Lesson Learned

So yesterday was the 7th anniversary of my 12 year old brothers death, his name was Alan and he died in a go kart accident. This year it’s being viewed with a little more emotional depth for me, you see my 23 year old cousin died in a motorcycle accident not even a month ago, boy were there some memories flooding back to me during that time of grief.
Alan would have been 19 years old right now had he survived that accident, which leads one to speculate as to what he would have been up to as a young man, what would he be like? I know that from what I knew of Alan there would have been struggles with anger, severe pride, and rebellion to discipline, hold on, this is starting to sound like me. In step with his weaknesses Alan excelled in people skills, and he was hailed during his funeral as a constant witness for Jesus Christ, something I never knew about him, and this grieved me terribly then and still to this day it is the driving force behind my interaction with my siblings, I mean how sad is it to be consumed with your own affairs to the point of not knowing about the greatest joy your brother has? It took his death and funeral to wake me up. And as I sat in a church in New Jersey a couple weeks ago watching my cousins weep over their missed brother, I wanted with all my heart to encourage them to use this tragic experience to spur them into a more selfless relationship with their family, not because I feel like they were doing a bad job, in fact they were already very close, but because if we do not guard against it, selfish living creeps in under the radar and we are just plain blind to it.

So if you are reading this, take it to heart and learn from my mistake, maybe I can save you some heartache. I don’t want anyone to find themselves sitting in a funeral of someone they loved and finding out for the first time what they were like.

-TJ Shropshire