We Were Meant to Live

 Dear Aaron,

It's a new year, a new Church season (Epiphany). It's a new season of life for me, as I'm about to get married. And there is a new recording of Switchfoot's Meant to Live that I wish you could hear. I've known this song for twenty years, but this recording breaks my heart almost every time I hear it. It makes me think of you. It makes me miss you. And it makes me cry. 

We were meant to live for so much more, my friend. There's no going back in time to tell you, to remind you, to help you believe that you were meant to live life abundantly. In those last years there was no way for me to help you live inside. I can't imagine what 'inside of you' was like for you... All I can do is sit in the gloaming listening to this song soar inside of me. Somewhere inside of me a little piece of you lives. Your life glows like an ember in my own heart. You touched me and it changed who I was—who I am. Your friendship shaped my life in so many ways... You made my world bigger. Did you know that you did that? That you could do that?

Fumbling his confidence and wondering

Why the world has passed him by

Hoping that he's bent for more than arguments

And failed attempts to fly

This was what the world might have seen from the outside... A shy and quiet chap who lacked confidence and direction. I happen to know you felt like the world had passed you by, like you were a failure of sorts. But you just didn't fit into the world's mold... You wanted 'more than this world has to offer' while 'everything inside screamed for second life.' You saw the world with different eyes. The problem was that you felt the opposite tug of what society dictated you should do and who you were—what you were truly made for: to show your corner of the world beauty and light and hope through new eyes. 

We were meant to live for so much more, 

have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside...

That tug inside of you pulled you into a place you weren't made for. You remained yourself in that space, but I think the strain became too much. At some point, something snapped and you lost yourself. I don't think you ever lost your True Anchor, but you did lose your true self enough that you quit living at all. 

How do I reconcile this, my friend? How do any of us cope with your absence? It's been five years, four months, and three days since you stopped living inside and out. But I stop to remind myself that you are now more alive than I am. You are with Life Himself. With the Author of all Hope, all Life. And in other ways you are still living on in the lives you touched, mine included. You being with Jesus (and not here) doesn't stop me from loving you and missing you and wishing things were different. 

We were meant to live for so much more.     You...     Me...    Anyone reading this. 

We were made in the glorious image of the incomparable, multifaceted, life-giving, imaginative God of the universe. We were made for a purpose. For life. For love. For relationship. We were made for so much more than the crumbs this world has to offer. Let us prepare a sumptuous feast for those around us with our words, actions, and lives. And let us feast on the Word of Life Himself, who gave Himself for us that we might live eternally.

* Meant To Live (Jon Bellion Version) — Switchfoot, Jon Bellion

The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version) [Deluxe Edition] © 2023

Seriously, if you haven't listened to this version, do yourself a favour and go somewhere by yourself with a good speaker... Play it as loud as you dare.

We Are Once In a Lifetime

Dear Aaron,

Did you think I forgot? Because I didn't. I called your mom on 3 September. Last weekend I hiked around the area where I carved your name into a fallen tree five years ago. The Switchfoot playlist that gave words to my aching has been on repeat all month. Tears have definitely rimmed my eyes on repeat, too.

I was re-reading some of your thoughts/poems earlier this month... You had good thoughts, friend. You had good taste in lyrics. In poetry. And goodness knows you had more patience for certain literature than I do. 

You know that dark blue plaid shirt of yours? It is ringed with holes now... I sleep with it every night I'm not travelling. There is something comforting in its tangibility—like there is with your letters. I just like seeing them, holding them, reading them. 

You left an indelible mark on me, Aaron Eugene Hennig. The mark of friendship. The mark of one who has known a similar sorrow and tried to walk with me through my own, even when you didn't always know how, and I didn't always recognise your efforts. 

You know what I do recognise? You were once in a lifetime. My ticket to Oxford and Alaska and Rhode Island. My ticket to a land of imagination and Beauty, reminding me there is Hope—and He is the Anchor for our souls. 

Do you have any idea how mad I am that you went ahead of me? Or how much it hurt to have you leave, both five years ago and all those years ago after I came to Alaska? You walked out of our friendship because I was me and not someone else. Or maybe because that 'someone else' was taking up too much space inside of you. 

Do you remember writing about how some people take up more space inside than you wanted to give them? I remember, not only because I've re-read your letters so much in the past handful of years, but because I understand that feeling from the inside. Some people want to take up more space than you have to give...and some people that you have vast treasures of storeroom for don't want to take up much (or any) space inside of you. We can't always choose these things.

