Tag Archives: death

I wait for you Matthew Coleman Nix…

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The last few weeks are pretty much a blur at this point. I realized today that its been 18 days since I last decided to blog. I can’t seem to really remember what was going on 18 days ago other than my friend being in the hospital having blacked out on his birthday. Of course there was Thanksgiving which came and went almost without notice. That was quite the relaxing week actually, I had no classes to attend, worked once, and spent some time at a coffee shop writing a paper. It turned out to be the most relaxing bit of time I’ve had.

Last week I got a phone call. Things with my friend were not looking good. Even though I knew things were looking grim I didn’t entertain the idea that he would not get better. After all, this is the kid who no matter what he does excels at it. Why should fighting cancer be any different? As long as I knew him, it didn’t matter what it was, he was good, and by good, I mean miles ahead of the competition. Take golf for example. While for me, and many others, it is a good walk ruined, for him it was effortless. In high school he was a scratch golfer. I remember going to the driving range just to watch him show off. It was fun. People would “oohh” and “aahh” as he launched the range balls 30 feet higher than the fence. I would sit there, in awe of his talent and proud to be his friend.

But it wasn’t just golf he was good at. It was anything and everything. Guitar, a phenom. Art, a savant. Sleeping, a perfectionist. I mean it, this kid slept like it was his job in college. It pretty much happened anytime when he wasn’t slaving away in the art studio or plucking the strings of his guitar. He had many interests and was able to walk in many different worlds and so the thought never crossed my mind that he would succumb to something. Not him. No way in hell.

Then a week ago tonight I got a phone call. He passed away in his home. It was almost to surreal to deal with. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know how to react or what to say. I thought I would have been so overcome with tears, and those tear would come, but right after that phone call I was too shocked to do anything. But I did, my wife, my other best friend, his wife, we started calling people to inform them of the news. And then, we had a drink. It didn’t do much to numb me as I felt numb already. That numbness lasted the night and the next few days. Make no mistake, those next few days were excruciatingly painful and slow. I kept hoping the news I had heard was wrong. That this was all just some sick nightmare, but it wasn’t. He was gone. Funeral and wake information was released. Slide shows remembering him were created. People got together to begin the grieving process.

And then we attended the wake. He looked so different. Not the guy I had coffee and lunch with so many times over the last few months. Not the guy who stood up at our other best friend’s wedding and gave a surprising yet inspiring best man speech. Not the guy who would randomly text me about the lewd Paula Deen comment or random movie quotes.  His face was distorted, skin almost waxy, and a smile on his face that didn’t quite belong. I don’t mean that the funeral home did a bad job or anything, I just mean I looked in that casket and almost didn’t recognize my friend. It was hard. It made it harder to believe that everything that was going on was real.

But it was real. And the next day came the funeral. Up until Tuesday I had never been a pall bearer or given a eulogy,  that day I did both. Emotions were difficult to contain during the service. Especially when my eyes would find the casket decked out in flowers, one of which containing the phrase “Ey Yo Dirk.” That was the one that got me. It was from his brother and it was a nickname they shared. I don’t know how both were Dirk but they were. They were close too. I’ve never known brothers that close, which is what made it hard for me to look at. But it was not the hardest.

Carrying the casket isn’t difficult physically, but it tests your emotions. On the one had you are carrying your friend to his final resting place, ensuring he makes it there safe. But on the other you are putting him in the ground, only to be raised on that last day. And even though I know the story hasn’t quite ended for him, it was the sight of his coffin above his grave that caused me to loose it. I wouldn’t get to text him randomly. We wouldn’t go out for coffee or lunch. We wouldn’t hit up Kappy’s again or do a Taco Bell and John Wayne night. We wouldn’t get to randomly drive around or have a fire in his backyard just because we were bored. This was it. The finality of it all hit me in a way it hadn’t before. A way I can’t seem to stop thinking about.

