On Loss, Love, Hope

A story of how one couple follows the example of our risen Lord, even when their pain seems unimaginable.

It was the phone call every parent dreads. In the early-evening hours on the last day of 2014, the police called a close friend of mine with tragic news. A driver had sped through a stoplight and plowed into the car her son was driving. Her son was killed. His girlfriend was critically injured. The driver tried to flee on foot but was caught.

What happened in the aftermath continues to amaze me.

The young man who died was just five days from becoming twenty-one. His parents chose to honor their son on his birthday with a party. Friends and family gathered at a microbrewery to remember him, tell stories about him, and celebrate that day, twenty-one years earlier, when he entered the world. About a week later, family and friends gathered again at a memorial service to mark his passing from this world.

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