He lived most of his first year+ in the hospital...
It didn't diminish his "cool factor", though.
He loved being a big brother!
Which just made him think he was cooler...
He loved to fish and hunt.
And always liked to look snazzy!
Or decked out in hunting gear!
A jack of all trades...he loved to cook too!
He had a serious side...
And always worked hard in school.
He loved gummi worms and root beer...
and acting like a dork.
He loved his mom and dad.
And put up with all of us ;)
But, most of all he was loved by many...
You did good...really good..
ReplyDeleteBittersweet, but great - thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt was hard to do...some years are just harder.
ReplyDeleteI recall the last time I talked to Luke. As I remember it, he was actually being wheeled off to surgery, on his way to receive a new set of lungs, and a new heart. Who does that, anyway? Gets a new heart? Anyway, the way I have remembered it, I was the last person to talk to Luke before he went away to surgery. That may not be true, and I would like any correction to it if it's not, but I always have held that close to me, that I got to do that.
ReplyDeleteI was supposed to travel down in the next few weeks to see him, but he was moved up to have the surgery before I had a chance to go down there. I always felt pretty guilty about that, not being able to see him before it all went down. I think that is where the tattoo arose from, that guilt. I had in a certain sense put my career above him, my family. I could have made the time. After he died, my schedule instantly freed. My colleagues at Seattle Lutheran came together, on a whim, and gave us almost $500 out of their pockets to help with expenses to get back for the funeral. For the rest of my life, I will always remember that kind of kindness.
I was teaching that morning. My principal came to the classroom and told me I had a phone call. I walked the length of the building to the office, went into the back nook, and picked up the phone. It was Dad. I don't recall what was said. I sat on that couch, that old, hand-me-down couch that you see in Lutheran school teacher's lounges, for what seemed like a really, really long time. It was probably about 10 minutes. I wasn't crying when my fellow teacher Julie came and sat down, but I had been. She was unaware of any of what was going on, and casually asked how my morning had been going. I told her not well, my younger brother had just died. She looked at me shocked, simultaneously ashamed of her naivete and somewhat bewildered and offended at my bluntness, all while genuinely sad. It was her card later, though, that has always stayed with me. It included a excerpt from the Bhagavad Gita. I passed it on to a student some years later, when her brother died from an accidental drug overdose.
I don't remember much else of the day itself.
All the meaningful details, both good and bad, come back when we sit and think about it. Thanks, Jake.
ReplyDelete