To Treat Others

This week has been one of the hardest weeks. It’s been more than hard, but right now, that seems to be the only word I can come up with to describe it.  It has been one filled with much grief and sadness, and one where we have had to learn to trust the reckless love of God even when we do not understand.

Like the rest of the country, we woke Saturday morning to the news of the death of former president George H.W. Bush.  I immediately began to read the most recent articles, written only hours before, which highlighted the remarkable life of the humble public servant.  

Like the rest of our friends, neighbors, and school community, we woke on Monday morning to the news of a car accident very nearby in the very early morning with a single fatality.  As our kids woke for school, we shared the news with them and we all said a silent prayer for whomever would have been involved.  As the morning went on, more details of the unfortunate accident emerged, including the fateful news of who was driving that car.  We were devastated to learn it was a friend and classmate of our eleventh grade son.

I will not account here of the grief and the sadness we have experienced this week.  I fight back tears now even as I pour over what is on my mind and in my heart.  But what I do want to share with you is the life of a seventeen-year-old boy that literally touched the life of everyone he met.

When my son text me from school Monday morning, it was to tell me they had just been told the heartbreaking news about the accident.  I knew the name as soon as he told me, and I recalled vivid memories of this young man and our son playing football and basketball together in middle school.  I can still see this kid.  I remember him perfectly.  He was the one always, always rallying for his team.  If he was on the court, he had a smile on his face and was shooting three-pointers from anywhere on the court.  If he was on the bench, he was smiling and cheering for his teammates.  Even when he was out for part of a season for medical reasons, he cheered harder than anyone I have ever seen in my entire life.  I was so impressed with this young man that on several occasions I had stopped his parents after games just to tell them, “Your son is the nicest kid!”  

When my son text me Monday morning, he told me the young man’s name and followed it up with, “That kid who is always happy.”

That day, as I tearfully scrolled through the posts and messages on social media, it was clear that what I remembered and thought about this young man, everyone else did as well.  There were scores of messages of thoughts and prayers, and within each one was how very kind and special this boy was to each and every person he encountered.  Even people that said they had never met him personally still shared the kind and special things they had heard about him through other people.

On Wednesday night, I went with our teenage son to pay our respects to his friend and his friend’s family.  While this young man was no state dignitary, it was evident of the number of lives he impacted during his short and full lifetime.  

Friends and family poured into the funeral home until traffic was backed up on the multi-lane highway as people were unable to turn in to an already full lot.  We finally parked at a nearby bank, walked through another full parking lot, walked down the side of the highway to the funeral home where the line was spilling out of the door. We met many of my son’s tear-filled classmates, and I watched them hug and comfort each other one-by-one.  Kids I was used to seeing at football games and basketball games, school dances and field trips were now consoling one another as they tried hard to make sense of something so beyond our comprehension.  But in all this sadness and among all of the grief, we sat and watched the slideshow that was being projected, and we were all reminded of the joyous and servant life of this young friend.  There was picture after picture from church and school, from basketball and volunteering, serving in youth programs, and spending time with his closest friends and family.  Picture after picture of the friend that touched each of our lives so deeply.

Later that night, my son attended an away basketball game.  A game in which this young man would have played, a game that was rescheduled from the night before to give the team an opportunity to regroup.  Students arrived more than an hour early for this away game in which the opposing team joined our team in honoring this young man and presenting his jersey to his family.  Students from high school after high school from near and far were there remembering and sharing about this special kid.

On Thursday morning we journeyed with our son and his closest friends to say our final goodbyes to one of the nicest people any of us had ever met.  And I really mean that…person after person and friend after friend has shared what can only be summed up as this kid being the nicest person any of us had ever met.  During the eulogy his youth director found himself at a loss for words because it is difficult to describe just how genuine and kind of a person this young man was.  There was story after story of this kid going right up to someone and asking, “How are you?”  While this may seem simple and commonplace, the way he asked you, and the way he looked at you, and the way he listened made it anything but commonplace.

One of the most special and unforgettable moments during the service was when we had the opportunity to hear from this young man through a video recording that was taken his freshman year of high school.  He had been invited to speak to student-leaders from across the school district.  In this speech, he shared his mantra, his way of living life that he adopted when he was only in second grade.  After being diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, he had received a life-saving blood transfusion from an anonymous donor. Frustrated he would never know who had saved him, he had decided to treat everyone he ever met as if they were the one who had saved his life.  In his speech he asked that others “treat people as if they have done something crucial for you.”

The truth is, none of us know if we will have seventeen years or ninety-four.  But the truth is, we can all make a big impact on this world whether we serve our country or we serve the kid sitting next to us in class.  The truth is, it is in the little things, the everyday moments, the times we ask, “How are you doing?” that makes the biggest difference. What people will remember most about us is the way we treated them and the way we made each person feel.  The truth is, we can all live a life of service to one another and we can all treat each other as if they they are the ones who have “done something crucial for us.”  Such wise words from such a young man that has no doubt made a huge difference in so many lives.