Losing a Friend

One month ago today, I got the call. The one you always fear but never see coming. The news was bad. My closest friend had a sever stroke. My college roommate, confidante, buddy, brother from a different mother and thirty-two years of friendship was down for the final count. A brain tumor that no one saw until it had left just a body slowly trickling away for the final days.

Sitting alone with him in the hospital room, I knew all the things I claim to believe about God. Omnipotent, works beyond my understanding, perfect love, sovereign rule, trust, faith, His universe means not mine, etc. But those things are much easier to believe when dealing with simple things like traffic causing the clock to move faster then you can or a store being out of your favorite brand of ice cream or even losing of a job to no fault of your own. Those are the trails God has equipped me to do. Those are the times I hang on to the fact that there are undeniably things much bigger then my little world. God has slowly taught me these lessons over and over throughout the years.

But this was different; there was not a 'fix' or 'work around' solution to the problem. This was not an “everything will be alright” moment. There was no reason under the sun a good, decent, god loving, 51-year old man dies. No rational for two young boys who will spend the remainder of their life without a father. No explanation that would make this add up.

I have always hated the question of WHY? It really never matters much after something goes wrong unless it makes it not happen again. This was certainly not one of those times.

“It is what it is.” “Play it where it lies.” “One day at a time.” “Shake it off”... All of those words are how I normally navigate the world but they contain absolutely no meaning when you talk to your friend on Saturday, see him lying in a coma on Monday and feel the hole rip open in your heart as he departs on Thursday.

God doesn’t pass out too many true deep friendships in this life and when you loose one… it cost you. It cost down to the deepest part of you.

I can truly say I am so thankful to be hurting right now because every ache is directly proportional to the amount of life we shared together – like college life, the first job, finding the right girls (after spending a lot of time checking out the wrong ones), marriages, kids, maturing, holidays together, weekends at the lake, football games, lots of golf or just hanging out. However, most importantly over the past few years we each found our way back to relationships with God. A truly amazing experience.

Deep morning comes from deep loss which can only come out of deep friendship.

Thank you my friend.

Thank you God.