What are you waiting for?

The day is gone. . .

I said, I'm waiting for dawn

...

Every now and then I see you dreaming

Every now and then I see you cry

Every now and then I see you reaching

Reaching for the other side*

Your reached it, friend. Aslan's own country. The other side from here. The end (which was only the beginning!) of your dreams. You found the womb of the dawn you were waiting for. The mental clarity you were reaching for with fingers wiggling, straining to reach just a little more.

May all of your days shine brightly

And your nights be blessed with peace

Wherever you lay down to sleep

And all things are made good

For those who believe

May you grow from a seed

Into a strong, fruitful tree**

___

Aaron, you are a tree, my friend. 

Not "you were"—somehow, you still are.

. . .

*Switchfoot "Red Eyes"

**Josh Garrels "Benediction"

The Price of Loving Fiercely

“I’d believed—fool that I was—that because I knew this end was coming, I was prepared, that I would not grieve as hard. As if one can pre-grieve and get it out of the way. It’s not true. Grief is the price I paid for loving fiercely, and that was okay, because there was no other choice but to love fiercely and fully.”

― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe 

Dear Aaron,

The fog of a freezing frost is settling in my valley this evening, friend. I hope to wake to a glittering world of beauty and delight—a sort of Eden splashed over all I can see. Sometimes I think other people want that for grief. . . For some joy to splash over one's world and cover over the grief, leaving only shimmering Beauty where once there was pain. But like hoarfrost, those moments are just that: moments. The pain leaks back through like mud beneath the snow. The ever-present stain of grief is the price paid for loving fiercely and fully.

A while back I had someone whom I consider a close friend tell me that perhaps there was something wrong with me for still grieving you stepping out of life—not just out of mine, but out of your life. To this day that comment still rankles in my soul, because the loss of you will not go away while I'm still living. You will always be gone now. Oh, one day I will cross the Great Gulf and join you in the Kingdom, but who can say when? And until then, we are separated. That doesn't quit or stop or go away. Just like your birthday is always your birthday, even if you're not here to celebrate it. It's your birthday just the same. . .the day before mine, every year. 

It was a full day with an appointment, work, small group, and exhaustion. But I thought of you, of course I did. Each time I had to write the date on every page of the chiropractor forms. When I was running a mailing and setting the stamp date. When I texted your parents and sister. Of course I knew it was your day. And of course I missed you, even if I spent the evening with dear friends. None of them were you.

I miss getting to know you. I have pieces of your thoughts and heart penned in about twenty letters spanning about five years. I have three months (plus a week) of shaky memories of the time we spent in the same place, often together. But I've forgotten too much of those weeks, days, and hours. My mind and my life are full, always edging out memory unless I sit with it, stoke it, tend to it. And yet... There is a hole where you should be. Where I should still be able to write or receive a letter, where we should still be able to talk on the phone or visit one another. We should still be getting to know each other. And we aren't. I miss what we had; but perhaps even more, I miss what we never got to have. 

Lately the pain has been something like a branch beneath the hoarfrost of dating someone I truly love. He's very different from you, but also he reminds me of you in some ways. But even the wonder of a sweet relationship doesn't cover the pain of loss forever. Perhaps the mud seeps through the snow a little less often right now, but I still think about you every day. I still miss writing real letters to you—letters I can drop in the mail and have you receive at the other end of the line. I still raised a mug of tea (caramel-coconut-sesame) in a toast to you on your birthday. And I still believe that if the Lord allows you to see through the veil—to know the love of those who miss you—then you know that already.

Here's to the twilight
Here's to the memories
These are my souvenirs
My mental pictures of everything
Here's to the late nights
Here's to the firelight
These are my souvenirs
My souvenirs

I close my eyes and go back in time
I can see you're smiling, you're so alive
We were so young, we had no fear
We were so young, we had no idea
That life was just happening
Life was just happening

Here's to your bright eyes
Shining like fireflies
These are my souvenirs
The memory of a lifetime. . .

—Switchfoot, Souvenirs 

Though I'm a little later than the day of, happy birthday, friend. I miss you. The mud and blood beneath the snow still surface. But one day the glittering frost will melt into Spring and I will see you again. We can get to know each other more then, my friend. Until the Kingdom comes, I will pay the price of loving fiercely and fully. Until then, here's hail! to the rest of the road.

