Every time I give one of these things in person or in print I feel like Dr. Evil recounting his life in Austin Powers, very dumb and out of place, so heres to all the awkward moments past and future.
Born March 6th 1988, shortly after Guns N Roses put out there multi-platinum Appetite for Destruction(not that the release of this album affects me at all except for the fact that its a cool collection of songs). My parents are Martha and David, still married to this day, I have an older sister, Jessica. She has a son, my nephew, Blain,(this guy is better at Halo 2 than I am) he always asks those questions that are the hardest to answer to a 6 yr old, considering I am now thoroughly annoyed that I just got owned in Halo, I now I have to explain to him what happens to us when we get shot in the head. But for the most part I love my family very much, though they are not saved.(but they’ll say different)
I grew up in a small town called Blanco, which is spanish means “white.” Named by general Santa Anna who crossed the river in route to the Alamo, and saw that the river contained nothing but white rocks, thus Blanco came to be. With 2,000 people to its name, it’s hardly any thing else than what it is, a small farming and small business town that pulls itself up by its own boot straps and isn’t afraid to get dirty. Well, as the boundary of San Antonio creep forward towards our town, more and more people come in that are not so rural and simple, so I like to think of our town as were small town morals meets city smart and culture, although that may not be true a lot of the time, thats still what I like to think, cause you know, all truth is relative, right?
I went through jr. high more anti-social than George Bush at a gay parade. Through that I nursed a nice resentment towards everyone around me and it was through that resentment I fell deep into depression and self-pity. Looking back at it now, it was childish and worthless, but at the time, it was my world and what I delt with day in and day out. In that depression I attempted suicide a total of 3 times. After the 3rd unsuccessful try(thank God) I just kinda stopped caring.
So skip with me to the summer before my freshman year of high school, a rather cute girl happens to invite me to the old Baptist church in town to a youth service wednesday night, so I guess the mind of my adolescent self puts girl+conversation=good so I agree and I show up not looking for a life changing experience but, through Gods plan he does. I couldn’t tell you what was said or anything like that, all I know that my heart was broken, or put back together, depending on which analogy you prefer. So the moral up until this point is simple; if your hurting, which makes up a good chunk of us, God knows, he cares, he hurts for you and with you. If you pray, and repent, he will heal you.
So I find myself in a pretty good spot in my life, I’m serving in the youth ministry, i finally have a very close group of friends, whom I’m still very good friends with still. I am playing in the praise band and basically loving the life God made for me then. Corse all of us know that if your on a mountain, there’s nothing left for you but to go back down, and thats exactly what happened. My best friend, David Gillis was our guitar player in the band and was one of the 4 people that spent most of their free time at the church, that group consisted of David, his older brother Paul, Todd, and myself. I might also add that all of us made the bulk of the band minus out youth pastor who was only absent because he actual had a life. But one night after band practice David had confessed to us that he had been in sin and was repenting and was asking our forgiveness. We’ll after a time of prayer and encouragement we went our way, I asked if it would be cool to spend the night at his house to play some music and halo and he agreed. Well we got there, got hungry and went back into town to grab some Subway, coming back home was the last bit of time I had to spend with David before the kingdom.
I must pause to add that when i get to this part in my story, the movie switches from Austin Powers to the epic Forest Gump, I can just photoshop my self in as Forest talkin’ bout Bubba. Which is in no way an insult to David or his family because I think that anyone who knows that much about shrimp is amazing…Anyways
January 2nd, 2005 was the day David died. I never thought that death would be so…different. You build your life around someone, then that person doesn’t exist. What does one do? It’s like waking up to see your missing your left foot. At first it’s more shock and confusion than pain. David was a good driver, always safe, but when the roads are that slick, being a good driver only means that you know when you’ve lost control. So as the tires lost track and we spun into a tree, hard. The tree guided us in the direction of the river that was near by. As we drifted inevitably towards the river we try our hardest to get out, but the doors are jammed. We nose dive into the river, flipping upside down with the nose of the car barely out of the water. As the car filled with water quite quickly, we scramble to get loose and out. After we established that the doors are not working as they should, I do the only thing i thought to do, I start kicking the windshield, as soon as I get a hole, i go to take my last breath to swim out, only to be constricted by the seat belt still attached. I yell “Seat belt!” and at that moment I see Davids hand reach over and press the release, I swim out.
To make a longer story semi-short, David died right after that, we found him curled in the backseat. He looked asleep. Moments like these are too rare to ruin with words that do not do it justice. You can learn more about him and that night here.
After Davids death I often ponder death and reality, but thats a whole other train of thought.
Shortly after Davids death I finished school, I stayed in Blanco for an extra year, helping out the church and the youth group, then God called me to Ft. Worth to this college, and thats were I join some wonderful people in worship and service. I just pray that all the blessings I’ve received here help someone somewhere down the road in my ministry.
So for the ADD people, I was depressed, now I’m not. I was lost, now I’m found, My friend died, so will I, and I’m in school and I love it.
Thank you for being so transparent with your story. I am sure that there will be many people who are blessed by it.