James died a year ago today.  Its funny how you think that things would get better with time, that in retrospect you'd understand more and hurt less.  So often whenever someone I knew was going through a rough spot, I would think "Just give it time."  But sometimes even time doesn't make everything better.  I never know when the most innocent of things will make me think of him and send me spiraling to tears.  A song played on the radio.  The yellow wristband and necklace that I wear.  Anything having to do with drums, provided its loud and obnoxious.  Any of a thousand events that trigger some memory hidden away. 

I posted a quote earlier about how its moments, not days or years, that we remember.  It is specific memories, particular events that standout in our minds.  If asked, I don't know if I could name the best day of my life.  I could name some really good ones, some awesome memories and such that I always always think of with a smile.  And bad days, in general, don't get remembered.  Who would want to dwell on such?  But James, ahh, he was responsible for the two worst days of my life.  Two days which I won't ever forget.  I'm going to post something I wrote soon after he died, about that day and those that followed.  Forgive the depressingness of this entry.  Or the length.  I think maybe it just helps to reflect.  I still don't understand.  And I still miss him.

From last fall:

It was surreal, driving home that night.  It was the longest trip home of my life.  I drove at high speeds along small Alabama highways and major interstates alike, and yet the trip still seemed never-ending.  For I knew what I returned home to.  Even before I crossed the Florida state line, I knew.  I had already received word, an impossibly long 2 hours before, that James, my friend, my little brother, was gone.  That after six years in a struggle that reared its head time and time again, he was finally, irrevocably, gone.  It was a fact that I was totally unprepared for.  The worst case, one which science said was inevitable but which faith, my faith, scoffed at, had come to pass.  To anyone lacking that faith, it would have been expected.  Indeed, perhaps it would have been easier to accept had it been.  But no, I knew better, I knew what my God had promised, what His Word said, what He was capable of.  And so for months, years even, we had prayed. We had fasted.  We had cried out to God.  All, it would seem, to no avail, to end in vain on a late September evening.

 It had almost happened a few short months earlier, when James went in for surgery and barely survived with his life and without his left lung.  I will never forget that day, when I slumped against the wall of a broken building somewhere in the mountains of Peru, utterly alone and defeated.  Not able to reach anyone for comfort, not even my mother, and three thousand miles from the one place I would have given anything to be, home.  At the time I thought that was the worst day of my life.  Would God ever prove me wrong there.  After James miraculously pulled through, given one more shot at life, having beaten this cancer beast one more time, I thought, hoped even, that it was over, that he had finally won this fight, and that I would never have to go through such panic and loneliness again. 

But once again I found myself utterly alone, hundreds of miles from home, this time on a lonely stretch of highway outside of Meridian, Mississippi.  I had tried to keep driving after getting the phone call  (a phone call which I almost didn’t answer) but finally I had to stop.  To question God, “Why, after all this time, after all this prayer, why? At least I could have been there, to see him one last time?” To scream at Him his unfairness, and the absolute injustice of it all.  But mostly, I stopped to cry.  To cry for the utter finality of it.  For the regrets I harbored, for the shock of its suddenness, and for the loss of one of my closest friends. 

I couldn’t help but remember a day similar to this one.  That time had been in Peru, and at the time I had never wanted to be home so bad in my life.  The loneliness, the longing to be home, I thought I would never experience something so encompassingly empty as that.  And I would have come home, at a word from Terrie.  But that time, James survived, I was able to stay in Peru, and I thought the crisis passed.  I vowed that if ever there was a question of coming home or not, I would err on the side of James.  But this night, when it would seem to matter the most, I sat alone on a Mississippi highway hundreds of miles from the one place I should have been.  Jeb made it back from Europe.   The Halls even had returned from their hurricane escape.  But where was I?  Not at home. 

And so, finally able to compose myself enough to drive, I continued the longest journey of my life.  The rest of the way was filled with alternating bouts of tears, of prayer, and of eerie silence.  I limped into Pensacola, well past midnight, and the sight of my hometown mirrored the scene in my heart.  Trees lay everywhere, some stacked in piles where they had been moved, and others lay where they fell.  I drove slowly past buildings with broken windows and houses with tattered roofs.  The twisted, broken remains of my hometown seemed only fitting on a night such as this.  Ivan’s wrath seemed only to complement the chaos of my heart. 