As much as I think about my own sense of loss seeing as he was a dear friend, I wasn’t the only one.  He wasn’t my brother, he wasn’t my son. But he was Steve’s brother, he was Charlie and Bev’s son. And how they or anyone else made it through this last week and how they will make during the weeks to come I do not know. I keep telling people it feels like he still here. Like the “phantom limb” syndrome where people who have lost limbs still feel like they are there. I keep waiting for a text that I know is never coming. I keep hoping that we will all get together at his house or all go out to kappys tomorrow.

But it won’t happen. And I hate it. I miss him. I miss going out with him. I miss the stupid Ric Flair videos and chats about who the top 50 WWE Superstars of all time are. I miss the passing out in his basement not because we were actually tired but because we are bored. I miss the random movies he’d watch or the stories he’d tell about his trips to the goth club. I just miss my friend. All this week I have heard it time and again, “He’s in a better place.” Or, “He isn’t in pain now.” Or, “Now he’s with Jesus so everything is ok.” But everything is not OK. He should be here.

Death is not natural. If anything has convinced me of this it is this past week. Death is the ultimate enemy because of its finality. Death is not some grand part of the plan, it is what is resultant of the story taking a bad turn. People might argue that if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned and brought things into the world like death then there would be no need for a Savior. But that only serves as an attempt to lessen the blow felt by death. It serves to soften the harsh reality that death confronts us with. It is a theological marshmallow and while it may taste good it offers nothing to sustain you. Frankly, Im sick of hearing things like that, because I want my friggen friend back. I don’t care if death ended his pain. I don’t buy that garbage about God wanting him in heaven more than I want him here. But I don’t get what I want. And it sucks.

Only the situation is not void of hope. Because one day I will get what I want. I will get to see him live and breathe again. That is the hope of Christianity, the hope of the resurrection of the body. Even though his body was placed in the ground, one day it will be made whole and alive. The work of Christ, his suffering, death, and resurrection assures this. Not because I have the ability to claim it as my future, but because Christ has authored the story. He isn’t some plan B that happened about or some cosmic get out of jail free card. He is the one who broke through the other side and rendered death powerless. It is He who sends out the Spirit to comfort those who mourn with the hope that he purchased and won. It is he who reminds me that the story has not yet ended for my friend or any other friend that is a partaker of the resurrection to come.

And so I wait. I wait for the pain to go away, though Im not sure it ever will. I wait for the text I know will never come.  I wait for my hope not to disappoint. I wait for the return of the one who wrote the story. I wait for the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come.I wait for the moment I get to see my friend again, alive and well. I wait for you Matthew Coleman Nix because I miss you and I love you. I wait for you knowing that one day we will get to have another cup of coffee or whatever they serve that side of the resurrection. I wait for the moment I know will come, I just wish I didn’t have to…

the distant triumph song

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Tonight I had a well needed respite from a hectic week of research, paper writing, work, sickness, and internship stuff. But rather than spend tonight sitting on my duff, a group of close friends and I decided to resurrect a tradition we had back in undergrad. During finals week a we would find a time to tackle the most heinous of food establishments, a chinese buffet. The food was good, the place was packed, and the company was great.

It’s nice every now and again to revive traditions from the past. Somehow those rituals, no matter how mundane or involved they may be, have a way of turning the clock backward to a time when life seemed easier, at least for me it did. Back when that tradition of demolishing buffets began I was five years younger and much more naive. Although I knew my wife we were not anything near a couple.  I hadn’t encountered the thoughts, fears, and struggles that came with my time in St. Louis. I had hope that I could be the one to change everything, the hope that those things that needed changing actually could change. For a moment tonight I was that younger dumber kid, and it was fun.

There was another tradition today that also brought me back, only not as far as a few years ago. During the service this morning the church celebrated “All Saints Day.” It’s a day set apart to remember those who have died in the past year. Of course a name and a face ran through my head, but it wasn’t a famous one. It was Sarah. As a part of the service today one of the traditions used to remember those dead is going up and lighting a candle which then signifies their presence. As I lit my candle I thought of her. How she was the first person my own age that I knew had passed. How those moments upon hearing the news were surreal and uncertain. How her death has shaped my life in ways I don’t think our actual friendship ever did. Sure it was a somber moment, however, it was also one that didn’t leave me stranded in the past. But before I can talk about that future, it’s to the past I must go.

