Today should have been my cousin Eric’s 32nd birthday.

Instead, having lost him earlier this year to some serious health complications after a devastating motorcycle accident, we gathered to remember him and celebrate his life.

Another member of our family gone too soon.

Two passages of Scripture came to mind as I thought about Eric today.

First, this one from Ecclesiastes (which I previously wrote a bit about after the untimely death of my Uncle Tim).

It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of everyone,
and the living will lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad.
(Ecclesiastes 7:2-3)

I turn 33 next month. Today was the first memorial service I’ve attended for someone younger than me.

Life is short. None of us knows how much time we have left.

Now, there are many lessons to draw from this, but one of them is that we should speak well of people, we should “eulogize” them, before they die. If you’ve got life-giving words for someone, even if they’re hard words, don’t wait! Don’t wait until the funeral to say what should have been said before.

I’m grateful that I got the chance to visit Eric in the hospital before he died. And to tell him that I loved him, and that I was very grateful for his friendship when we were growing up.

Which brings to mind the second Scripture passage, this time from Proverbs.

A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for adversity.
(Proverbs 17:17)

As kids, Eric was a brother, a relative, who helped me through some tough times at what I’ll call “the bottom of the cousin food chain.”

My dad was 9th of 10 kids. Eric’s dad was 10th. So, by the time I came around and Eric joined me 11 months later, we were the two youngest boys in a large group of cousins.

Now, I mean no shade to my other older cousins. I think we’ve all reconciled by now!

But, as an overweight little kid, I was often picked-on by my older cousins. And Eric, as a scrawny even littler kid, was right there with me.

I mean, we got ditched by the older cousins more times than I could count. And, even when we were allowed to play tag, hide-and-seek, etc., well, let’s just say we were never coming out on top.

So we developed a special bond. The youngest cousins.

Sure, some of it was due to sheer necessity of birth order, but Eric was always a good friend to me.

I mean, I don’t remember him ever making fun of me for my weight or anything else. Instead, he was always the one I looked for when we had a family gathering. The answer to the question “is Eric going to be there?” always set my expectations for how any given get-together was going to go.

Now, of course, we got on each other’s nerves and had a few fights of our own.

But I mostly remember Eric’s kindness.

He taught me how to cook ramen noodles on the stovetop. He taught me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em. I’m pretty sure he first taught me how BB and Airsoft guns worked, and we shot our fair share of targets (including, with the Airsoft guns, each other) in his backyard.

We rode bikes. Played catch. Did random wannabe outdoorsman stuff in the woods.

Eric was like the younger brother I never had.

I’m sad he’s gone. And, even though I’m glad I got to thank him for his friendship before he died, I wish I would have stayed in better touch with him as we grew older.

Death is terrible. Just really f***ing awful.

My consolation as I mourn yet another death is that I believe, in spite of all the suffering around me, that God hates Death even more than I do. I believe that Christ has defeated Death and that, one day, God’s patient, suffering love will redeem all things.

Meditating on the untimely death of his son (also named Eric), and on the risen Christ’s invitation to St. Thomas to put his hands into his wounds, Nicholas Wolterstorff writes:

To believe in Christ’s rising from the grave is to accept it as a sign of our own rising from our graves. If for each of us it was our destiny to be obliterated, and for all of us together it was our destiny to fade away without a trace, then not Christ’s rising but my dear son’s early dying would be the logo of our fate.

[…] To believe in Christ’s rising and death’s dying is also to live with the power and the challenge to rise up now from all our dark graves of suffering love. If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded, if gratitude for what is good does not flame up, if insight is not deepened, if commitment to what is important is not strengthened, if aching for a new day is not intensified, if hope is weakened and faith diminished, if from the experience of death there comes nothing good, then death has won. Then death, be proud.

So I shall struggle to live the reality of Christ’s dying and death’s dying. In my living, my son’s dying will not be the last word. But as I rise up, I bear the wounds of his death. My rising does not remove them. They mark me. If you want to know who I am, put your hand in.
(Lament for a Son, 92).

Eric’s time of adversity has ended. For the rest of us, the adversities of life continue, including the mourning of those we’ve lost.

But life, laughter, joy, and friendship also endure. Death will not have the final word.

So, put your faith in the risen, wounded Christ. Join Him in the fight against Death.

And, if you’re suffering, then, in memory of my cousin Eric, don’t suffer alone.

Instead, look around and find someone else who needs a friend for tough times. A brother—a cousin, even!—born for adversity.