A Life Unfinished

"Lester's dead."

Two weeks later, those unbelievable words haunt me still.  Two weeks later, I waffle between denial/disbelief and weeping.  At the most random times, a crashing wave of profound sorrow overtakes me, and here we go again.

I had left Micah's house only minutes earlier when my phone rang.  "Are you driving?" he asked.  I was, and he asked me to pull over.  I was just getting on the ramp for the freeway, so it wasn't possible, but "I can listen" I told him.  He was adamant that I pull over and call him back. "That sounds ominous,"  I commented.  His reply: a terse "Yeah."

As I drove to the next exit, the thought came into my head that he was going to tell me something bad about Sally.  I thought he might say something had happened to William, or Daniel, or even Sally.  But Lester?  Never.

Lester was Chuck Norris.  Unconquerable.  Invulnerable.  Invincible.  Indestructible.  It is fitting, I suppose, that it took something as big as the ocean, dishing out its worst, to get the best of him.
 
Memories of Lester are legend, but if there is one thing that stands out, head and shoulders above the rest, is that Lester was the go-to, undisputed, no-contest, hands-down, champion Man of All Work.  The Mother of All Handymen, so to speak.   If Lester couldn't do it, it couldn't be done.  If Lester couldn't fix it, it couldn't be fixed.  Need a porch built?  A tractor fixed?  A shed painted?  How about a ceiling lowered?  Need a fan installed?  Someone to drive the moving van?  What about a simple ride to or from the airport?  Or a house built?  Just dial 1-800-LESTER, and he would be there free of charge.

It's a hard loss for our family.  We already miss him, and we are going to miss him for a long time to come.  I miss his ready smile, his unfailing, uncommon common sense, his wry sense of humor, his eager willingness to lend a hand.  It's hard to imagine he is never again going to show up on my doorstep for a chat and a glass of tea, or maybe a delivery from Sally, because "I had a call in Cove today."

Only the day before I had read in "Jesus Calling" that we draw near to God by thankfulness, and I began thinking about all the things I could be thankful for: I had spent a day with him and Sally less than a week before his accident; Paul was with them and had been able to save himself, and Daniel; Lester's last act to Sally was a small act of thoughtfulness; his last moments were spent having a good time with people he loved.  I was thankful he did not have a long, drawn-out suffering, that his body was found, and found quickly.  He got to see Daniel graduate, and he got to be a grandfather.  Reasons to be thankful are many, but overshadowing them all is simply that we had him.

That, all by itself, is enough.