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Monday, December 19, 2005
Rob's Christmas Carol
At Christmas dinner in 1992 our grace prayer included a request that my nephew Rob would get well soon.
He had a bad case of pneumonia, which was wrecking his first Christmas back in his parents' home after years of being off on one mission tour or another. Africa, Amsterdam, the heart of Manhattan. Enthusiastic, energetic good works in the name of Jesus. That was the pulse of Rob's young life.
Rob didn't get well. Soon or at all. By the end of January 1993 he was dead. Of AIDS.
The memorial service at Rob's home church in New York was Standing Room Only, and rightly so. For he'd served tirelessly there the last couple of years as boss of their Sunday night meal program for down-and-out neighbors. The meal was a fitting contact point for numerous ministries of mercy, including spiritual bread for hungry souls, who gladly joined the church family in due time. And Rob was the charismatic kid brother loved by all and loving them right back in Jesus' name.
The crowd that day included professors, actors, writers, blue collar workers, street freaks -- and one minister whose grief overpowered his intention to stand and testify what his nephew meant to him. All I could do was sit still and drink in the palpable love for Rob, the grief at his loss, the gratitude for his life.
Kids in a nearby Christian elementary school put together a special square for the AIDS Quilt Project in honor of Rob. They'd never met him, but their teachers had.
High school classmates pooled some cash to seed a scholarship in Rob's name. Students who'd never met Rob would get a leg up because some who had known him loved what he stood for.
His brother Dave determined that a foundation would come into being, to promote Rob's kind of ministries and provide Rob's kind of ministers with what it takes to make them happen.
Thirteen years ago, we prayed for my nephew to get well. He didn't. I dearly wish he had.
But his death, and the responses it provoked, bestowed on me a priceless gift I would never think of exchanging. One young man's untimely passing compelled each of us who loved him to look again at our assumptions.
About the infinite value of every new day we're given.
About the human complexities our stereotypes are powerless to define.
About the limitless ability of love to transform open hearts and minds.
This Christmas, pray for whatever it is you really want. Then be sure to look for what's really good in whatever it is you get.
posted by Jack Buckley at
1:10 PM
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