Only people who truly loved you can make others laugh when you die.

    We don’t know if someone has already coined this statement. If they haven’t, perhaps they should. It’s not that great writers haven’t broached the subject of death — a loss left for the living to handle.

    The great American writer Mark Twain had lots to say about the subject.

    “Manifestly, dying is nothing to a really great and brave man,” Twain wrote about the passing of President and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

    “To die one’s self is a thing that must be easy, and light of consequence; but to lose a part of one’s self — well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that disaster, received that wound which cannot heal.”

    Even a monument dedicated to Twain had these memorable words about the passing of a soul from this earth: “Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.”

    With few exceptions, the death of another human being is tough on all those who survive. It is extraordinarily hard when that person has touched people through love, humor and gifts of self. Those gathered in Idaho State University’s Holt Arena Wednesday afternoon were grappling with the sudden loss of three giving people. The services were for assistant ISU track coach Jackie Poulson, but the two men who lost their lives in an ill-fated attempt to rescue her were in the air of the arena as well.

    In fact, the program for Jacquelyn Rae-Gean Poulson listed Lance Hicks and Keith Tarpley as “In Spirit Bearers.”

    The families and friends of Hicks and Tarpley will gather again today and Friday to celebrate their lives and mourn their deaths.

    A fun Thursday afternoon gathering outside a rural home in Bingham County last week had turned into a tragedy that stole them from our communities. Tears and anger come with pain and loss.

    It’s what we do.

    So it seems incredible when someone wounded deeply by the death of someone close can bring the gift of laughter to those who come to mourn. Despite losing both his fiancee and his father in those deadly jolts of electricity a week ago, Kyle Tarpley did just that.

    Wearing a cowboy hat and western suit jacket, Tarpley forced everyone to share a moment in the cold sun of a November morning on the Salmon River with the woman he was about to help bury. He talked about her grousing about going out fishing on a cold day. He spared no details about her slipping on fresh snow and landing on her behind. And he didn’t shy away from the awkwardness of his attempt to be romantic and spring the big question in a proposal that was supposed to be perfect.

    Nothing Kyle Tarpley did that day on the Salmon River was perfect.

    It made for the perfect story and it was the perfect way for the crowd gathered at her funeral to once again feel the joy this young athlete, coach and friend had brought to so many.

    What’s even more amazing is it was unrehearsed.

    “I did not prepare for this at all,” Tarpley confessed to hundreds of listeners at Holt Arena.

    His story stood in stark contrast to the polished speeches politicians have been sharing at national conventions held the past two weeks. Those people spend long hours making sure what the have to say resonates with their audiences. They are trying to strike a human chord inside all of us.

    They could take lessons from Kyle. But then again, he couldn’t help himself. His love for another person was that deep.