In a break from the usual for this blog, I (Ben, Amy’s husband) will be writing a post today. I am the middle child of three, I have an older brother (Jesse) and a younger sister (Abigail). Growing up in my family was a lot of fun. Like any family there were definitely ups and downs, but my parents had all of us young and they always seemed to have plenty of energy to do whatever we wanted to do. We travelled, we spent entire days at Six Flags (I mean 10 AM to 11:59 PM), we played bean bag basketball, but most of all we loved each other (sometimes more than others).
When I was in 6th grade my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I don’t remember much of the details of the diagnosis, but let’s just say it was a really bad one that was going to be very hard to beat. Jesse was diagnosed in late November of 1992 and struggled to remain in this life until August 7th, 1993 when he went home to be with the best daddy there has ever been.
I don’t want to go too far off topic, but I need to mention that my parents handled his passing with grace and peace that only God could bring. Now having two children myself, I cannot imagine going thru what they went thru. I’ve never asked them if they cried or questioned God when Abigail and I weren’t around. I should. I only know that they were the perfect models of Christians handling a crisis when we were around. Thank you for that Mom and Dad. It has made an entermal impression on me.
Moving on…
Jesse was born on September 18th 1979 and would be 29 today. I often wonder what he would be like if he were still around and I often mourn that he is not around to share important moments in my life with me. I wonder if Jesse would have gone to A&M like Abigail and I did. I wonder if he would be married or if there is a girl out there that would have been perfect for him that is still waiting for the right guy not realizing that he is long gone. I wonder what pictures taken at my wedding would have looked like with a 24 year old Jesse standing next to me as my best man. I wonder how he would have reacted to seeing his sister’s first child and my first child…
Sometimes life doesn’t seem fair. A lot of times there is no “seems” about, life just isn’t fair. In the earthly sense of the word “fair” my brother dying and not getting to experience life was not fair. In God’s eyes “fair” is a very different thing. God created Jesse, and God had every right to take him in his timing (even if it didn’t seem fair). I don’t want to get too much into the spiritual because I have learned so much from my relationship with Jesse and I only have a limited time to write, so I’ll just say that the entire experience showed me (eventually) what I believed in and made my faith more real to me than I think it ever could have been otherwise. I love my brother, I miss my brother, and I think of him often. I can’t wait to see him in heaven.
