garmana::blog

Old beginnings

I didn't know if his wife and sons would recognize me since I look quite a bit different than I did 14 years ago, but their faces lit with recognition and we shook hands.

"Thank you so much for coming, Mark. It means a lot to me, and it would mean a lot to John."

"You're welcome, and thank you. He meant a lot to me."

"It's so good to see you all grown up."

"It's good to see you, too, though I wish we were visiting in happier circumstances."

His wife, Sarah, squeezed my hands tighter and her gaze cast down towards her husband. I looked at him also and my eyes started to well up a little bit. He was older, grayer, and twenty pounds lighter than I remembered him, but still looked as kind as he ever had.

Aaron squirmed in Jessica's arms and I grabbed his hand to get him to smile. Sarah and I talked about Aaron and how he's growing, and the moment didn't seem quite so dismal. The line pushed forward a little bit, and now Sarah was talking to my sister behind us.

"Be sure to look at the front of that album," Sarah called back. "John stored his favorite photos in there."

The small card table next to me held a photo album, his stole and robe, and a hand-carved wooden name plate from his office. I flipped the album to the front page, and an eight-year old me smiled out from four of the five pictures. Two Polaroids with my sister and parents, another with my sister, John, and Sarah, and another with just me and my sister holding our Lhaso Apso, Rags near the front porch of our old house.

"That was our first memory of Illinois," Sarah said. "That first picture is at the airport where you and your parents picked us up when we stayed with you for the weekend."

I vaguely remembered that April weekend, touring small towns around the area and scoping out the local high school. That fall, they moved from Texas and he was the minister at my hometown church for the next nine years. In that time John had a profound effect on me, because he was one of the few adults that I felt "got me." He was in his mid 50s when I was in junior high, but he loved to talk with me about books, particularly science fiction and comics. He had a large collection of #1 issue comics going back to the 40's, and every summer we drove an hour to Decatur's used book store that dedicated a room to comics and pulp magazines. We would spend the morning rifling through old dusty boxes, break for lunch, and then head back to the store to resume our treasure hunting. He also introduced me to Jules Verne and C.S. Lewis' non-Narnia novels. He first inspired me to mature my reading list beyond The Hardy Boys and The Cat from Outer Space (though that book rocked the casba). My love of writing really grew then when my reading experiences broadened, and it also taught me to discover other writers of my own.

He also always told my parents and me that he thought I would grow up to be a minister. "Not that you have to," he'd always say, "but we'd be lucky to have you. No matter what you do, make sure it's inspiring to people."

I'm not sure I've found my avenue to fulfill that sentiment yet, but hopefully someday I will. I'm grateful that someone took the time to do that with me. Thank you, John.