Love,
Johanna

My Only Remedy

 

 

Dear Aaron,

"Unmerited favor is my only remedy." Do you remember writing that to me a hundred years ago? You spelled "unmerited" with two rs, if that helps.

Four years. . . It's been four years since that September day that you left me behind. Sometimes it feels like forever ago; sometimes it feels like I just found out. I don't wake up immediately thinking that you're gone every day now, but I do think about you every day. Did you know that? Did you know that I still miss you when it rains? And when September rolls around, I close my eyes and go back in time. . . I think about all those years ago when we were prepping the Lodge, meeting everyone for the first time, not knowing we were about to become something altogether bigger than the sum of our parts: family.

This spring I stumbled across some photos from your student session at Summit...it was like finding buried treasure. You looked so happy and alive. I know you're more alive now than you ever were before, but that doesn't fix things on this side. It doesn't stop these tears from flowing. It doesn't make me stop missing you on rainy days. Or every other day that I also miss you.

Sometimes I still wonder. . . What if I had called that summer? I never got to say goodbye, you know. And while I don't think you would have talked to me, I still wish I would have tried. I wish I could have said thank you for all the things you taught me; the generosity you spilled out on me. I didn't say it then, but I can say it now: Thank you, Aaron. Thank you for Oxford, for making my world bigger and sprinkled with beauty, for giving me the chance to meet my best friend, for all those nuggets of wisdom you were always strewing about in your letters. . .for helping me like Switchfoot. 

Every now and then I see you dreaming
Every now and then I see you cry
Every now and then I see you reaching,
Reaching for the other side. . .

What are you aiming for

Out here alone?

[You] said "I'm aiming for home"

You're home. You've reached the other side. And the world is a poorer place for your relocation. I know, because I am a richer person for knowing you, and I feel your departure keenly. 

Most people don't really understand the scars I carry with me because of my love for you, friend. They don't get you—but in all fairness, I spent the majority of our friendship not really "getting" you, either. We shared some similar sadness, loneliness, and loves. But you were and always will be light years ahead of me in perception. 


When it comes down to it, until the Kingdom comes fully, grief leaves us bleeding and broken, with unmerited favour as our only remedy.

❤ always,

Johanna

* "Red Eyes" Switchfoot, Jon Forman 

I Shall but Love Thee Better after Death. . .

Dear Aaron,

Why do I still write to you? The last note I received from you was seven years ago next month. Seven. Years. And of those seven years, you have been gone two years, four months, and two days. 

I suppose I write for the reason I always did. . .you are my beloved friend. Reading your letters has taught me much, both then and now as I re-read them. And I always felt like writing to you in particular brought my thoughts together in ways that didn't happen with anyone else. Oh, I wasn't brilliant or particularly deep, but when I put pen to paper for you, it was like all the synapses snapped, all the thoughts aligned, all the pieces came together into a full picture. Writing to you made my world bigger, my thoughts clearer...it made me a deeper, richer person than I was. That has never happened in such a way with any other correspondent-friend. 

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.”

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

Perhaps it sounds a little selfish, but I think the heart of Miss Browning's above lines is this: you are such an inspiring person that those who are given the gift of truly knowing you can't help but become better because of you. 

She's right, you know. So many times I have mourned the loss of your friendship, and then the loss of your life—and in that, I've mourned the loss of part of myself. Some part of myself was diminished when you shut me out of your life—and that part of me died with you, Aaron. I grieve that the world is a poorer place without you, you generous soul. I grieve that your family keenly feels your absence. And I grieve the loss of beauty, cheer, and depth I once had when we were so regularly in touch. 

There have been persons in my life who seemed to call out the worst in me; I did not like myself when I was around them. My family and friends didn't like who I was when such persons were in my life. But you weren't like that. You called my mind and heart to soar upward; to look toward God's Beauty, reflected in nature and poetry and music. You inspired (breathed life into) me to want to read more, think more, live more, experience more. I love the part of me that you brought out. I mourn that part of myself, now buried with you. And I eagerly await the renewal and resurrection of that part of me in the New Kingdom. It will be refined and redeemed... To know you again, not as we did, but in a much fuller way, will bring out a facet in me (and you!) that we only had a glimpse of during the years we were friends.

I can only pray that my own friendship, such as it was, inspired you and made your life somehow better, friend. And I pray that in the New Kingdom we will continually draw out the good in one another, calling one another "Further up, and further in!"

