Larry Called

"We give our rooms the lived in look," Jimmy to Randy.

Randy - Center, Second Row

Last Saturday, Larry called. We graduated from high school together.

“They are mediflighting Randy.”

We were on our way to our granddaughter’s basketball game. I asked Larry to keep me informed and I would make my way to the hospital as soon as possible.

After the game I dropped Patty at the house and headed to the hospital. I called Larry and told him I would be about thirty minutes. Finding a parking spot was difficult. I made my way to the ER and knocked softly on the door. It took a minute for me to realize Randy was not asleep. In the time between parking the car and making it to the E.R., Randy had passed on. I had missed Larry’s text.

We stood in that small room and told a Randy story or two.

One week ago today.

I have been thinking about him ever since.

Early Days

Our parents were thick as thieves. Long before many went verklempt over Hillary Clinton suggesting it takes a village to raise a child, we were living that reality. None of us needed an extra set of parents. But the friendships our parents enjoyed meant we had other adults interested in our well-being and our futures: Gerald and Gwen. Harold and Letha. Tom and Mary.

Tami. Penny. Jeff. Randy. Rodney. Todd. Paul. Trent.

We churched together. All of us.

To limit the number of adults who invested in us to the three couples is a disservice to the kind of community created at our church. I cannot begin to recall them all. Some were older than our parents. Some were younger. All of them wanted the best for us.

Randy and I were good friends growing up. Up until we were in high school, I don’t recall a time when we were not hanging out together at church, playing church league basketball and from time to time at each other’s homes. We did not live close to each other. We did not attend the same schools. But that did not keep us from friendship.

Add Jimmy to the mix and the three of us who went to different schools, lived in different parts of OKC, but attended the same church and enjoyed our times together. Unlike Jimmy or I, Randy kept his room very well. To this day I don’t know if it was a house rule or just Randy. After observing my room at my house and Jimmy’s room at his house, Randy wondered how we could live with ourselves. Jimmy looked at Randy and said,

We give our rooms the lived in look.

In retrospect, Randy likely would have deserved an OCD diagnosis. Once we had a Youth Fellowship at his house. By this time Randy had decided Youth Group was not for him. A couple of us went into Randy’s room and adjusted the angle of a couple of model cars on his dresser. When he got home, he asked his mother who had been in his room. We laughed and laughed.

We all get older.

One summer, I am not sure how old we were both Randy and I worked for his Dad. Sometimes we would cut out of work early and hit a pool hall on Northwest 50th. Randy was quite the billiard player. He patiently taught me how to play 9-Ball and how to shape shots to set up the next play. He was really good.

After that, we both went our different ways. I finished college and moved to Texas. Randy worked for the State of Oklahoma Department of Tourism and then for the Sonic Corp.

After that, I saw Randy alive only once in 2005.

I offered my condolences at his Mother’s funeral.

Twenty years ago.

Out of Touch

Randy and I never had a falling out. No, “ I hope to never to see you again” moment. Until Randy moved to southeastern Oklahoma, I would hear that he had played cards with some of the old crew from high school days. I think it was Chas that noted that Randy had increasingly withdrawn from poker nights.

Some years ago a friend was hired by Sonic Corp. I asked if he would look up Randy and get me an email address. I had called a home number and a cell number I had but either they were the wrong number or Randy was too busy to call back. Brian told me that Randy had left Sonic about six months before he was hired.

Randy lost his brother to cystic fibrosis forty years ago at the age of 20. Rodney was my brother Paul’s best friend. Randy’s parents divorced. His mother died of cancer. His Dad died in 2019. I don’t know the last time he talked with his Dad.

You likely have a similar story. Time and distance created a lack of contact with a childhood friend. You have a flood of memories upon hearing of their death.

I am not telling this story for sympathy.

Life is arbitrary.

No Jesus Juke

We stood around Randy’s bed. His body awaiting the funeral home to arrive. It may have been the most peaceful Randy appeared in a long, long time. We all wondered what we did not know. What had prompted the decision to opt for loneliness? Yes, there were interruptions to that decision. The birth of his good friend Woody’s children and grandchildren. Hunting. Hanging out. I have seen the photos of him enjoying himself.

Somewhere the OCD had been overcome. The place he left had the lived in look. Like all of us he could have taken better care of his physical self. I suspect that the arbitrariness of life had taken its toll. Doctors relayed a number of detreimental physical conditions to his friends before I had arrived.

What I do know is that while life is arbitrary, God is not.

Thanks, to my friend Tripp for that line.

And since God is not arbitrary, nor transactional, the peace that Randy’s body displayed is now his ongoing experience. We do not get to list a litany of measures whereby we declare the future of another. We instead are encouraged by a childlike act of trust, even before life sets in, to find hope in times like these.

We have a hard time receiving what we don’t think we deserve. Grace is one of those things we find difficult for ourselves and for others. We too often evaluate by checklist. Instead, the Good News is that there is nothing, no thing, that separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not the decision for loneliness and its attendant effects.

And, what we might think an awkward reunion based on what had been, is actually the realized promise of reconciliation. No more cancer. No more dimentia. No more cystic fibrosis. No more loneliness and isolation. No more separation.

A father’s hope has now been realized not to be interrupted anymore.

I am thankful Larry called.