Holes in the heart…

“The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy

between them, each supplying what the other lacks and

trying to benefit the other, always using

friendly and sincere words.”

- Marcus Cicero

 On Friendship

I’ve been procrastinating. 

Yeah, I know…all it does is increase the pressure for the inevitable – Right?  

That is usually the case, but not this time. 

I have put this off because somewhere deep inside, I want to believe that if I don’t write about him he will still be there.  If I don’t write about him, I can pretend he will be waiting for my promised visit.  If I don’t write about him I will be able to stem the tide and sense of loss I feel.  If I don’t write about him his breath remains.

In fact he is not there…he is not waiting for my visit…I cannot stem the tide…he no longer has breath. 

So, I will do my best to execute the words I have so often said to others, “While this is the cycle of life, it does not fill the hole in your heart at this loss.”  Yes it is the cycle of life, and HELL NO, it doesn’t fill the hole in my heart!

He wasn’t a big man by anyone’s standards, but he was a giant.  He wasn’t an academic, but he ‘knew things’…he was wise.  He was the most optimistic, forward-looking and humorous human being I ever met.  He knew how to recalibrate in an instant when things did not seem to flow as he expected.  He was an adventurer…he took me as his friend.

He ‘closed his eyes’ last Tuesday and I got the word Wednesday morning…I was out of town…on the road…I was shaken.  He had survived so much, stared death in the face so many times…no one, but Sally would know all that he had endured.  She had prepared to say good-bye so many times, and so many times had seen this warrior…this enormous character…this amazing creature for whom it seemed God could not quite bring home…finally slip into His gracious arms.

There is much I could say…so much, and yet none of it would touch the heart of the matter…none of it would bring anyone reading these words a sense of the fabric of who this man was and how he had enriched my life.  There is so much I could say…

I loved you Cheong Wing Lee from the day we met, and am grateful for every moment of your life you shared with me…

Procrastination never works…

- ted