Sometime Friday, July 21, 2006
"Hey James, it's your mother"
"Hey mom."
"Your dad was told by work he has to go to Conneticutt on Sunday for two weeks on business...come down this evening so you can go golfing and boating all tomorrow instead."
6:00 p.m. Friday, July 21, 2006
"Alright Tyler, I think I'm headed out. I'll be home Monday sometime."
"Alright, see ya bro, have a good weekend."
12:32 p.m., Saturday, July 22, 2006
"Hey James, this is John Drage....call me back."
I had been out golfing that morning with my dad and younger brother. On the way home my phone rang at least once, but I decided not to pull it from my pocket since I was driving and I thought it was likely someone from Columbia, where I wasn't currently at. Once home I listened to the message. I still didn't suspect anything beyond that John wanted to talk about something (I thought possibly fall canvas group stuff). I called him back around 1 p.m.
"Hey James, how are you?"
"I'm doing good, John. How are you doing?"
"I'm doing ok. Actually, I'm not doing great. This morning...Chad and Tyler were in a bad accident driving to St. Louis, and Tyler was killed...."
I sat there not listening for a moment, left in shock. I repeated it silently with my lips; Tyler was killed...Tyler was killed...Tyler was killed?
"This is turning into a very bad year, John (referring to Pam Miller's death earlier in the year, when John also called me to share the news)."
"I know..."
I went and told my mom the news, who started to cry and hugged me, thankful that I hadn't left on Saturday as I had originally planned, in case I would have decided to drive with Chad and Tyler.
He owes me fifty bucks! The jerk! I thought, and chuckled slighly.
After a while to let things set in my head, my family and I hit the road and went to the lake to go boating for a while. I rode with my mom, who occasionally asked questions about the accident. I didn't really feel like talking, and I didn't really know much of anything at that point either. I was a little snappy, and told my mom to stop asking questions.
I left my phone at home while I went boating, knowing that people would likely start to call me, and I didn't feel like fielding lots of calls at that point. I returned a few when I got home.
Overnight, July 22 - 23, 2006
Tyler! You're here!
Tyler looks at me, standing to my right. In the distance up ahead to my left I see what I think is a whitish car. I think there's a fire..
You're alive! I am thinking this to myself, and I can't remember if Tyler spoke. I suddenly wake up, and it's Sunday morning.
Tyler's alive! Tyler's alive.....he's not dead.....wait......the accident....and suddenly the news comes rushing in like a wave, pushing out the fog of my dream.
Later on Sunday I leave for Columbia, having decided not to stay home until Monday. I leave town at 6:20 for the three hour drive. I keep thinking about the strange dream I had, and how convinced I was that Tyler was alive.
My heart spoke up: Tyler is alive, but he is not here. He is alive...he is alive...he is alive! The sunset I observed the rest of the drive back bathed me in an almost overwhelming gold light, and as the Spirit comforted me from within my heart, I made the lonely drive back in peace.
10:00 p.m. Sunday, July 23, 2006
"Hey Chad."
"Hey James. It's good to feel you......"
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"Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" - Job 2:10
I don't pretend to not be angry in all this. No, I am not questioning God's goodness. I still believe Him to be good. I still believe Him to be sovreign (the many surrounding circumstances and what-if's that I have put together force me to abandon any doubt about that). What I am angry with God about is this: why did a young man so full of potential and who still had plenty of work to finish before becoming as Christ-like as he ever could have to die? And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose - Romans 8:28. But is this really the best way to do good through Tyler's life? It's not like Christians have it easy in this day and age, what with the things people say about us. It's not like all people who call themselves "Christians" are doing a very good job. We need all the good true followers of Christ we can get! What the hell is going on, God?!
God works for the good of those...plural. God is trying to work good in my life...
People in the last few days have been calling me, emailing me, trying to sympathize. What am I supposed to even say? One day I'm doing alright. I laugh, share a story about Tyler, remember him. Then they're gone, and I'm in the house alone again. It feels like a mausoleum.
Well, despite owing me fifty bucks, he did finally clean all the dishes, and the counter and stovetops. At least he finally got something right, hehe. I call us settled.
I can't decide: do I want to be left alone, or do I want to be with people. What people do I want to be with? They don't seem to understand that I have a story to tell about who Tyler is. I'll stay home, by myself today. I loved living with Tyler for the last year, and I'm glad I knew him for a while and knew that he'd be a good roommate before he even moved in. I loved all the time we had together as roommates, that no one else is aware of. My story about Tyler is important. People need to know who Tyler was...to me. I don't really feel like posting on his facebook. Seriously now. I don't really know whether writing this will help anything. In time, it can help tell Tyler's story. I’m sorry that Tyler and I ran in different circles of friends, yet had the closeness of living together. I don’t feel like being with the group of people I know he was close with, because it’s not a group I’ve ever felt close with. I don’t feel like I can mourn there, because I don’t feel understood with them, even before Tyler’s death. I’ll go to those who do understand me. It’s hard to convey what that means in a way people understand. I’ll be trying to.
