At the same time, it’s kind of fun staying late with coworkers, sharing in the pain! Ah, yes, it’s every single EECS class I ever had, all over again. Fun, but only for the first couple of evenings.

I have to remember I’m human and limited. God’s sovereign and the work is going to get done with or without me. And God forbid if I am ever controlled by work or stress or deadlines. It’s just not worth it. Shake it off. Take a deep breath, Andrew. It’s gonna be okay.

Justin hands me a photo a few weeks ago. Can you get this blown up? Mike wants it.

I go see Mike. What do you want it to say?

He thinks.

“Rest in peace, Godfather. From your brother, Spicy Mike.”

"Oh, my God. What happened?"

"He's got an infection, and it's been bad Drew, it's been bad." I hear some muffled voices in the background. "But hey Drew, I gotta go now. I need your prayers."

--

Truth of the matter is that when I graduated and moved away, I lost touch with Mike. It wasn't a sudden break, but gradual and subtle. I graduated. I went to Africa. I came back and started working. Mike stayed around.

Every once in awhile, I get a phone call from him. "Hey Drew, how ya doin?" Mike will ask. And I will tell him that I'm at work, and I'll call him back. I try to remember to call him back. I really do.

--

"He's gone."

"Mike, I'm so sorry."

"He passed at 7:07."

"I'm so sorry man."

"Wayne just gave up man. Drew, I'm tired."

I can say nothing.

"I can't cry no more."

--

Sarah and I show up at Alta Bates later that evening with some coffee and La Burrita. We wait for Mike in the waiting room. Soon he comes in a bit unsteadily, a boombox clutched in one hand, a thick wool beanie covering his head and ears. Slumping into the seat across from us, he leans forward and puts his head in his hands. "He's gone"--and exhales.

The details make their way out. "I was out in Berkeley doing my thang. They had to come find me, tell me 'Mike, your brother Wayne's in the hospital. You gotta get over now.' Can you believe that? They had to come find me.

Sarah offers Mike some coffee. Mike looks up and over--you brought that? Bless you. A deep sip.

"Wayne had an infection"--Mike says the name of some medical term, but I can't quite catch it. "There was an infection on his insides. He was in so much pain. They say he couldn't hear nobody, but I was there at his side talking to him and I know he can hear me. You know? He twitch."

--

"I gotta tell everyone on his street that he gone now."

Mike chuckles a bit.

"Listen, I tell you, Wayne used to always walk by this woman's house in the morning. She used to ask me, 'Why does Wayne always do that?' I say 'It's because he likes you!' She says 'But I'm married!' and I say 'Well that's why Wayne always coming around when your man's gone!'

Mike laughs as he relives the memory.

"I was prepared for Moms, but nothing prepared me for Wayne, you know? You're ready to see your momma pass, but not your own brother. Drew, I can't cry no more."

--

Last I heard from Mike, he was about to go in to court for his Social Security hearing. "You gonna come, Drew?" he asked me. I told him I'd be there, and just to give him a call. "Good. I just need you to say to the judge that you seen me have heart problems and take me to the hospital once." I tell him to have his lawyer call me. She never does.

Mike called the afternoon before his court date. I'm at work, so I let the call go straight to voice mail. "Hey Drew, it's Mike. Court hearing's tomorrow. Can you come?" I call him right back, but alas, it's disconnected. All through the evening and into the next day, his number's still disconnected, and I wonder how his case turns out.

--

"God got his purpose, Drew. I know that. Last night I was walking the neighborhood and I saw this shooting star. Just... shoom"--Mike makes this flying hand motion--"I saw a shooting star and it fly right over Wayne's house. And I knew, I just knew.

"Wayne was a grumpy guy, you know? Every time I come over he kick me right out after fifteen minutes. Say he don't want to see nobody. He was a hard man, but he was family ya know?"

Mike's expression changes, and he puts his head down in his hands again. "When my Moms passed, we all came together again. That was her last wish. We usually fighting and everything and sure enough, we came together. But we was fighting all over her things.

"My big sister give me a call one day and she says 'Mike, come down here and take some of Mom's stuff.' I say, 'I don't want nothing to do with it.' Everybody's over there taking and taking. I finally go down and you know what's left? A vacuum cleaner." Mike's face registers disgust. "They take everything but her vacuum cleaner."

Sarah and I don't know what to say, but to look intently at him.

--

I've heard from Mike time and time again. He'll call me once in awhile and leave a voice mail message. "Hey Drew, just thinking of you. Call me back all right? Say hi to Sarah for me."

"We don't deserve a friend like Mike," Sarah told me last night. "You know? Like we're not nearly as good as friends to him as he is to us. He has every right to disregard us as do-gooder students, but we really are his friends."

I try to remember to call, I swear I do.

Since Mike doesn't have a working cell phone any more, he calls me from several phone numbers, all of which I judge to be his family. One number is his sister's, another is Belinda's. "How's he doing?" I ask Belinda. "He's not doing too well," she replies.

"Can you talk to him?" his sister asks, her voice cracking too, "He really needs someone to talk to."

--

I met Mike on a starry evening five years ago on Telegraph and Durant. Was it March, or was it April? He was sitting on a milk carton at the time; I was a big-eyed freshman willing to talk to anybody. I met a Mike who was lost in his thoughts. "You know what man," he tells me that evening, "I miss my Moms. She passed five years ago today."