As I read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's gentle lines again, I realised why I still write to you, Aaron. I still write to you because I still love you. I will always love you. I love who you were. I love who you inspired and encouraged me to be. And I can't wait to get to learn to love you anew in the Kingdom Coming. It will be a different love there—a love pure and untainted by selfishness or any fallen thing. Loving you in the Kingdom will be something glorious that our earthly friendship could only catch a glimmer of.

I love you, friend. I love much of what you love. I love your sincerity and earnestness. I love your love for Beauty. I love your silliness and exuberance (from ringing bells to quoting poetry on tables and playing guitar until people hollered at you). I love your generosity. I love your unquenchable thirst for wonder and for knowledge. I just love YOU. And I miss you. Oh, friend, I miss you. So. Much.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

From the places you've been torn. . .

"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve—even in pain—the authentic relationship. 

Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

______

Emptiness. I have felt its greed in my heart and in my body. There is a permanent hole in my heart while I walk on this side of the Kingdom coming, and God Himself does not fill that emptiness. He is leaving that slow-bleeding hollow right where it is. It is that absence that somehow makes me feel your presence more sharply, Aaron. 

For years there was an Aaron-shaped empty-space where you should have been in my life. You didn't just drift away, as so many friends do when life carries us along. You were sharply cut away from me one winter's day in Alaska. You became a stranger to me over the course of time, and in a particular instant you saw me as a stranger to you from then on. No one understood the ache I carried inside of me from that encounter. I didn't even understand it really. I didn't know how deep the wound went until that parting shaft was ripped out one September day, the barb leaving a gaping hole in its reverse exit. 

No words could fill that hole. No friendship on earth could patch up that wound. But when I read Bonhoeffer's above quotation, it resonated all the way down the path of that still-bleeding laceration. "It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness." He leaves the torn up place to allow us in that empty, painful ache to connect with the one we've lost: "For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled, one remains connected to the other person through it."

How strange. In those five years where even my closest Semester friendships began to wane, I felt a deep connection with you—the friend who had abandoned me. When you ended your precious life, the pain was unbearable precisely because you had already left an empty place, unfilled all those years, where my connection to you was strong. It remains strong. That emptiness makes me curl up in a ball and ache sometimes, because absolutely nothing can fill it except you. And nothing I can do will get me to you. Only God can do that, and this isn't the right time yet. 

"Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation." I have forgotten so many details, moments, jokes, and sayings of our time together at Semester... Certainly I have forgotten more than the ones I can and do remember. But I treasure what I remember. I treasure your letters. You taught me things while we corresponded, but you have taught me much more through those same words years and years later. And the more I understand what you were saying, the more deeply I value your mind and heart, your self. Thus, the more difficult the separation. The assuaging answer isn't to forget or to stop reading your letters. Though there is intense pain in the separation, there is profound healing in remembering, especially in remembering together with your family or our friends.

For years I have felt that all I had to offer God was emptiness. Empty hands. An empty heart. Empty desires. Empty relationships. Empty arms. An empty shell. The times I've been the wisest (though they felt the most foolish) were the ones where all I had was emptiness to offer on the altar to God. Now I begin to learn that the very empty places are the ones where I find connection to the person or dream or thing that is missing. It's not the connection I would choose. The ache can be debilitating sometimes. I would give much to reach out and wrap you in a hug once again, my arms full rather than empty.

Until the Kingdom comes in its fullness and we run to the Supper of the Lamb together, I will try to remember that God isn't filling the hole, He isn't fixing the ache, and He isn't covering over the emptiness...so that I am still able to feel connected to you. Not in an idealised or idolised way, but in a  way that beckons me "Further up and further in! "

Love always,
Johanna

_____

Title: 

This is the hole

Where most of your soul

Comes ripping out

From the places you've been torn

(From"Always" by Switchfoot)

He Makes My Griefs to Sing

Wounded I sing, tormented I indite, Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest: Sorrow hath chang’d its note: such is his will, Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best. . . . . .I live to shew his power, who once did bring My joyes to weep, and now my griefs to sing. — George Herbert

“...Songs, like trees, bear fruit only in their own time and their own way: and sometimes they are withered untimely.”  

—Treebeard (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King)

And so it is with people. Sometimes they are withered untimely. 

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

Nine months have gone by, and still the fallout of your untimely withering haunts me and hurts me. I saw who you could be. The poet you were...the poet you could have been, the world will never know. You died untimely, Aaron. I feel the tension of who you were and who you became—and who you could have become if...if 'how it is' and 'how it should be' somehow were different. What if how it is were changed to how it should be? You would still be here. We would still be friends. 