This past week I spent time sick and studying. Part of the focus of my study was the role of God and divine messengers in book of Revelation. For quite a long time this controversial book has captivated audiences and distressed them just the same. It has been fought over, struggled with, and mined for all its worth. While some laud it and others abhor it, this week it became apparent to me that this book is in some ways the most helpful book in the New Testament. Helpful not because it’s some sort of road map we can find one to one correlation to our current situation, but because of the picture it paints of the church. The picture of a church that suffers, that struggles, and that fights daily. But beyond that, beyond the picture of the broken church is the picture of the risen and victorious Lamb controlling the drama as it unfolds.

There is something to that imagery of a Lamb who was slain but is now victorious that I really appreciate. Perhaps it’s the notion that someone else is in control. Perhaps it’s the notion that a helpless and feeble lamb has overcome the fiercest of enemies, namely death.  In a way its both, but in a way its so much more than either. In the mind of John that Lamb is most assuredly Christ. That slaying took place at the cross yet in being slain that victory won. Won in the resurrection, where that helpless Lamb led to the slaughter busted through the other side of death and broke death’s claim over humanity. This Lamb attested to in the book of Revelation is why I think that book is so helpful, because it reminds us of that reality. The reality that death is not the end.

This is the future I was reminded of again this morning as I looked at all those burning candles. There is something that separates the Christian narrative from other religious narratives and it’s not that you get to go to heaven. I am not sure how this became the end goal of Christian thought though I do have my own cynical theories. However, I’m not sure approaching the hope we have in Christ is actually helpful. In my own experience it actually makes things a little more confusing. Christ becomes the stamp on our hand that gets us into the club rather than the Resurrected Lamb who was slain.

This is why I think that imagery is so important, because the Lamb’s end what not its death. Death could not hold that Lamb. And just as that Lamb broke through and turned death on its head, we too will live again. This is the hope, not that we get to heaven, but that death is not our end. That in Christ we have died already. That just as he was the first to rise from the dead we too will one day rise again. I don’t know what that is going to look like when it happens or what it all means to sort this out as we continue to breathe here on the earth. But what I do know is that I’m tired of pretending the hope we have in Christ is one that allows us to escape suffering.

What makes us think that believing in God is going to make everything better? Yea I know there are verses about living life abundantly but I wonder what that means. What if living an abundant life meant a life lived without fear. No fear of today. No fear of tomorrow. No fear of the next day or the day after that. Not because all your bills are paid or your fridge is full, but because that fear that unites humanity has been removed from your life. That fear of dying, of not being remembered after you breathe your last, that fear that you won’t be able to provide and continue to matter after your time has passed. But that is not something we have to fear, because death is not the end.

I know I sound like a broken record. Perhaps you could care less about anything I’ve written here, but that isn’t going to stop me from writing it because as much as I want you to have the mind blowing realization that I have, I’m writing this because its hard to believe, and I need to remind myself of it. Life and death routinely frighten me to my core. I don’t know if bills are always going to get paid, if food is always going to be on the table. In fact, there have been many times money hasn’t been there when it was needed. But even more than that I wonder what will happen to my wife if I should die tonight. I wonder if I’m living this life for nothing. If the work I’m putting in and pushing toward is going to matter. And no matter how much I try to figure it all out I can’t and it scares me.

But that is why I write. To remind myself and hopefully remind someone else too. Because these things, though they matter, are not my ultimate end. There will come a time when I no longer matter to this world, but thats ok, because that is not my end. My end is with that Lamb who was slain. My end is on the other side of death. My end is the beginning of a life resurrected. My end is, as the old hymn goes, in that distant triumph song. The song sung by the Lamb. The song sung in the scriptures. The song sung by the church. And sung by a life lived in that reality.

for the craziest one of us all, Steve Jobs…

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Many of you know that I spent near a year of my life working for what I consider to be the best company, ever. Never had I felt so valued by those above and beside me and never was I so full of purpose that every day I came to work knowing I was going to change lives. The time I spent at Apple contains some of the greatest memories and friendships I was ever privileged to cultivate. Even though its been a couple of months since I was last lucky enough to pull on that shirt and lanyard todays news hit me at a deeper level.

