How does a person even begin to write about watching a child in pain? How does a mother sit and suffer as her child faces the biggest challenge of her life? I do not know these answers. I didn't know them then, and I certainly do not know them today. But what I do know is that on the day of Jeff's funeral when Sarah took the stage to sing Jeff's favorite Christian song, she was dying inside. She knew it. Her family knew it. Tim and I knew it. And God knew it. I watched this beautiful, young woman, who could never intentionally hurt another human being, suffer beyond what any child should have to suffer as she took the microphone to honor one of her very best friends. She was there to honor a young man whom she had watched go from "happy go lucky" to spiraling out of emotional control. Sarah had done everything humanly possible to get Jeff to get some help, but like us, Sarah couldn't get through to him, she could only love him, pray for him, and try to be his friend. Her friendship had put her "on call" with Jeff 24 hours a day and she, and her fiance Chris, had spent many a long night talking and trying to minister to Jeff. So to watch my lil Sweetie take the stage was a horrendous hurt for me and I began to pray as never before that God would fill her full of his Holy Spirit and use her to minister to these people, to give her strength beyond measure, and to hold her safely in His wings.Her job on that day was far more important than any job she would ever face....she had to testify through song, that even though Jeff had committed suicide, he was a saved man and he believed with all his heart that Jesus Christ was his Saviour.....
We first met Sarah singing at church. She took the stage one Sunday evening, somehow standing next to her brother John, scared to death to sing in front of the church. I remember thinking what a gorgeous, vivacious, young woman. I literally was blown away by the sunshine she radiated each and every time she walked on a stage or entered a room (and I still am). Sarah's faith is so strong and grounded, that when she hurts, you can feel her Saviour ache for her just by her gentle, sweet presence. The voice that came out of her body that day was angelic, and as the song went on I was excited to see how God would use this beauty to light up His world. I didn't know it then, but Sarah was to become such an inaugeral part of our family that her joys would become my joys and her hurts would become my hurts. She would become so many things. First, she would become Katce's lil caregiver in her early baby years, coming to give us a break whenever she could, and just take Katce out to play. Next, she was to become one of the few women that my daughter Lacey would come to love and trust with her whole being and call her best friend, and in that process, I too (as well as Tim) would grow to love her like a daughter. Lastly she would become a mentor for Jeff the last four years of his life culminating in being one of the last people to see and talk to him alive. The latter would leave a mark and eventually a scar on Sarah's heart that she will never get over, but she will get through.
The last week of Jeff's life, he chose to make many wrongs in his life right, and I unknowingly encouraged him to do this thinking that I was helping him get rid of his guilty"demons". But I believe now, that I was in fact, helping him set the stage to "right his wrongs" and "go in peace".
Sarah, too, played a part in Jeff's last days. She filled his nights with hope and his days with a sense of reality of who he was to her and to God. In essence, she literally loved my son to death. She taught him and made him feel worthy and for that I am eternally grateful. I cannot speak of the things that happened between my son and Sarah on the day Jeff killed himself. I cannot speak for Sarah, and I would never ever presume to know her pain; the pain of betrayal, the pain of utter loss, and the feeling of genuine guilt. But I can say, that for Sarah, Jeff's suicide has brought to this Sweetness, a test of faith and a testimony of love. For my sweet lil Sarah had to come to a very humbling place, a place I had to come to, a place we will all have to come to: We are not God and loving someone, sometimes just isn't enough. Jeff made a choice and he knowingly not only involved this sweet girl, he also underestimated her faith in her God, herself, and her love for my son. Because for Sarah, Jeff still lives. She remebers not the final hours, but the days, the months, the years that she was allowed to be a prat of his life. She is still his friend. She is still committed to him, to us and to God.
So as this beauty took the stage and mustered up the courage to sing for her Brother, I thanked God that he chose her to be there all along; on the good days, the bad days, that awful day, and now in our everyday. For without Sarah, my son wouldn't have known the unconditional love of a girl whom he could always call "Friend" even in death, she was true to him. And she is even today...
Love you Sweetness,
always and forever.
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