Or would that be how it should be? 

No one is ever told what would have been... And who can say how it should be, except the Maker Himself? You would still be here, I believe—but perhaps we would still be separated. Friendships grow, but they can also change and they can wither, too. I know that is okay, but sometimes I really hate it. I don't want to not be friends. I don't want you to be gone. I don't want to bear this perpetually bleeding wound... Because I want you to still be you. I want you to still be alive and 'normal.' I want to still be friends. I want that to be how it should be. But I don't get to be in control.


Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?

Salvation is here

"Where can you run to escape from yourself?" If only I knew. I think you wanted to know, too. To escape from the torn, tortured part of your mind. And honestly, I want to run from the ugly, mean, revolting me that I too often am. I want to escape the things and the people who overwhelm and suffocate me. And I think you did, too. I evade and hedge and hide... You took a more drastic route to escape from yourself. I think I understand, a very little bit. I am trying to forgive you for leaving me...for leaving your family...for leaving a broken world that needed your songs. 

Only God's forgiveness to me in my brokenness fuels my love, my ability to forgive. And I know His forgiveness inspired you. Do you remember penning this: "Unmerited favour is my only remedy"? You did...and it rings in my memory like a clear bell-cry. Unmerited favour is my only remedy! Indeed. 

When Redemption is fully perfected in the Kingdom-coming, I want to hear its stories. I want to hear redemption in your story...to see how it threads through and plays out. Will you tell me the story? Will you teach me the language of the Kingdom? Will you help my tongue and heart live the words and ways of the Kingdom? 


When it feels like surgery And it burns like third degree And you wonder what is it worth? When your inside's breaking in And you feel that ache again And you wonder What's giving birth?

If you could let the pain of the past go Of your soul None of this is in your control If you could only let your guard down You could learn to trust me somehow I swear, that I won't let you go If you could only let go your doubts If you could just believe in me now I swear, that I won't let you go

Nine months later and this song still makes me cry.

Jon Foreman said this about I Won't Let You Go: "If the Author of time and space, the one who breathed my soul into existence, were to sing me a song about trust, it might go something like this, 'I love you and I won’t let you go.' I believe that where you put your trust begins to define you."

Where you put your trust begins to define you. I've put my trust in myself, in my friends, in my family. I've had friends leave me, annoy me, and/or smother me. A friend recently asked if I got tired of them... My response was honest, "I get tired of myself and can't get away from me. So yeah, I get tired of everyone I know at some point. The only exception is God. I don't get tired of Him." I've put my trust in people (myself included) who let me down, who don't satisfy, who don't know what to do or what I need. For a season of my life, I even put some of my trust in you, Aaron. I trusted that you were a first-friend—someone who understood gloaming and poetry, who had seen the grey-green wave in the sunrise, who would be my friend in rough times. In many ways, you were and you did.

But my ultimate trust can't be in any creature or creation. As wonderful as people are, as much as mountains and pine trees and rivers are 'home,' they will fail me, even hurt me. It isn't that we shouldn't trust others or not revel in creation. If we first trust God to love us and to not let us go—even when we want to let go and are tired of ourselves—then we can trust others and love them and creation. But if we don't truly trust God first, how can we trust or love anyone or anything else?

There ain't no darkness strong enough
that could tear you out from my heart There ain't no strength that's strong enough
that could tear this love apart Never gonna let you go

It's still true. Though Treebeard also says, "Never is too long a word, even for me" I dare to say it, with God's help. Because eternity is both now and to come. And for eternity I will hold on to the love and friendship you gave to me. Not in a grasping, hoarding way, but as a handhold on the face of the mountain as I climb toward the Lord. I will hold on for dear life—because life is dear. Your love, your generosity, the beauty and wonder of your soul are supports for me on this path. I could not proceed—I would not be where I am today—without those holds you provided. Your friendship has changed me, deepened me, strengthened me...made me more like Christ. Thank you, Aaron. I love you and I miss you, friend.

~ Me

I close my eyes and go back in time. . .

Dear Aaron,

Sometimes I'm afraid of forgetting... Forgetting the sound of your voice (thank God for recordings). Forgetting the real you—afraid of making an idol out of who I think you were. I've been afraid of forgetting what it feels like to bleed; not that I enjoy the wound, but the pain means I'm not numb.

