It Doesn't Feel Like It Has Been Ten Years

It doesn't feel like it has been ten years.

I was 21 and back in school. After a disastrous first year of college I had taken a couple of years off and was in actuality very close to never going to school again. That summer however I had a conversation with a very good friend named Jerry Self who helped me to make the difficult decision to try and make something of myself. So I was back in school at Tarrant County College (formally Tarrant County Junior College, but they were trying to make themselves look better so they dropped the "Junior") working to get my GPA up so that I could get accepted into TCU.

I knew Jerry thanks to church camp. For the past few summers, Jerry, myself, and a group of a few others had worked the JYF (4th and 5th graders in the Disciples of Christ denomination) camp for the Trinity Brazos Area of the Southwest Region of the DOC. We became a tight-knit group, and had hung out numerous times that summer before the real world intruded and separated us for the time being. Jerry was the one who was furthest away, as he was in his Junior year at Texas A&M.

While I had started back in school that semester thanks in large part to the talks that Jerry and I had had that summer, I was also continuing to work at Kroger, a job I had had since high school. I had been in management, but when I went back to school I had stepped down from that position to put my focus on my school work.

I had to work early that morning ten years ago, November 18th, 1999. I was on my way into work before 6am and I had the Ticket on, but I wasn't really listening. It was just background noise. I only barely realized that they were talking about A&M, but it didn't mean anything to me and I didn't pay any attention.

It was a little after 8 when the customer service representative came to the cash office door and told me that there was a phone call for me and whoever it was calling was in tears. I answered the phone and it was my sister Cara, a part of those JYF camps. We had grown closer those past couple of summers as we got to spend time together as friends instead of just as brother and sister, and I suppose it would be fair to say that Jerry had played a part in that as well as he was such an important part of the group dynamic. As I answered the phone and heard the tears of my sister as she sobbed uncontrollably I thought back to the radio conversation I had payed so little attention to. I knew instantly that something terrible had happened at A&M and I knew instantly that something had happened to Jerry.

"It's Jerry, isn't it?" I asked, tears beginning to form in my eyes as well.

My sister somehow managed to get out the words, "His picture is on the TV. They're saying he's dead. They're saying Jerry's dead."

At 2:42am that morning, the Bonfire had collapsed and Jerry was working on it when it did.

It was the worst news I had ever received in my entire life.

Six years earlier my Grandfather died, and that was terrible, but doctors had told him that he wouldn't live long enough to see me turn one. He almost saw me turn 16. It was terrible, but it was something I could understand. There was no understanding this.

Jerry was younger then me, for goodness sake. It couldn't be possible that he was dead. I had talked to him less then one week earlier. I was calling to see if he would be around for Thanksgiving, I thought that perhaps we could all get together on Thanksgiving weekend. He answered the phone and I could barely hear him. He was in a car with the top down, on an impromptu road trip with some Aggie friends. He had trouble hearing me as well and he said, "Hey man, don't worry about it. We'll talk real soon." Those were the last words he said to me, less then a week before, "We'll talk real soon." How could he be dead?

It was very hard on all of us, Dayna, Beth, Jason, Elissa, my sister, and myself. It really just did not seem possible. It just did not seem real.

To be honest, ten years later, it still doesn't.

Sad to say, that group hasn't spent a lot of time hanging out together in quite some time, although we are always planning to fix that. I hate that I don't see them as often as I'd like, although it was a joy to get to do camp this summer with Beth and Jason, and also this summer, Elissa was there working in the hospital while Cara gave birth to her first child, so that was awesome as well. And thanks to Facebook, I've recently gotten to reconnect a little bit with Dayna.

Despite the fact that as a group we aren't as close as we were ten years ago (when our group was held together by Jerry) I know that I love every one of them and that every one of them loves me, and I know that I could count on any one of them for anything. I hope that they know how much they mean to me and how important each and every one of them are to my life. I plan on telling them all that today, because I never got the chance to tell Jerry that.

Ten years ago was a time in my life when I was having a lot of questions regarding my faith, and while you might think that an unexpected death like this might damage my ability to believe even further, ultimately the opposite was true. Jerry had a faith that was stronger than the faith anyone else I have ever met. He believed in God and he believed in Jesus and he made it seem easy to live a Christian lifestyle. That isn't to say that Jerry was perfect, no one is and I know that Jerry wasn't either, but he loved everybody and made everyone know that he loved them. It was impossible not to feel special and wanted when Jerry was around. Jesus preached that the most important commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself and Jerry did that effortlessly. When I think of what a true Christian looks like, I think of Jerry. It is Jerry that I think about to this day when I strive to be a better Christian. And when I read or hear stories of "Christians" who persecute others, spread hate and bigotry, condemn others, and tarnish the image of the millions of Christians who don't act in those ways I wish that the world could have known Jerry and would be able to replace the image that they have of those "Christians" with the image I have of Christians simply because of knowing him.

I made the decision this summer to once again go back to school, ten years after the last such decision. It was a tough decision to make, but one that I know Jerry would have supported.

I am now in Seminary working towards becoming a minister and that is something that never would have happened if I hadn't known a young man named Jerry Self.

It doesn't feel like it has been ten years, but whether we want it to or not, time marches on.

We still miss you Jerry.

I have no doubt that we always will.

Thank you for everything you meant to me and continue to mean.

I miss you.