The 29 Club r̷e̷v̷i̷s̷e̷d̷⁷

It was early December 2o14…

I was working, driving an 18 wheeler, driving my life away, mile after mile, day after day, watching yellow and white painted lines fly by, gone for good, and dodging current wrong decisions.

I had just gotten married two months before. My first time.

It wasn’t a typical newlywed situation. More like a dirt road train with no rails and vanishing confetti dreams.

Just months earlier, I was living the good life in a little house right on the beach with my friend Nathan. He and I met in a Christian drug rehab 6 years earlier. He was younger than me. Like a little brother.

It was an 18 month program, and all us guys lived together and were around each other 24/7. On Sundays, we traveled around to different churches all over Florida as guest speakers. We would stand in front of the congregations and tell our stories. Our testimony.

I learned a lot about Nathan in those days, as he would take the mic and stare out at the people in the pews, out at a new way, with the old things having passed away and all things being made new. He would speak of how it used to be for him. How the drugs had him prisoner. How nothing inside was worth anything. How he didn’t care anymore.

Nathan had just lost his only brother to that life, the same one we were all so desperately trying to let go of, and he was determined to turn himself around and not end up like so many we knew.

His story was incredible. He had miraculously come through situations that should have killed him. He survived two separate car accidents where the others didn’t make it. He was in a bad motorcycle crash. He had overdosed several times, among other things.

There’s a historical drama TV series called Vikings and one of the characters is Bjorn Ironside. It was well known throughout the land that Bjorn couldn’t be killed because he was protected by the gods, haha. Well, it was like this for Nathan, but it wasn’t the gods, it was the God, the same one that had just miraculously showed up beside me and led me untouched out of a murder plot. Even though we had a 12 year age gap between us, I could relate to Nate, the addiction, the pain, the nothingness, constantly losing in the face of life controlling problems but always getting back up.

A few years went by and we did much life together and became great friends. We prayed together, We cried without tears, we forgot our pangs and sufferings and practiced putting our brothers first, we went to church together, worshipped with raised hands and hearts, side by side, helping in the community, sharing a new life so different from the bound one of an addict.

We became such good buddies that I would spend time with his family on holidays and special occasions. All my people were in another state and I didn’t get to see them often. So times like Christmas, it was nice to not be alone. Him and I moved in together and lived in a small beach cottage right on the water. It was an amazing time in our lives. So many memories from the two years we spent there, hanging out with our girlfriends and friends, having people over on the weekends. Living the famous SaltLife that Floridian beach residents were known for.

As I’m writing, I’m smiling and remembering much, like the only time I ever went skinny dipping. It was him and me and our girlfriends and some of their friends, and Nate talked everyone into getting naked and going swimming at night, in the ocean. Haha, crazy times, man.

He was a paramedic and worked a grueling schedule. I was also working long hours, driving locally, picking up 40 ton orange juice concentrate tankers from the port that were arriving from Brazil and taking them to production plants all over the state. We didn’t see each other much those last few months because of our jobs, but occasionally we’d have a few moments here and there on the weekends and we’d talk, reflect back on our lives, and how great things are today, how we never wanted to go back to the way things were. How blessed and fortunate we were to have made it out alive from a past that had hooks.

As I hammered down the road that day, my phone started ringing. On the caller ID was my best friend and new brother in law, Jimmy. He said he had bad news, in that one particular tone people use when it’s the worst. I felt a deep pause inside, like breath and blood ceasing, then I listened.

He said it was Nathan. Something terrible has happened. He was in the hospital, brain dead and being kept alive by machines. His family has decided to let him go and will be turning everything off soon. They wanted to give all his friends time to come by, see him, and say goodbye.

After I hung up the phone, the memories drove through me and passed like mile markers, and every exit sign suddenly meant something.

Oh Nate, why did you go back.

A few days later, Jimmy and I went to see Nathan one last time. As I stepped off the elevator and walked toward his room, my heart did that thing. His door was open, the curtains as well, and the room was so bright and warm from the sun. I saw him laying there from a good ways down the hall, and everything went into slow motion as I walked that last little bit.

I stood beside him. I sat beside him. All the tearless crying from days past was about to be gone. I held his hand the way a man would and talked to him for a while.

Something amazing began to happen, he started responding. He knew I was there, and he was saying goodbye too. It was the most beautiful thing. I could feel God. I could feel Nathan. I could feel everything.

I walked out of that hospital room that afternoon with my shoulders raised—strong inside, healed, and at peace. I was ready to face my own life and recent wrong decisions. It was time to stop mourning and start living.

Nathan just had his 29th birthday 2 months before his passing.

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