And so I had made it home, but where to go now? No one seemed to answer their phones; everywhere I turned seemed dark and deserted; yet in my desperation I had to find someone.  As an afterthought I pulled in the Taylor’s, not expecting anyone home, but determined to try nonetheless.  A flashlight went on in the dark house. Wordlessly I crossed the porch and through the door, losing control once more.  At her first sight of me, Terrie called my name and moved toward me.  I had no words, and none were necessary. I simply collapsed on her shoulder and wept.  In the dark, with nothing but my cries and her words, she told me what had happened that night.   Indeed I listened, but mostly, I just wanted to be held.  To not have to be strong.  To be weak, vulnerable, with no shame, simply resting.  And at last I did, and yet it would be a long time after I laid my head down that night before sleep would at last come.

Over the next several days, I had plenty of time to mourn.  I shed tears, I laughed, and I remembered the life of one that I already missed immensely.  And yet one thing I never resolved, and possibly never will.  You see, because I wasn’t there that night.  The Hall’s had returned that afternoon, and Jeb had journeyed home from Europe the week before, but I, in Starkville, Mississippi, would be four hours too late.  It’s not that I wasn’t there that really bothers me, even though certainly it is something I regret.  No, its something bigger than that, it’s the reason that I wasn’t there that I don’t understand.  Because I had heard for several days that James was getting worse, had talked to Jeb and Terrie daily about his condition.  I had decided to come home that weekend already, sure that a few days wouldn’t matter.  Even after I got a message from Terrie stating that James mom thought that James would soon be “entering heaven,” still I hesitated to leave.  Not out of worry about my schoolwork, as if my own petty school issues could hold me in Starkville.  No, it was because, deep down, truly and completely, I knew that James would be healed. That cancer would not be the end of him.  That this battle he had fought for so long was at an end, an end that would restore to him his lung and his voice.  It was what I and so many others had prayed for so long.  It was the disclaimer I always attached when talking to other people about his condition.  It was the reason I could tell James himself, without a trace of doubt in my voice, “You’re gonna be alright.” That is what I don’t understand.  How could I have been so wrong?  I don’t think I’ve ever believed something so firmly in my life.  I was as sure of it as I was the sun rising the next morning.  It was a foregone conclusion. 

And yet somewhere along the line, the Lord didn’t get the memo.  My plan and my prayer were for James to be healed, to live a long, full life, but it did not happen.  He chose a different path, one that has left me confused, hurting, and questioning.  Does He really know what He’s doing? Does He really care about us like He says? Do my prayers and my faith not move him to action?  With more than a twinge of bitterness I can’t help but think that it would all be so much easier to accept if I didn’t have this belief, if my life wasn’t based on a faith in a God who is in control, and more importantly, in a God who cares.  No, if I didn’t believe this, it would be much easier.  Because without a god something like this can be attributed to the cruel facts of nature, where there doesn’t have to be a reason for things like this, they just happen.  But bad things happening to good people, and 17 year olds dying of cancer, just don’t seem to add up in a world with my God as the conductor.

I don’t get how He works sometimes.  Or maybe ever.  I went to see my grandmother about two weeks ago.  I held her hand and was shocked at how skeletal it was, how her skin just hung off her arm, her body more frail and dilapidated than any I have ever seen.  She looked up at me and said in a weak, desperate voice, “Help me.” I asked her what she wanted me to help her with, and her response was heart wrenching: “I don’t know; just help me.” The last time I saw her she was basically an invalid.  She couldn’t speak, her breathing labored and harsh.  She had a drawn expression to her face that screamed that same phrase, “help me,” that she had whispered when I had last seen her. 

Ironic, somehow.  For my grandmother death was the only remaining comfort. But somehow God denied it, and strung out her life and her suffering beyond that which she deserved.  But James, 17 and full of life, one of my best friends, and indeed more like a little brother, and what does God do?  He brings death. Death, after so much false hope, after so much earnest prayer, after literally years of struggling with a disease from which ultimately there would be no escape. Arbitrary, doesn’t it seem, how God chooses one who doesn’t want it but won’t take another who needs it.  Doesn’t make sense.  The bitterness of it all, the utter unfairness, I will remember the rest of my life. Why? Why must it be so? Is this really justice? Is this really the best way? And not just for James, but what of us who are left behind? 

None of these questions have I answered. Some, I suspect, I never will.  And yet this I do know: Understanding is not a prerequisite for worship, and comprehension not necessary for obedience.  And so I plead the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who stated, “My God is capable of saving us, but even if He does not, still we will serve Him.” God choose not to answer in the way that I would have Him to.  I do not pretend to understand, or for that matter, to agree. But no matter.  Still will I serve.  It would appear that’s all I can do.