I'm angry with Tyler. Sometimes, he would be so stupid. It's Thursday night, after Hershel Martindale talked to us in Ellis Auditorium. Why doesn't Tyler get it? Why doesn't he see it's good to read the Bible daily? I read mine daily, almost. I know he's in some funk. I wish he would stop being so messy, or at least act like he cared to be cleaner; I've asked him and Chad a thousand times to be better at picking up their messes. I should just get out of here, or something. I really wish he wouldn't swear so much. I really wish a lot of people at church wouldn't keep up this habit of swearing. I swear more than I even did outside of going to church now. Well, seems like we really are a bunch of misfits here at the Rock. At least Jesus'll do something with us all eventually, including my own messed up psyche. We're all a damn good piece of work I guess. Now I feel terrible now that he’s gone, because I hear all of the wondrous talk about how glorious the man was. He should just be elevated to sainthood already. At least now, in heaven, he should be rid of all those nasty human faults of his.
9:30 p.m., Thursday, July 20, 2006
"Hey Tyler, I'm going over to Justin's for a while, want to come?"
"No....I think I'm going to stay here..."
"Alright. Hey, you should read this little editorial in your issue of National Geographic. I read it the other day at breakfast. It starts off with some environmentalism-global-warming stuff, but the conclusion is pretty cool."
"Alright, I will, just leave it open for me and I'll do it tonight."
When I got home at midnight, Thursday night (July 20th). Tyler was outside the back door, pacing and smoking a clove. I opened the door and asked how he's doing. With a very passionate look in his eyes, a seriousness and motivation that were completely absent following Hershel's talk, he told me, "James, we need to talk."
The article I told him to read had concluded by talking about the need for our hyper-individualistic society to turn towards community. "We need community," Tyler said. The author also talked about how evangelical Christians seem to be one very on-the-mark group when it comes to spreading a message about following a higher power and devoting your life to a cause greater than yourself instead of how much you can accumulate, and this is coming from a non-Christian (although, he was still sort of addressing the problem of how to save the planet from our destructiveness; he even quotes the evangelical standpoint as “This is God’s world”). Tyler was reinspired.
“I’ve got it!” is something you could commonly hear Tyler say. He was always coming up with some new great idea. One day it is going to the food bank, just to check it out and help for a while. The next it is rearranging the furniture to focus less on the television. Another day it is switching to Vonage and not carrying a cell-phone, to be a little more liberated, not to mention affordable. Early on in our living together, it was building a loft for his bed, so he could put his ratty old recliner in his room. Hanging fabric on the walls to add color, building a wet bar, hoping one day to have “Levels, Jerry, Levels!” in our living room for the couches (he saw that dream realized about a week before his death). One day early this summer, I came home to find him making verse cards for Drage’s top 99 memory verses, with plans to implement them in canvas group. Later in the summer, he was giving it up until he knew how to appropriately interpret scripture. That was the funk he was last in. He admitted it was just his own current problem though.
I was warning him about becoming pragmatic Thursday night. “Don’t get so focused on how to do something for Christ that you forget who He is to you and what He means to you. You have to know the answer to why Jesus Christ is so important and central to your life, otherwise your plans will burn you out.”
Tyler had always had it as a goal to be at the forefront of a transforming community, seeing the Gospel create a microcosm of a world that seeks redemption in all areas of life and society. “I want to make a business where capitalism can be used redemptively,” is another goal he had. It’s ironic that his death ultimately meets his goal of bringing those he loves together for community, to love and be loved. It’s sad that it was such an expensive card to play.
“I’m thinking about the church plant,” he said to me.
“L.A.?”
“No, the next one,” he said (note: our church hasn’t even begun to think of where the next church will be planted). “I’ve asked Chad and Jeff about where they think we’ll all three be at that time.”
Evening. Monday, July 24, 2006.
Chad had mentioned three pages of notes Tyler had written about fall canvas group ideas. I was home alone, and I picked them up off the coffee table and started reading them. Tyler’s words from our long talk Thursday night echoed through my head.
“I’m thinking that with these new equippers, they need mentors that can help them learn how to use their gifting. Maybe Hoops can mentor lightgivers…”
“Maybe we can try to revolve some discussions over what John preached about. Y’know, something like, ‘On Saturday John was talking about this. What did you think about what he said?’”
All of it was in his notes, still sitting here on the coffee table. I’ll probably give them to John.
2:15 a.m., Friday, July 21, 2006.
I just finished having at least a two hour talk with Tyler, and I finally said I had to get to bed, because I was getting tired. I went upstairs, and lay in bed a while, thinking, then praying.
Father, I pray that you would help Tyler to be inspired. He needs your presence. Please bring him out of this funk he is in. Please help him to understand why the Bible is so necessary and why he needs to read it right now, especially with all these dreams and goals. I pray he doesn’t become overly pragmatic, and lose sight of you. He seems apathetic at times, depressed at times, frustrated at times. I pray he would have consistent presence of the Spirit, and that he would know you, and make that his top priority.
Then sleeping.
6:00 p.m. Friday, July 21, 2006
"Alright Tyler, I think I'm headed out. I'll be home Monday sometime."
"Alright, see ya bro, have a good weekend."
“You too. See you later, man.”
“See you later”
“Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.” - Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption
