A friend loves at all times

A story that is hard to write

Disclaimer : this is a tribute to one of my lifelong friends on her son’s birthday; it talks about death and some sensitive topics. My desire is that hope would prevail, even though I know hope and hard are often dancing together. If your heart doesn’t want to process this essay right now, please know it’s okay. Will look forward to seeing you next time.

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One of my dearest friends, Liz, has always had a way of pointing me (and the rest of the world) back to Jesus.

I have wanted to do a tribute for the past three years about her son, Ty-Ty, as we called him when he was very young.

Ty came into this world on June 19th.

He left this world when he was only 11 years old.

Today would be his 15th birthday.

I struggle to comprehend how it is possible that a boy I loved so much, and that so many have loved, is no longer here.

As much as I love to write in a non-linear fashion, because that’s how I experience life, the linear-ness of losing Ty has been difficult to grasp, let alone write about.

Ty’s life on earth was cut short, and while we celebrate that he is with Jesus, it has always been the most painful loss I’ve ever experienced. Maybe I’m lucky, you say? Wasn’t he a friend? Not a relative. Not someone I saw every day of my life. Not my own child.

He was the child of one of my closest friends.

I realized recently, as much as I loved Ty, the tribute my soul has always wanted to share is about Liz.

I wonder if this makes sense to anyone out there.

The saddest day of my life was when I knew that my friend’s whole life was flipped upside down. When I knew she was experiencing the deepest grief.

I am not the most amazing friend or person in the world for thinking this way. We don’t want to see our friends in pain.

This happened when we were in our deepest heartache with Sammy in utero, when we thought we would lose him.

People came out from every which way to send love and prayers and support. Our world changed for a long time. I stopped working.

People felt deeply with us.

I will never forget that dark and scary moment, the one before we told people what was happening.

My sweet husband and I had returned from a gut-wrenching visit in Phoenix with instructions to “be prepared” if I had a miscarriage sometime soon. When I was crushed and my heart broken, when I was afraid of losing a baby I had already fallen in love with, when I had no words for the rest of the world yet, I called Liz.

I called Liz, knowing in that moment, I would be able to share in my grief with a friend and someone who, even in my darkest day, would remind me that God is near to the broken hearted, he helps those crushed in spirit. Someone who had been down the road of fear and loss and brokenness.

I didn’t expect her to say anything great, and I don’t remember much about the call. A prayer and tears on both our ends. I’m sure she helped me realize that God was above any words from doctors who said our baby was “incompatible with life.”

In that moment, I cried. For my sweet Butternut Baby who bore the image of God inside me, but also for Ty, who was wonderfully made and who helped me see life more acutely. I cried for a world where life and death and heartache become too normal, almost written off, as if we all should go about business as normal even while grieving.

Now, it’s an exaggeration to say this, but as a whole, our society is awful at handling grief. My husband, the great pastor he is, has witnessed and been near to many of the dying or near death. He has told me stories of medical staff who carried on like someone dying was a typical day, or asked strange and unrelated questions to those grieving.

I knew this would not be the case with a call to Liz. It would not be business as usual.

She didn’t have to, but she cried with me. My pain was her pain.

There’s no right way to walk alongside a grieving friend. What I will say is this: if you are grieving and you know a woman named Liz from North Carolina who has a contagious laugh and the sweetest heart and who is always present with you when you’re with her and possibly is talking to someone who has lost a child or speaking at a women’s session at a church retreat, when she DOES NOT HAVE TO DO ANY OF THESE THINGS, then you’ve probably met my friend.

The world was better for knowing my sweet nephew (as I will always call him).

He was entirely his own person, an entertainer and life of the party, when his mom is more content flying under the radar, but I know a large reflection of the bright light in Ty was because of Liz.

Let me tell you about Liz:

She is a beautiful person. She doesn’t think she has a way with words, but she does. A gentle spirit. Loves to learn more about God. Friend to all. Somehow can break through and loves even the hardest hearts. I can’t speak for everyone, although they would tell you the same thing, I’m sure. As for me, I can tell you the story I know best when it comes to our friendship: the story of when she welcomed me into her life.

I met her at a pretty rough time in my life in my early 20’s. Feels like a lifetime ago, since it was nearly 20 years ago. She was a little older (but neither of us have aged since our youth , right Liz?). She had lived in our city (Raleigh) for longer than me. I was new-ish, had been struggling in a strange city, with an intense job, and not sure how to find my way.

Liz lived in the apartment building I just moved into after leaving a trying roommate situation. In one attempt to get out of my very bare and quiet new apartment, I went to the building’s gym. This was probably one of three times I ever worked out in the gym there, mind you. Providential that I went to work out that night, and would talk to someone who lived on the other end of the building, a busy nurse who I may otherwise not have met.

So long ago now, I don’t remember anything of our first meeting other than we became friends. One day, probably very soon after this day, Liz invited me to one of her Bible groups. Sure, why not? She seemed nice enough. We had both lived in Ohio. She seemed more settled than someone who had only a TV tray and couch so far in her new apartment. These weren’t my best days.

However, these not great days of my 20’s were so much better because of my friendship with Liz. She would introduce me to many other friends, one who became another dear, forever friend Sarah, who had to go run off to live in the Cayman Islands (which in reality will never be truly sad about because of all my wonderful memories visiting her there).

Sarah always said it was Liz who brought so many of us together. Even though I now live in Arizona and she still lives in North Carolina, I still hear stories of her meeting new friends and helping to show them the light of Christ. In recent years, she has told me stories of new friends she once again met at the gym (thank goodness for her being disciplined in so many areas of her life).

In every chapter of our lives, as we grow and move and become different versions of who we once were, I can only wish for you all to have a Liz by your side.

