A Meaningful Life, Part 6, What happened

"It was last Mother’s Day morning, May 11th. My husband, Ed, and I were preparing for a day’s activities when the doorbell rang. Sam was to be home any moment from spending the night at a long-time friend’s house down the street. When Ed opened the front door, it wasn’t Sam arriving home. Instead, devastation was at our doorstep; Sam, our 16-year-old academic honors son, was dead. 

In the throes of such an unimaginable loss, the first of God’s comforts came to us with our Pastor who took my call that fateful morning, Good Shepherd's Sunday. When he left mid-service and then arrived at our home, he shared that in the church halls via speakers as he departed, he heard his fellow Pastor citing the verse of the fourth Sunday after Easter, Psalm 23, " The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want... Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me... Surely goodness will follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” So all was well with Sam although our hearts were broken.

Another comfort formed around Sam's Confirmation verse which he so soul searchingly selected in October 2012, John 14:2. It turned out to be the verse on the liturgical calendar for the service after Sam’s passing, the fifth Sunday after Easter, May 18th.  At Sam’s service, May 17th, our Pastor shared that in his many years that was the first time he recalled anyone selecting that verse for Confirmation, “but that was just like Sam,” he said. From Sam’s Confirmation verse, Jesus says ‘I go to prepare a place for you,’ as though He is speaking specifically. With what it is that God has built into our being, I know that Jesus is preparing a place for us, as He did for Sam; to fulfill the elements He wove into the fabric of our personality so uniquely and those things Sam loves, Sam is enjoying right now. Sam also continues to have a room here on Earth as we continue to hold him in our thoughts and prayers, hearts and memories."

Tomorrow: Part 7, Sam's watch