(All) Brotherhood

The two pictures above represent two stages of my life. The first, when I was around 7/8, I would meet a kid named Luke Misemer on my under 8 soccer team who would go on to have an incredible impact on my life. The second picture is a great group of friends (Luke second from left), who would represent such blessings in my life through a lifetime of challenges, with some success sprinkled in. In all, true brotherhood. 

We recently lost Luke to Stage 4 lung cancer. 47 years young. When he told me the news of his cancer, to say I was devastated would be a complete understatement. He was my best friend for 40 years. 40 years of true friendship, 40 years of some conflict, 40 years of unbelievably good times, and 40 years of not knowing that 40 years was ultimately not long enough. 

I was recently speaking with my therapist through my tears when he asked what I thought was essentially the reason he ultimately meant so much to me. I would’ve thought that the answer was pretty obvious, but ultimately what I recognized was that Luke was not only the best friend I have ever had, he was the brother I never had. You see, I am an only child…..at times the world can revolve around me. I never had siblings to be connected to, share things with, fight with, engage with, and in the end be part of “our” family circle. I had me, and I had my mom. 

Through growing up, I had Luke, I had his parents (who also played a tremendous role in my life), I had his grandparents who treated me like another one “of the boys.” I had stability in their love for me, to go along with my own mother. 

I’ve gone through loss. Losing my grandmother was the most difficult thing I had gone through. Losing my stepdad’s parents in the last few years followed that….but, losing my best friend at such an early age is completely earth shattering. It was not supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be my best friend until our old age, alas, it will not be such. I will spend the rest of my life talking about my best friend Luke as if he is still here. I will even continue to talk with him, knowing he will not be able to communicate back to me. I’m not crazy, I just miss the guy more than I will ever be able to talk about. 

I battle with fear a good bit at the thought of losing those that are closest to me. Heck, at times I have even created distance in those relationships because of my fear of getting so close and having to feel the pain of losing them. I am in the midst of the whole grief cycle, with one big missing piece, I’m not angry, I’m just really sad. He loved me, never rejected me, and was always there in ways that I will never be able to communicate. 

My wife has never seen this side of me, so broken. I’ve never loved her as much as she has been a tremendous source of strength. She reminded me recently how truly lucky/blessed I am to have had Luke (along with the other guys in this picture) and she is so correct. I am blessed beyond measure. The bible has so many verses on brotherhood. I like Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 which says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” It speaks to me. It reminds me of Luke and how he was loyal, never holding my faults against me. We should all be so lucky. 

I’ve told Luke I love him more in the past two months than ever before in our 40 years. I feel guilty about some things, more specifically that I did not tell him more. He was a great dude. Luke made others feel like they were his best friend also, one of the things I love about him. Talking to people that knew him, that I did not know, is awesome. He impacted so many people in positive ways, never truly holding their peccadillos against them, but just seeing them for the good people that they are. 

I hope you have a Luke in your life, and if you don’t presently, I hope you do one day. I am hurting, hurting bad, but I am so glad I knew him. Ill love you forever, brother.

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