Making the Most

In college, between the 20th and 24th of February, we celebrated four birthdays. It usually made for a fun weekend. We started off with Krista and John, then Laura, then Jess.

These days, February is still a Hallmark month for me. I send my grandmother a valentine, my godson too if I can find one cool enough for him. I buy cards for Krista and Jess (Laura and I have lost touch, but I will write on her Facebook wall this year!). And I remember John fondly, but with a touch of sadness.

John passed away shortly after his 30th birthday. At the time, he was living in Boston and I was living in Carolina. But in the first years after we left college, John and I were both living in Philadelphia and we had a great time.

John indulged my love of sports and accompanied me to Flyers and Phillies games. He didn’t know anything about hockey and peppered me with questions about how they kept the ice frozen and put the floor down for 76ers games. At one point, he demanded, “Get me the specs on this place!”

I shared John’s love for music, so I went with him to the Met to see The Marriage of Figaro. We saw Cabaret in Studio 54. We saw celebrities in Starbucks. He made me ride the bus from Philadelphia to New York and called me a snob for preferring the train.

In between New York trips, there were dinners and parties, and me forcing him to watch the finale of the first season of Survivor (the only one I watched). And we always had great conversations.

John was a friend who knew me as I transitioned from my flagrantly sinful college lifestyle to a sanctified Christian walk. Unlike other college friends, he stayed with me. He never made fun of me for leaving a party early on Saturday so I could be rested in time for church on Sunday. John engaged me in thoughtful conversation about my faith and its emerging influence on my life.

One night as we were walking to Penn Station (I’d somehow persuaded him to take the train for this NY trip) we got into a discussion about faith. John grew up in a Pentecostal church, in a Christian family. His family’s faith was not his, though. When he saw me becoming more passionate about Jesus, he tried to understand it. I remember saying something about the peace I have knowing the God is control of my future. He pointed to things like astrology and numerology that gave him peace about his. I responded with, “Well, we’ll see who’s right one day.”

I had no idea John’s day would come so quickly after that conversation. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have spoken to him lovingly, not smugly. I would have kept the conversation going instead of trying to win an argument.

Remembering John motivates me. I hope that I will never forget him, or the opportunity I wasted to invite him to Life. I keep a picture of us in my Bible at Ephesians 5 which says:
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.