Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A young man died....

A young man died.  It is what has been resounding in my head over and over again for the past few hours.  A young man died.  He wasn't a young man that I knew very well - actually had only met him when he was helping to move my daughter out of her apartment at college a few weeks ago.  He and his roommate lived in the same apartment complex and attended the same college, and he and my daughter knew each other and were good friends - she seemed to think of him like a brother.  He was a very pleasant young man, very polite and well-mannered, kind and helpful.  Very clean-cut, very all-American, the type of young man most Moms would want their daughters to settle down with one day.  And now he's gone.  Just like that.  He had surgery, and afterwards there were complications.  And then he was gone.

My daughter called me from work, and she was in pieces.  I could barely understand the words she was speaking, and when she said them again "Collin died." I was not sure I had heard her correctly.  Surgery...complications...blood clot...died...gone.  And in that moment my heart felt like it was breaking.  I wanted to just feel sad for the hurt my daughter was feeling... for the confusion and hurt she and her friends would feel at their classmate and friend dying at such a young age.  But truthfully, my heart broke as I thought of what the parents must be feeling at that moment.  Knowing how the compilation of those words had struck me - and only imagining how they had to have knocked the world off its axis for his parents.  And then I found myself crying and praying for them.  Praying for some peace in the middle of something impossible to understand.  A young man died, and now a family is changed forever. 

As a mother, one of my greatest fears is losing one of my children.  I know how hard it has been just learning to adjust to letting go of them as they grow up and leave home - and cannot imagine the feeling of knowing they would not be coming back home again.  It is at this time that my faith in Christ seems more important than ever in my life -- the reminder that our days are numbered, and we have no idea the number.  I have lived enough life to know that it is short...time passes so quickly.  And there are no do-overs.  We have to think before making choices - consider the consequences, and what effects it may have on our life in the long-run.  But mostly I think we have to live boldly and with passion - not wasting our life or leaving people wondering what their place was in our life.  Very often I remind myself that I want people to know what I believe in just by being around me...that I have to live my faith out loud in my behavior, words spoken and treatment of others.

A young man died.  I didn't know him very well...only for a few hours out of his life.  But he impacted me.  He was kind to me, and mostly he was kind to my daughter.  His life made a difference and will be missed.  I'm thankful for his life, and that he passionately lived every day God gave him on this earth. 

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