Twenty years ago tonight, one of my high school classmates and good friend was killed in a car accident. My prayers today go out to the family of Kirk Jacobs and to my other friend who was driving that night; thankfully, he was relatively uninjured. I'm sure their grief still knows no bounds.
My life changed forever on Friday, October 28, 1988. That was the day I think I lost all of my youthful invincibility. I remember going to the funeral home the following Sunday night, and being closer emotionally to some of my classmates than I ever had been before.
School on Monday was a surreal experience. I unknowingly broke the news of Kirk's death to one of my friends, the first time I had to tell another person that one among us had passed. I'll never forget how our math teacher, Mr. Rodriguez - Kirk was in my class - just couldn't go on that day. When the teacher lost it, I don't think any of us in the classroom knew how to handle it.
I remember the shock and grief expressed by the principal of Bernards High School; in all his years, this was the first time he'd lost a student.
The Bernards High School Class of 1989, myself included, was forever going to be one classmate short.
I hadn't come to the Lord then, but I do remember that I was able to scribble a Bible verse - one of the few I knew at the time - in the memory book at the funeral home, so I'll close with what I wrote then, Ecclesiastes 11:9 (NIV):
Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
I miss you Kirk. I'm blessed to have known you for the time we were given.
"[I]f we fail, then the whole world,…all that we have known and cared for…will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that…men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'”
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