Terrible Start to the New Year

My friend Tom died this morning. He was about my age, 35 or so, married with a couple kids. Their daughter is one year older than mine, their son the same. Finding out about his death was one of those moments you never forget. My wife was on a run, the kids were downstairs watching Sesame Street, and I was upstairs playing a computer game when a neighbor knocked on the door. He's a police officer and looked official, so I thought maybe there was a creep in the neighborhood or some robberies. I never imagined this. He said he had been at the family's home and had seen the invitation we sent them to my daughter's birthday party on Sunday, and he knew we were both pastors, so he thought we should know so we could maybe help. Which is very nice of him, and I appreciated hearing about it from a friend. It was one of those moments where everything changes. When I sat down at the computer this morning, my world was very different from what it is now as I type this. It's surreal.

I saw Tom Sunday night. We had a fun time watching what turned out to be a very painful football game for me as his beloved Philadelphia Eagles thrashed my beloved Dallas Cowboys with a playoff berth on the line. He enjoyed it a lot, though. Good for him. Today as I grieved I ate the last of the pizza that we shared that night. I went to get out some tupperware, and there was the tupperware I forgot to return to him that night. I opened the fridge, and there was a jar of his soup. The dude was always making huge vats of soup and always looking for someone to give some to. I was always happy to oblige. I'll miss that. There are a lot of things I'm going to miss.

I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm having trouble believing it's real. I've cried. I'm crying as I type this. It hurts. And I can only imagine how much worse it hurts for his family, his children. Mine were running around today being silly and I thought "He's never going to see this again." It broke my heart. Ugh. It's just terrible.

So I ask for prayers: for Tom's family, for his wife and kids and mom and dad and brother. For myself and all of us who were and are his friends. And pray that the New Year gets better, because it really sucks so far.