I know I romanticize many things in life, including friends I don’t see often. I’m sure I am overly flowery and over-the-top and wear rose-colored glasses for all my faraway friends, but Liz would expect nothing less from me.

Over-the-top and big describes some of the encounters I have had with Liz. I once asked her to come to my aid when I stepped on glass and so she cleared her schedule and came over. With top-notch nursing skills, she never trivialized how I made a big deal about needing to pull out a small piece of the glass from my foot (it WAS minor surgery, was it not, Liz?).

There were heartbreaks and growing pains of our 20’s that we weathered together, the kind that needed more than a band-aid on a maimed foot.

There were many walks trying to figure out life, and many prayers to keep us going from day to day.

She got married and I got to witness her move from singleness into marriage into kids, all the while retaining her ability to be a friend at all times. How she managed to stay so faithful during those years to single friends like me when she so busy will always be one of life’s greatest mysteries.

I loved going to Liz’s house during the chaos of her babies. It reminded me of a taste of Heaven on earth. The loudness of kids bouncing with joy, in my singleness, showed me how much fun it could be to be an auntie.

I recently experienced two kids under two but she had three kids under two (please try and do that math and get back to me).

She had beautiful Ty first, and two years later he became the best big brother to her beloved twins.

Writing about these dear friends shows me that to love is beautiful and hard. It’s true, we grieve so much because we love so much. But it’s worth it.

Here is a side note: Liz is a great cook. The simplest things that most of us can make tasted better at her house. Eggs. Cinnamon rolls. Tacos. The things you forget to eat when you live alone.

It would be easy to let these moments in my 20’s become nothing but a faded memory. After all, I’m married now, and eat more than cereal for dinner (most nights). Why make an entire post on the kindness and grace of a friend from so long ago?

For one, she is still my friend, and secondly, well this time in my life formed me.

I saw her parent with grace. There are no perfect parents, but this is what was so inspiring. She knew she needed God’s grace for raising her kids, and she kept praying for more.

I saw her in her marriage. Even the free spirit like me noticed that when she would talk about her husband, she would always find ways she can show him favor, forgive, open her hand or heart more toward him, give the benefit of the doubt, remember her own sin, seek peace.

When I or others went through a hard time, she reminded us of God’s attributes, of who he really was, of his love.

She did this with her children, too, and that’s what I most want to give her props for: I’m not sure if she knows it or not, but she raised kids that looked toward Jesus.

I have a million stories of Ty, of the beauty of his life. Like I said, I was at her house a lot. I got to see him turn one, and two, and three, and four….

I moved across the country when he was maybe six. It is wild to think about that because every year after that when I visited Raleigh, it was as if no time had passed. He didn’t have to remember me the way he did, being as little as he was, but he always did. Always greeted me with a huge hug and “Hi, Auntie Julie!”

We all went to the beach and some lakes a lot. He loved finding shark teeth. In a video I treasure, he comes up to me, so excited and showing me what he found. Letting me into his life, his joy, his quest to get the most out of life and to explore as much as he could.

He was very athletic and taught his siblings how to be rough and play hard (I got out of the way) and also love hard. It was LOUD when the three of them were together, but it was the happiest sound of best friends.

One time when I visited, when he was a little older, we did a dance party on some device. I don’t know my games. But he could do all the moves. Fast. I thought I was a good dancer until…

Do you know that in my last birthday before he went to be with Jesus, he still gave me the biggest hug when I arrived? 11 is an age when you start to think you know more than adults, when maybe you don’t want to do the things they are used to doing with you, like reading bedtime stories.

I was fortunate to spend one more birthday eating cinnamon rolls with him and reading together. I’m not sure if Liz and crew ever knew how special it was to be adopted by their family in a way, as a still untethered person in my mid 30’s (it took me a long time to meet my husband). No one has to adopt you, but when they do, the family means a lot to you.

Ty gave me a birthday card that year, and in it he made pictures of the fruits of the spirit. As if to say, remember love, remember gentleness, remember, remember, remember.

Coming from a kid, of course that would make you want to remember. How wise to care that we all think on the fruit of the spirit. How beautiful that he was the reminder of that in the flesh.

It is getting late and I want to publish this essay. It’s already his birthday on the east coast, where his family will wake up soon, and surely celebrate him in some way.

My head is hurting and I feel sort of sick to my stomach because I knew this would be the hardest story to write and I can hear Liz saying something sweet in response to me staying up very late to write this. I can hear her being kind, saying something about sleeping.

A friend that loves at all times. But my prayer for her, since the loss of precious Ty, every time I think of her, is that she would know the kindness, sweetness, and love of others when she needs it. I’m sure she has lots of love, but you know what I mean? The kind of love that is like your favorite puppy licking your face. Surprising and unexpected and just what you needed to keep going.

All I pray for her is that she would keep having friend after friend after friend in her immediate circle who share truth with HER, give her a balm for HER sometimes weary soul, send a scripture or two to HER even if it seems like she has already written them on her heart. More than anything, I pray for people to come out of the wood work with memories of Ty, pictures and videos, because I know this means a lot to her.

I officially am crying now, and will decide to call it a night now.

I’ve wanted to write this for a long time. It’ll be unedited and probably blubbering with emotion and definitely non-linear. But it is my offering, my tribute to a friend who loves at all times.

For his birthday, I’ll play and explore and delight in the people in my life and won’t try and be anything less than who God made me to be, because that’s what Ty would do. I will remember him and look for shark teeth (in Arizona) and give thanks to God for the gift of his life. Give thanks that he also points us to Jesus, to eternity, to a time when every tear will be wiped clean. I will try and live my life believing that all is well with my soul as I know it is with Ty’s soul. I miss my buddy, and promise to always love the children in my life with all I have, in hopes that they will turn out like him.