Words don't always work in a situation

The Holden Landmark Corp. lost a member of its extended family last week, a day after the Ashburnham-Westminster community lost, Jordyn Kalagher.

James Lehans, the 25-year-old son of Landmark veteran Linda Lehans and her husband Tom, was killed last Wednesday when his car struck a tree in West Boylston. His death has left us shaken and saddened to the core.

Those who work at this newspaper, especially those with the kind of tenure Linda has - at 28 years, she is the longest serving employee - know that it is more than just a job. The responsibility of putting out the paper can mean there are weeks where we may see more of our co-workers than our families, a hazard of the profession. Yet this closeness also means we share a good deal with each other - perhaps it's that reporter's curiosity that keeps us asking about the developments in each other's home lives. We don't consider it prying; we relish those conversations.

Rare is reporter who has not brought his or her child to a meeting, or into the newsroom. James was one of those kids. We watched him grow from a sweet little boy with a love of geography to a personable, articulate man who'd been pursuing a liberal arts degree.

James suffered from mental illness, and that, too, was part of his story. He struggled with it for most of his life, balancing medication and therapy, and trying to live as "normal" an existence as his brain chemistry would allow. His behavior could be impulsive and baffling, and often frustrating for James who couldn't explain it himself. His parents advocated for him, fought for him, and loved him every step of the way.

But mental illness is woefully misunderstood, even in a society like ours where wondrous medical advances have helped manage conditions that once consigned people to a lifetime of misery. Perhaps that's because it's largely undetectable to the untrained eye. There are no visible scars, no handicap license plates, no crutches or casts. Only the voices within one's brain that can't be heard by anyone else, yet refuse to be muffled.

At this point, we know only that the early departure of James Lehans has left us at a loss. We are in the business of words, but here, now, there are none. MATTERS