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I wobble off my bike, sweaty and more than a little frustrated, and stumble over to the nearest bench. There’s nobody to curse but steel, diesel, and a heartless timetable. I kick a cockroach; it rolls over and scurries away. Hrmph. Still grumpy. Okay, I’ll vent on Twitter. Bad idea Andrew, broadcasting angst over the Internet is a cultural faux pas (but look at what you’re reading, ha!).

Life is just really different. I just realized why–it’s become much harder to attach meaning to things anymore. I wake up, I catch the J bus, I walk into work, I fix bugs, draw mockups, code features, grab lunch, take a run, catch the bus, go home, watch a movie… and do it all over again. Life’s more routine. My identity suddenly doesn’t feel as much a small-group leader, or a mentor, or a student, or a friend, or a musician any more as it is mostly now as a… what?

–

It’s a warm summer evening here at the Caltrain station. I sit here for an hour and take in the rhododendron breeze. Forced to stay, and sit, and watch, and be.

A blind man slowly teeters up to the fare booth and orders a ticket. “WELCOME TO CALTRAIN!” the lady with the digital voice blares, and the blind man, startled, silences her with the powers of Braille. A cockroach scurries underfoot and heads for the light.

I close my eyes and listen to the rhythms of the city: the groanings of the train tracks, the soft rush of traffic, people conversing faintly just over the other side.

I've been thinking a lot about how hard life is.

It's been a rough month for everyone. Folks suffering through cancer, layoffs, relationship losses, and passings in the family. Stories of confusion, backstabbing, heartbreak, and confusion are bubbling up right and left. What do we do in this despair?

The wife of my old pastor was recently diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma. It crept up on her, silently and suddenly. Reading emails my pastor sent, I was struck by how raw the feelings of fear, loss, and pain were.

But far over it all was a tone of resilience. "We've called this theme of this season of our lives 'Don't waste your cancer'" I hear how determined they are to face this silent killer with faith and continue running this race with endurance.

This has been a bit of a rough patch for myself as well. I'm not quite sure how to describe it.

Yesterday at small group we were talking about Jesus and his suffering on earth and on the cross. How in the end, we can endure great suffering because we hope in the eternal (the things unseen) and, powerful and reassuring to me, that Jesus himself endured our suffering. He knows exactly what it's like.

Don't waste your cancer. What's it like to hope instead of being paralyzed by fear?

Don't waste your suffering. What's it like to look beyond ourselves to others and Jesus instead of descending into a pit of despair?

I want to know this. To hope, to rejoice, to continue on the Mission. We may not know it now, but we know it nonetheless.

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Sunday, I gave myself a pretty bad haircut. It was a really hot evening, and I was impatient to be finished. Well, buzzing trimmer in hand (with no guard), I misjudged the angle of my head and on my way up, and… whoops!

In one fell swoop, I had a crater on the back of my head. Further inspection with a mirror revealed the horrifying truth: It was bad; I could give the ozone layer a run for its money. And really, all I could really do was laugh.

I think this was the icing on the cake to a long trial period in my life where I’ve just realized how uncool and incompetent I am. I’m not very suave. The words that come out of my mouth can be Shockingly Dumb. I can be forgetful, I can be insecure, I can be totally, totally awkward. I’m a Neanderthal.

In short, I can fail in more ways than I ever thought I could, and I’m not as well put together as I thought I was, and that’s been super depressing to come to grips with.

I’ve been learning the hard lessons of who I really am. I’ve had my pride knocked around a lot. Between myself and Sarah, I’ve discovered that I’m a Total Idiot when it comes to emotions and communication and all that good stuff (who can relate?!).

I’ve made mistakes at work. I’ve been a bad friend. I’ve done a lot of things that just weren’t up to par. I’m actually not as good of a guy than I gave myself credit for.

But, maybe that’s what leads to the laughing. Maybe this is just it; maybe I’m going through the wringer to get humbled and get a fresh beginning on this post-college life. Maybe this is exactly what it feels like to know how much I need Grace, and to be at my wits’ end regarding my own abilities to accomplish anything Good. And maybe there’s that joy that… heck. Crater or no crater, I’m loved. I’m not that big of a deal, and that’s not that big of a deal.

I know I need God. Dang. That’s the one thing that echoes through my mind every morning. I can’t make it through the day without your Grace, Jesus. I don’t care about anything else.

A verse, ever-quoted through this blog, is James 1:2–5. The words stumble through my lips by losers and failures like me, making them all the more powerful.

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

So maybe it’s going to be okay. I’m still growing. I’m still learning to depend on Jesus.

I’m gonna go find myself a hat.

It was a really bad idea.

But I think I finally realized what Psalm 63 means:

God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Running in the sun with the heat unbearably invading every pore, I think I’m viscerally experiencing what it’s like to seek to crave the shade, to be inexorably drawn to it, to seek shelter. It’s quite something to have nothing on your mind but the thought of water, to feel your body on the verge of crumbling until you can get yourself to a fountain and drink deeply and unashamedly.

I experienced today what it meant to know and thirst and crave the living God that much as if life itself depended on it. That’s how I want to live.