Charleston firefighters on the night of June 18 left a dark cloud over the Lowcountry. Even those who did not personally know any of the fallen, feel a deep sense of loss for all of them.

But that dark cloud has a silver lining, and the spirits of a standing-room only crowd were lifted by beautiful music, poetry, touching eulogies, and a message of hope powerfully delivered by the Rev. Hercules Champaign at the funeral Monday of his nephew Melvin Champaign. People of faith left Emmanuel Baptist Church reassurred that, while Melvin will be sorely missed, he has indeed gone to a better place. In all my years on James Island, I have never witnessed a greater occasion of joy, grief, pride, and hope so divinely intertwined.

The deaths of all those courageous firefighters were equally tragic; each, no doubt, will be missed in his own neighborhood and beyond. Melvin, however, was one of us, a fellow James Islander, and his death leaves a particular void in our tight-knit community. Coming home from his funeral, I pondered that memorable passage from one of John Donne’s sermons:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Eugene Platt

(Eugene Platt is a member of the James Island Public Service District Commission and was the first Poet Laureate of the Town of James Island.)