Growing up, my dad and I were close, but in retrospect, there weren't very many things that we could do together. That wasn't his fault. I wasn't any good at soccer or baseball or football or tennis- he ran out of activities to take me to or balls to play catch with me pretty quickly. He was really involved with the activities I did in Boy Scouts, and I love him for that, but at the time I definitely could have been more appreciative.
College was the first thing we really bonded over on a really deep level. Before my dad left campus on move in day freshman year, he slipped an envelope into my desk drawer with a list of suggestions, hints, and things he wanted to tell me that we hadn't gotten to talk about. I kept it, and I still read it at the beginning and end of every semester. Those three pages comprise one of the most meaningful gifts that anybody has ever given me. I've always been self driven enough that I set and achieve my own goals, and that was satisfactory to the unspoken requirements of my parents. But having a list of things that my dad thought I could achieve gave me someone to work for other than myself, and it put me on a course to success.
This summer, while I was leading Line Camp and learning the values of intentionality and how to love on a deeper level, my grandma was in the hospital with multiple life threatening conditions, and the outlook was grim. Despite how close I became with my fellow leaders and how open I was with them, I barely took the time to ask my dad how he was doing or how he was feeling. I didn't take my own advice in regard to one of the most important people in my life, and I felt horrible about it. The day after I came home from Waco, though, I left to go see my grandma in Florida- a 10 hour car ride with just my dad and I.
We stopped at various hole in the wall seafood restaurants along the way, and each one was more terrible than the last. Every restaurant stop was prefaced with the question of whether or not we should just go to Whataburger, and every time we chose to try the local cuisine instead. We were also wrong, every time. But the quality of the food deteriorating in Louisiana while I wore my Baylor hat and my dad sported his Florida Gator shirts didn't matter, because we were making memories and lightening the mood, and spending more time together than we had in quite a while. After we got back from Florida I had absolutely no desire to eat seafood for some time, but I'd happily go to Fish Place or some sketchy seafood-serving taco truck with my dad any time.
Upon my arrival my grandma was staying at home, but not really in any condition to function at any high level. Unfortunately, she didn't make it more than a few days after we got to the house, but we all got to say goodbye and I was able to be there for my dad in the moments that counted, unlike when I was at camp. I don't do much home repair or "manly" things of that nature in Houston, but when we go to Florida I end up doing things like scrubbing the mildew off of the side of the house by hand, and it makes me feel like the son and grandson that my family deserves. I'm really going to miss my grandma and everything that visiting her entailed, but seeing her one last time was the best bonding experience I've had with my dad ever, and as much as I would hate to have him re-live that time period, I wouldn't trade the benefits of that trip for the world.
Before my grandmother's funeral, we drove back to Texas for the weekend to pick up my mom and a few things. I was hoping to get away from the sting of death a little bit and just see my friends, but the Lord had other things in mind. At 8:30 am the day after I returned from Florida, I received a phone call that shattered my perception of the world. One of my best friends in the world, who I've known since we were in 1st grade, passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. I was in absolute shock. There isn't really any way for your body to interpret news like that right away. So I began to call other people and inform them, acting as a messenger delivering the most atrocious of news, as some weird way to cope with what I didn't quite understand. We had done everything together. We got our Eagle Scout ranks together, we played trumpet together, we were in class together, we graduated together. How was I supposed to understand that we wouldn't do things together anymore?
That night I went with a few other of his/my close friends to dinner to share memories and funny stories of his life, and afterwards we went to the cliffs by the school and smashed fruits with a baseball bat, something I had done with him a long time ago and thought fitting to relieve some stress and lighten the mood. Afterwards we sat out in our camp chairs and as the sun went down over the water we sang one of his favorite songs, Don McLean's "American Pie", followed by "Hallelujah"and "Amazing Grace", and finally the most intense and emotional rendition of "The Ants go Marching One by One" that has probably ever been sang in history. What I thought would be one of the most emotionally challenging and distressful nights of my life actually ended up being one of my favorites, and I'll remember the camaraderie that we embodied that night forever.
I love to write, it's my passion and my favorite talent to hone and practice. But I don't write for fun unless the subject is something that I really, truly care about. I was asked to speak at the funeral of my friend, and I responded without hesitation that I could follow through. I wasn't sure what I was going to say or how I was going to say it, but I knew that it would come to me. Little bits and pieces entered my head throughout the week, but after seeing my dad speak at my grandmother's funeral in Florida, I knew exactly what I needed to say. The words flowed easily enough through my fingertips, the only part I had to worry about was keeping my composure in front of the audience. I have no trouble speaking in front of crowds, but it would be difficult to convey my message through a mouth full of tears. When the day came though, I wasn't sad. Well, that's an exaggeration, but I wasn't as distraught as I thought I would be. There were so many people in attendance at the vigil, I was almost happy. It brought a special kind of warmth into my heart to see how many and much people cared about him. I made it through my eulogy with a strong drive to finish the entire time, and conveyed exactly the image of him that I wanted the crowd to see, through my eyes, through my words. I'm confident that God knew that what I had to say would be impactful to the lives of many in the audience, and gave me the strength to finish with confidence. After the service I realized how much my words meant to the family, but they meant just as much to me- that's why I was able to write them. When we departed, a large group of us went to dinner together, but it wasn't the same group that usually did things together. It was this huge conglomerate of multiple friend circles that would not usually cross paths, all gathering in one place in honor of the friend that we all treasured. And for the third time in one week, it was death that brought me closer to some of the people that I cared about the most.
After the services for my friend were finished, my father and I took it upon ourselves to commemorate him in a way that he would approve of and appreciate, and that would last for as long as it could. I took it upon myself to scavenge my mail accounts for the contact information of parents in our scout troop, from the band, from his street, of anyone who I thought could help me, and I sent an email with the idea that we had composed. I spoke with both the current and former treasurers of the band, with the band director, with his parents, and collected money at my house, and as of what would have been his 20th birthday just a few days ago, my dad and I raised enough money to give a scholarship in his name to a leader in the band of outstanding academic merit every year for the next 10 years. For someone who was a gifted leader, musician, and a brilliant mind who loved to share and teach, I can't think of a more appropriate way to honor him, and honestly I couldn't be more proud of the result.
I lost a lot this summer. But I didn't leave empty handed. I may not have gone to summer school, but I learned lessons that I won't ever forget. First, that whether young or old, you can't always count on seeing someone again in the best of situations, so say what you need to say, and don't hesitate to tell someone that you love them. Secondly, that death does not signal a time to merely mourn loss and then go back to life's previous routine. It brings people together, and while the loss of someone special is mutual, the strengthening of relationships because of that loss can be mutual too. Finally, the best work is done by people who are passionate about what they are doing, and the best reward is the smile on a mother's face or the tear of joy in a father's eye.
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