I never met him. I never knew him. I never came close. But being a part of the Apple family made me feel like he was the patriarch of our clan. The one we were all somehow connected to and the one we all looked to for the next big thing. And although he stepped down six weeks ago and the torch was successfully passed to Tim Cook, he was always the one we looked to fondly for inspiration.

Being a part of the retail section of the company came with its struggles. Launch days aside, it seemed most days we never had a free moment. Busy as busy can be and even then some. Feet hurt, voice almost gone, but we still pushed on. Helping people, repairing relationships, and creating new ones so that someones life might be changed. It was what we did. Its what Apple does. Its what made Steve who he was in the minds of all of us who have been affected by him.

And now he’s gone. Like everyone else eventually will, Steve has passed. As the world began to mourn the loss of one who irrevocably changed it, a friend of mine posted this on his Facebook. “Steve Jobs was an inspiring man and I loved his products. But I think it there is something telling about hundreds of thousands of people tweeting and status updating him in memoriam with their expensive Apple tech while daily thousands die hungry, cold, homeless, lonely, Godless, amidst war, terror, famine, and strife, having never made a buck, much less millions, or a popular impact. But the question is: Should they need to do those things in order to garner our blood, sweat, and tears?”

At first I was a little frustrated because of the connection I felt to him. The connection I know others who have or still don that blue shirt feel. But despite that frustration I knew he was right. People die every day. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. Death happens every day to those who know its coming and to those who are surprised by it. And although I am not one to romanticize death and pretend it doesn’t suck I have to admit that sometimes I feel one death matters more to me than another. But it shouldn’t.

John Donne famously penned…

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

This quote has shaped me in ways I cannot begin to explain because it recognizes that we are all a part of this broken thing we call humanity. We are all involved. Steve Jobs. Matt Borrasso. The guy on the street. The kid in the mansion. All of us. And when one of us goes, a part of us all goes with them. Its easy to forget the masses that die each day because they often perish away from news cameras and social media outlets but their deaths are no less tragic.

One of the hallmark ads of Apple was “Think Different.” That famous campaign epically changed the landscape of Apples image and launched it into the next decade. But for me its not the computer that makes the ad powerful, its the notion that there are crazy ones. There are those who think different and they are the ones to change the world. So the question is, if Steve did it, if MLK did it, if so many others have irrevocably changed the world why can’t I? Why can’t we all?

The world will never become a utopia. It will never be the idealized society thought about by many visionaries and philosophers but that doesn’t mean it can’t change and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We may never be able to end abuse but we can make a difference in the lives of those who experienced it. We may never be able to end world hunger but that doesn’t mean we can’t feed those in our neighborhood who hunger. We may never be able to end poverty but that doesn’t mean we ignore those who don’t sleep under a roof or have a computer to blog from.

So often I think its easy to be blindsided by the big picture. Problems are too big for me to handle. The situation is too far gone. Its a futile effort, after all we are all going to die anyway. And speaking of death, I’m so afraid of it I can’t actually get past the idea that life isn’t about me. That fear is paralyzing. That fear that we won’t be remembered. That once we draw that last breath its all over so I need to get the most of my life that I can. That fear that reminds us the problems are too big.

Perhaps its is best then to return to the man that I started writing about, to Steve. In his address to Stanford in 2005 Steve spoke the following, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Death and fear are not something to run from, but something to confront. That is truly what thinking different is all about. Knowing that life is going to throw you more curve balls than you can hit. Knowing that problems are too big for one person to handle. Knowing that in the end I might actually be forgotten and choosing in the face of that to change the world is truly revolutionary. But it isn’t easy. Its going to take the crazy ones. The square pegs in the round holes. Those who defy conventional wisdom. The ones who think they might actually be able to change the world.

thank you Sarah…

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Tuesday of this week began like any other. I woke up early, as my wife and I have lost the ability to sleep in. I stepped out of the room for just a minute to find one thing or another and upon my return noticed a missed call and a text. Most days I tend to ignore things like this, a “if something is important they’ll call back” approach. That morning my approach was buttressed by the fact that the missed call was from someone with a young child, and I figured the kid accidentally dialed me. But the text, this was one I couldn’t ignore. My response to the text was met with a, hang on I’ll call you soon, but I could not wait for that so I cooked up a story about being at work, which was going to happen, just not until 1pm. It was then I was told that a friend from college was found dead in her apartment the day before. I was shocked.