The last few weeks have been strange. I've been happy and hollow. Lonely and sad for other reasons. I've felt distance between myself and reality. I've been angry. I've been scared. And I've been running from what I want, though I don't know why. I felt like I didn't have permission to grieve. Like I was avoiding it until I was in a safe place. But to avoid grief means it takes time to reacquaint myself with that beast who, it turns out, is also my friend.

In some ways, I feel like I'm near you in the grief. And it comes whirling in when I am alone in my kitchen, listening uninterruptedly to Switchfoot. When I hear someone in a film give voice to what it feels like to lose a belovéd. The emptiness I've been holding at bay rushes in like a rising tide, sweeping over a floodgate. The words awaken something inside of me. . .

Here's to the twilight Here's to the memories These are my souvenirs My mental pictures of everything Here's to the late nights Here's to the firelight These are my souvenirs My souvenirs

How did they know? About twilight being the time when poetry sings the clearest? How did they know about the mental images of the Lodge? Of several of us piled on the couches by the wood stove, late into the night, listening to Dave read about the Old Squire? How did they know about the sharp, brief images of the van ride to Denver, your lanky self on the floor, drinking in all the conversations? Of the crisp picture of you on the trail at the Continental Divide? So many memories have faded, blurred, and been lost forever. . . But the snatches and moments I have still are like leaves of silver and gold.
I close my eyes and go back in time I can see you're smiling, you're so alive We were so young, we had no fear We were so young, we had no idea That life was just happening Life was just happening

This is the part that makes me weep. . . When I close my eyes and go back in time, I of course see you smiling. It hurts that you were so alive then but aren't now. But no. What am I saying? Of course you are so much more alive now. . . How can you be so alive and yet I feel so hollow?
Here's to your bright eyes Shining like fireflies These are my souvenirs The memory of a lifetime We were wide-eyed with everything Everything around us We were enlightened by everything Everything

Remember being both bright-eyed and wide-eyed? Remember the unquenchable thirst for good books? It was like Semester was a salt you could never get out of your mouth—giving savour to everything, and simultaneously bequeathing an unending thirst. And your firefly-eyes lit up at the prospect of those pages yet to be read and known and loved.
So I close my eyes and go back in time I can see you smiling, you're so alive I close my eyes and go back in time You were just a child then, and so was I We were so young, we had no fear We were so young, we had no idea That nothing lasts forever Nothing lasts forever Nothing lasts You and me together Were always now or never

Nothing lasts forever. . .even when it feels like it always will. Like we will always be friends, of course. What could possibly change enough to change that? And in some ways, that is true. Our Semester class will always be family, no matter how many years go by without communication. But some things change the core of who we are. Like Semester changed the core and trajectory of our lives, so does mental illness—so does death.

I wish I had known it was 'now or never' and visited you in Rhode Island. I wish I had made those memories with you that haunt the hollows in the woods and the corners of your parents' home. But when do we know in the moment that it is now or never? We don't, and we take for granted the life we are given. Can you hear me? I close my eyes and go back in time I can see you smiling, you're so alive I close my eyes and go back in time You were wide-eyed, you were wide-eyed
We were so young, we had no fear We were so young, we had just begun A song we knew, but we never sang It burned like fire inside our lungs And life was just happening
(and nothing lasts, nothing lasts forever) I wouldn't trade it for anything My souvenirs

Can you hear me when I talk to you? When I whisper through my tears, How could you? How could you do that to your family? How could you leave me? I think I'm really asking why the brokenness of the world is so particular, devouring my friend. How could something that happens to other people happen to you—and consequently to me? How could someone so alive die?

Remember being so young—facing your fears by driving nearly a thousand miles; by jumping on a table and reciting poetry? Remember the songs you sang to me in ink on envelopes? Remember the dreams and desires that burned inside like fire? I do. These are the souvenirs of our youth. Then you put me in a place to step from youth into depth—into both my own smallness and the largeness of the world. You gifted me dear memories. Sweet souvenirs. Deepest friends. Your very self.

Can you hear me? Because I want to sing thank you. . .with the rest of my life.

___________

—Souvenirs by Jon and Tim Foreman

I Don't Belong Here

"Here's the thing... Home or shelter I have not on this side of eternity..."

Ten years (and a few days) ago you wrote that line to me. It began a flurry of e-mails in which you planned a visit to Michigan and Indiana. And you came! And then on this day ten years ago, you drove away in the spring-like rain. How was I to know that the next time I saw you would be nearly five years later? You would be so changed. Ten years ago when you arrived, you gave me the biggest bear hug. Five years ago you wouldn't look me in the eye, wouldn't let me too near. A hug was out of the question. . .

