I have a crazy family. I mean, seriously. Crazy. I have an aunt that’s been married 6 times. I have a set of grandparents that were divorced and remarried to each other multiple (I repeat, multiple) times. I have a grandfather that spent the last 5 years of his life in prison/house arrest. I have a grandmother that went through rehab because she was addicted to drugs. I have an uncle who was homeless, a drunk and looked like a ghetto Benjamin Franklin. Yeah, ghetto Benjamin Franklin.
Imagine if good ol’ Ben wore a do-rag, never showered, had gold rings on every finger, sported a leather biker vest, a goatee and a coke nail. Imagine if good ol’ Ben drank himself to death. Imagine if good ol’ Ben accidently swallowed a beer can tab while binging that subsequently was lodged in his windpipe for weeks. Imagine if good ol’ Ben somehow split his spleen in half, was found nearly dead, recovered, but had no recollection to how on earth it all happened. Imagine that and you’d be getting close to knowing my uncle.
But see, that’s about all I know about my uncle. Beyond the fact that I know that he was the youngest of 15 children (my grandfather being somewhere in the middle)—I’ve only heard a few stories here and there. My father knew him. My father was the closest family that he had. Sure, he had two kids (maybe three, but it was never confirmed), but they lived hours away and didn’t have much time for a washed-up bum. So my dad would go sit with him at the hospital. My dad would return him to his halfway house. My dad would check in on him, would keep him up to date on family news.
My dad got the phone call at 3:00am yesterday morning that my uncle was dead.
I knew he was constantly dealing with inner torture. I don’t know why; I don’t know what caused him to spend his whole life trying to forget his past. But he was never really a person to me. He was just someone that I heard about on occasion. Just another distant relative. Just another face to forget.
But as I was heading towards bed last night, I noticed one of my cousin’s Facebook status updates. It said, “RIP Uncle _____, I hope you finally found peace in your heart.” Those words hit me so hard. For the first time in my life I saw him as a person. I saw him as a complex, fragile human being desperately trying to find peace. I saw him as a man who died still searching for it.
I could give this story a happy ending by telling you a bit more that I know about my uncle. I know that he came to Christ in the last year of his life. I know that tried to accept the grace and forgiveness of God. I know that he began to go to church more regularly than he ever had and I know that he began to build a relationship with God.
But he still searched. He still looked. He still scrounged around for peace. For comfort. For forgiveness—or forgetfulness. He was still a scared, weak soul trying to find atonement.
I pray that the God of grace welcomes him into his eternal rest. But even beyond that, I hope that my uncle finally has the peace that he spent his life looking for. I pray that even though his methods were skewed and his efforts futile, that his search—and ultimately his finding a Savior, weren’t in vain.
And this is my prayer for every Forgotten. That their troubled memories drive them to a Savior not to a substance. That their search for peace ends in the arms of God, not in the hands of suicide. That, to the rest of the world, they would become Souls, not Scavengers.
That we would be Grace to the Graceless.
That we would be Hope to the Hopeless.
That we would remember the Forgotten.