My mind began to race with questions. How? Who found her? What happened? But at the time little was known and if it was known, people weren’t saying much. Those questions gave way to others. Who knows? How are my other friends taking it? How can I help? After texting a few other people and making some other phone calls I realized that there was no way I could handle going to work that day. Needless to say my mental and emotional state became compromised and it would stay that way for the next 48 hours.

To be sure there were others closer to her than me. In fact, I hadn’t seen or heard from her since graduation a couple of years ago. All I knew was that she ended up working out in Colorado and seeing as I was no where near there, she faded from my mind. Going to the small liberal arts college that I did, it was hard not to know just about everyone. She was part of my larger group of friends throughout school. We would all eat meals together in the cafeteria, watch movies together, and of course, shoot the shit at the bars every once in a while. But like every group of friends there were those times when conversations became heated, sarcastic remarks were made, and feelings were hurt. And as much as I would love to believe that I never really hurt someone with my sarcasm I know I’ve pissed off and hurt more than a few. My relationship with her would vacillate between the former and the latter all throughout college. That day of graduation was the last I would see of her, never giving it a second thought until I got that text letting me know she had passed.

This is the first time in my life I have dealt with the death of someone my own age. I did not know how to handle it. In a word it was surreal. It did not seem like the conversations I was having throughout the day about her were real. Surely someone from that group of friends could not all of a sudden be dead, I mean, we are all mid twenties, on the way to starting our post collegiate lives. In an instant though, it all changed. The meaning of certain things in life was suddenly no where to be found. My job for example. I love where I work. I have never worked for a better company or have known that I am valued by my managers and coworkers, not only as an employee but as a person. Yet, the 48 hours that followed that text called in to question the value of what I was doing. I even considered quitting my job because of the lack of meaning it suddenly held for me. After all, essentially all I do is sell people things, things they can’t take with them. Sure now the toys are wonderful and enrich your life, but in an instant all of that can change.

Throughout my college years I wanted to become a pastor in the denomination I grew up in. I saw so much corruption and became jaded and full of disgust for both the theology and practice and thought it was up to me to change it. And as I went to sem and saw other people chewed up and spit back out by the machine I decided I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was not going to waste my time with a bunch of people who care more about protecting their own collective rear ends instead of caring for those entrusted to their care. So I left. I quit. I gave up. I got married, found a job, and almost walked away from it all completely. But inside me I knew I couldn’t stay away from those theological circles. I have a mind for it and I know it is my place. So I came back to a different sem to finish what I started and hopefully move on to another arena. But these last few days have showed me something else, something I don’t think I could have learned without that text. Philosophical and theological assertions matter, they do, but its not worth fighting over. Its not worth losing people over. Its not worth pissing people off just to be right. What matters are not ideas, not systems, not assertions, but people. Flesh and blood.

I want anyone reading this to know that I love you. No matter who you are. No matter what you have done. No matter what your stance on an issue is. If I have ever pissed you off, frustrated you, or hurt you I am sorry. You matter. Your life matters. Your existence enriches mine because we are both a part of humanity. For so many years I have hid behind a veil of sarcasm because I was afraid to let people know how much I actually care about them. But life is too short. I can’t hide anymore. I cannot change what has happened in the past. I wish I could. But the fact remains she is gone and that is one relationship I will never have a chance at deepening.

I don’t know where I go from here or what any of this means for my life tomorrow and the next day. But I do know this…

Sarah Walker, your life and death have impacted me in ways nobody, not even me, expected, and in ways you will never know. Our friendship, the way I treated you, good and bad, taught me more in the last couple of days than I have learned in the last couple of years. Thank you for teaching me its ok to show people I care because now I know that I may never get the chance.