What happened to the fellow who wrote, "I love you like my wood stove right now!"? The one you stood in front of at midnight, having awakened your dad for a conversation. . . Home and shelter you had, with a wood stove to boot. And yet, I don't think you ever really were at home in this world. I come back to this realisation again and again. No matter how much you studied the world, you weren't really comfortably at home here. No matter how much you loved your wood stove, or me, or your other friends and family, it wasn't enough to hold you in a place you didn't belong.

In a world full of bitter pain and bitter doubt
I was trying so hard to fit in, fit in
Until I found out

That I don't belong here
I don't belong here
I will carry a cross and a song where I don't belong. . .

. . . I'm gonna set sight and set sail for the Kingdom come
Kingdom come

So you did. Like Reepicheep, you set sail for the Kingdom: “While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.” I think Semester was like sailing East in the Dawn Treader, with like-minded friends. Then you flew east to the 'coracle' of your family. Then you swam hard in the Air Force. . . And I believe the last nearly six years were your desperate treading water, your nose above the surface, looking toward the Utter East. 

Do you remember telling me you would be safe as long as the person you loved was? Turns out that promises are harder to keep than to make. Do you remember writing that you would be the last leaf to fall? Turns out you were the first. . .

I'll be the last leaf to fall when
The season comes to leave
Myopia owns me
Loathe to fall
Loading up on the view
Knowing I'll lose my way
When my grip gives way

You shared these lines with me and I didn't see the poetry then. . .but I did later. I do now. I thought it needed to rhyme. I wanted it to end happy. I wanted you to be happy. But life in the intervening years has taught me to appreciate the sadness-laced lyrics, the poems that end with losing grip. Not out of despair, but because reality is bittersweet. Sometimes it is a better thing to be broken and then redeemed. I have learned that 'happy' as I think of it is a curse—emptiness, devoid of the weight of glory.

Blessed is the man who's lost it all
Happy is a yuppie word. . .
I'm looking for a bridge I can't burn down
I don't believe the emptiness
I'm looking for the Kingdom coming down

There it is again: the coming Kingdom. When you've lost it all—love, sanity, the desire for companionship, hope of healing, etc—you cling to the hope of the coming King and His Kingdom. And sometimes, holding on is too hard. You lose your way and your grip. You run ahead to the King's own country—Aslan's Utter East—before it's time to go. But the King is waiting. He knows how long we can hold out and hold on. You, who swore fealty to the King, you have been welcomed in to the Kingdom, to learn its language and its ways. I think your eyes had always seen it. . .or always almost seen something, like Orual almost seeing Psyche's palace; like Reepicheep and Aslan's country. There is something there...the Kingdom is coming. Until then, none of us really have any home or shelter this side of eternity.

Let us "set sight and set sail for the kingdom come" on earth as it is in heaven.
________


— "The Beautiful Letdown" by Jon Foreman
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
— "Birch Leaves" by Aaron Hennig
— "Happy is a Yuppie Word" by Jon Foreman

These Days Pass Me By

Ten years go by in a long hurry. . . I wish I could go back and relive this week in December a decade ago, knowing at least some of what I know now. Knowing what I knew up until September this year. It would be almost enough to make me hold on to those moments that I can't remember. Quite enough, really, though my Switchfoot knowledge would be much poorer. I think the urgency would be present, since I would know that our friendship would disappear in a very short time. 

Maybe I would have remembered to take photos at least once in those eight-ish days. Maybe I would have asked better questions about that girl you liked. Maybe I would have been present a little more. Maybe I would have listened differently, deeply, intently. Maybe I would have made sure I hugged you every day. Maybe I would have driven us to the park to wander in the woods. Maybe we would have read more together. Maybe I would have understood a little better all of those pauses when you were answering questions. Maybe I would remember if we went to Christmas Eve service with my grandma (and I would have hugged her extra, too).

But I can't go back ten years. 

"But. . ." That word is often the volta, the hope in a dark plot. This time it isn't. It is the thud back to earth after soaring on wishes soap-bubble-thin and as transparent.
Th[o]se days pass[ed] me by I dream with open eyes Nightmares haunt my days Visions blur my nights I'm so confused What's true or false What's fact or fiction after all

Is it Christmas time? I can't tell. Am I happy (a yuppy word, I know) since I'm not wasting my eyes with grief? Or have I just been too steadily busy to know the sorrow that leaks out through my eyes so often? Recently I told my nephew that the only dreams I remember when I wake up are the ones that scare me to tears. The nightmares where someone I care about dies. But I don't dream about you. I wake up to find that I'm living the nightmare. I can't reach you. Can't even find you. I can't remember chunks of time I spent with you. Days upon days at Semester. Even days you were at my house. Why can't I remember?!

