At approximately 3:30 a.m. this morning, on June 9, 2011, my dear friend Emmett Stallings went to be with Jesus, after a 16 month battle with Esophageal cancer. Today is a strange mixture of emotions, ranging from relief that his last days of suffering and anxiety about whether he would make it another day were not many in number. Relief that the cancer that proved to be the greatest challenge and most difficult thing he has ever lived through would no longer hurt him. Relief that he was in glory, with his savior, and with his daughter Mallory, whom he and Wendy lost 5 years ago. And I have already wondered many times how their reunion went. One day when I am there with both of them, I will have to ask. I am sure it was a glorious moment.
The other side of relief is sorrow, which runs all through me today for the “official” loss of a dear friend, who I treasured and loved. Sorrow that our times of playing alongside each other on the worship team at church are officially over. Sorrow that we don’t get to have any more conversations, or fun lunches like we have countless of over the years. Kristi and I have been hoping and praying Emmett would not suffer long once he took a turn for the worse recently, but now that it is here, it feels awful. I have had a big knot in my gut all day, and it will not go away. At least not today.
I also have a lot of gratitude today. Gratitude for several years of a friendship that I will hold dear my entire life. Gratitude for Monday night, after a good visit there at his house with family and friends, that I got to spend a few minutes alone with him and tell him I love him and how I am so glad and honored to have him as a friend. He couldn’t speak well at all, and so all I got was a tiny nod of the head, which was his way of telling me he could hear me. Then as I was about to leave, the most amazing thing happened.
From a body that had not moved in hours since we had been there, a hand and arm came out from under his blanket to grab my hand. I reached out to his, and when he grabbed my hand, he just squeezed it and held onto it for a half a minute or so, acknowledging all that was said and in my mind, that was his way of saying the same things back to me.
For the rest of my life, that will be one of the sweetest, most precious moments I will ever experience. It was brief, but it was beautiful. I leaned up and over to him and kissed him on the forehead, and told him I loved him one more time, and that I would see him in a few days.
Yesterday I did get to see him, and though I was there for a shorter amount of time overall than on Monday, I didn’t get to connect with him again like before, so I am quite grateful for Monday night. I was still glad to see him yesterday though, because it was the last time I would before he passed away this morning.
So until I really do see him again, I hang onto Monday night. I hang onto the last several years of being close to him and enjoying such good times, and some rough ones too, with him and alongside him. I am incredibly blessed and honored that in Emmetts brief life of 32 years, that God saw fit to allow us to meet and become fast friends for several of them. That is, as he was, quite a gift.
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