A lesson from Joby

Two months ago my beloved cousin Joby died suddenly, less than two weeks after coming to visit. We have old family video reels of my cousin on hands and knees "teaching" me to crawl as a baby. As a child he was my big brother who would never fail to make me laugh. As I grew he gradually became my peer. We lived on the East Coast at the same time and then on the West Coast at the same time. We spent holidays and long weekends together. He still made me laugh but he also confided in me and I in him. He was healthy and young. One moment he was eating with friends and the next moment he was gone.

I miss him.

In grieving and sharing grief with those he touched I realized how big his life was. Then I realized that though we live for each other we never belong to each other. It is at once overwhelmingly painful to realize this and breathtakingly beautiful to catch a glimpse of a life in its entirty, a life that you loved but whose scope and depth you never fully comprehended. How much better is or was it that that life was not yours, that it was so much larger than the size of your pocket or the expanse of your hopes for that person. I will never be ready to part with the people I love most deeply in my life but Joby is helping me gain some appreciation for a life well lived and the necessity of surrender.

. . . and God cut the thread