Last Saturday, my wife received one of those phone calls no one wants to get. The call came in at 8:00am, and Sherry was told that her nephew, Mike, had passed away. Evidently, he was undergoing a biopsy when something went wrong and he died... leaving his older brother, a younger sister, his mother, and his wife behind... and his aunt Sherry, who has been deeply affected by the news. When I first married Sherry, Mike was a kid- a witty, engaging kid, playing a big role on a small stage in a rural Minnesota town. He was popular and he had a great deal of talent. He wrote for the school newspaper and he was President of his class. He was charming... and the others doted on him, including Sherry...who thought that Mike was certain to run the world, or at least the entertainment world. For a number of reasons, we saw Mike less and less with the passing of time, but love and loving memories never die... and Sherry's heart is filled with loving thoughts of Mike. She and all three of the kids in Mike's family grew up together...especially in their younger years. They vacationed together, and they stayed at one another's homes for weeks on end. Holidays were spent together for years, and even I got into some of that. In short, Mike and his family WERE Sherry's family of her youth, and she loves them as much as I love my uncle Bill and the two cousins with whom I shared my childhood. We hate to lose people we love, but it's more than that... because we are also losing part of ourselves. Part of us dies when a loved one dies... and time, which we once considered our forever friend, laughs in our face and mocks our mortality. We know about death conceptually from a very early age, but we never think it applies to us! We attend funerals, walk through graveyards, and read about tragedies in the news... without ever really connecting to death. And then one day, it becomes clear: what once was will never be again because we, too, are dying. O Mike, our heart cries, we'd give anything for one more smile, one more story, even one more tear...with you, but we will never splash in the lake together again, and what is more, people will soon be gathering for me.
However, life goes on, and on this Labor Day, our kids called in and told us that they love us... which is always a joy... but today, I also had the joy of listening to my great-grandson, Donald, sing "Jesus Love Me (because the Bible tells me so)." The last time I saw Donald in person, he was crawling around at our daughter's home in the Chicago area and I found him to be irresistible even then. I suspect that I won't see Donald as much as I would like to over the years...because he lives in North Carolina and because he already has wonderful and loving grandparents. Still, I love Donald with all of my heart and I write my blog (in large measure) to convey my love and my life to both Archer and him! I haven't seen him for some time now... but Donald certainly lifted my spirits today! I came home from church and there he was, singing "Jesus Loves Me," and my heart just melted. He was so darn cute, and his message is so very true. I know that he doesn't yet know what these words mean in depth (who does?), but I was absolutely delighted to see that Jesus IS part of his life. What a wonderful kid! Brittany, when time is right, tell Donald that he and poppy both tried to tell people that Jesus loves them over this holiday weekend. Tell him that we both proclaimed the faith. Tell him that poppy got paid more... but that he said it better! God bless.
The ebb and flow of life, with all of its unexpected joy and with all of the "little deaths" we experience, certainly makes a man think. However, there is one thing I know for sure: Jesus DOES LOVE LITTLE DONALD... AND HIS CHILD, MIKE, AS WELL! Amen.
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