I want you to be here. I want to hear you telling me: But you haven't lost me yet. . . I'll sing until my heart caves in No, you haven't lost me yet

I feel like I'm someone else when I am at my parents' home. I feel distant from my self. I feel mixed up, like a dependent early-twenty-something mixed together with an independent and interdependent thirty-something. It's hard to process my own thoughts, to separate my thoughts from the here and now of my family. Maybe that's good. But maybe I'm just putting my real thoughts and self on hold until I get home. But when I'm home I miss my family. Is it simply impossible to be fully present, fully myself, and fully appreciative of those I love in the very moment of being together? Is that why I can't remember large portions of times that I spent with you? Was it just too normal, too every day, that I forgot to pay attention? Did I forget that it mattered—all the life we lived together?

Life is short; I wanna live it well One life, one story to tell Life is short; I wanna live it well And You're the one I'm living for Awaken all my soul Every breath that you take is a miracle Life is short; I wanna live it well, yeah

That miracle-breath I take for granted (until I can't suck another in and I choke on fear), it is sweet. Life is short, I wanna live it well. And here is how:

Instructions for living a life: 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.
—Mary Oliver

So I'm telling. . . That the sunset over the farm fields was crimson-orange tonight. That wiggly kiddos with high-pitched squeals might annoy you while you're trying to do something...but you'd give anything to keep them little and trusting and putting their cheek up against yours. That slow-to-speak, blond-haired, elven-friends don't grow on trees—pay attention, visit them, listen, be astonished.

_______

"Yet" Written By Tim Foreman & Jon Foreman
"Live it Well" Written By Tim Foreman & Jon Foreman

This Skin and Bones is a Rental

Pondering on a Switchfoot song with you in mind. . .

(If that were a poem title, it would have been penned by Wordsworth)

This air feels strange to me

Feeling like a tragedy

I take a deep breath and close my eyes

One last time

Do I even need to say my thoughts here? These lines seem to describe so much of your life, not just the last six years. Did these lines go through your mind before you closed your eyes that final time? I can't know. Do you have any idea how hard it is that we don't get to know what you were thinking?

Storms on the wasteland

Dark clouds on the plains again

We were born into the fight

But I'm not sentimental

This skin and bones is a rental

And no one makes it out alive . . .

The first time I listened to this song in all its newness in sound and lyric, I choked. I choked on this line. This fallen body is a rental, a shadow of our real bodies to come. Sometimes we get stuck in the Wasteland, but we can't forget that we were born into the fight. We might not have caused the fight, the struggle, the dark, consuming clouds. . .but we have both been through them. In some ways, I think we both contributed to one another's sorrow, though it was not intentional at the disparate times it happened.

Until I die I'll singe these songs 

on the shores of Babylon 

still looking for a home 

in a world where I belong

Where the weak are finally strong

Where the righteous right the wrongs

Still looking for a home

In a world where I belong

A world where I belong

This is another set of lines that seem to sum up years. . . So often it seemed like you were looking for a home, a world where you belonged. Where you fit. This world didn't seem to be the right shape for you in many ways. But I know that you fit in and are fit for the Kingdom.

This body's not my home

This world is not my own

But I still can hear the sound

Of my heart beating out

This flimsy earth body is not our Home—Home is the Kingdom. And the King will clothe us in the wedding garments of the Kingdom when we arrive. We? No. . . I only mean myself. You are already clothed in the real body of the Kingdom. And, oh! How I wish I could hear your heart beating out its tattoo as I am enfolded in your hug. 

And on that final day I die

I want to hold my head up high

I want to tell you that I tried

To live it like a song

I know you did. I know you tried. You lived it like a song, my friend.

And when I reach the other side

I want to look you in the eye

And know that I've arrived

In a world where I belong

You got to go first. . . It's not right, you know. You're younger. I should be teaching you the way of the Kingdom, but it will be you teaching me. Even though I can't look you in the eyes yet, I know that you have arrived. You belong. 

______

"Where I Belong" by Jon Foreman / Michael Elizondo / Tim Foreman