Dear Friends of Stuart,


I know most of you are young, vibrant, brave, feel invincible, unstoppable and eternal.  You are supposed to be experiencing this.  It's your trademark.

However, don't think yourself  immune to tragedy, accidents or incapable of bad mistakes.  Let Stuart be an example.  His young, vibrant, brave, invincible, unstoppable and eternal life on planet earth ended just over a week ago.  He would want you to learn from his mistake.  He would want you to be even braver and just say no.

What I would want you to know, as a responder to his death, is the path he left behind.  I am relatively removed from the intense grief that his parents and immediate family are going and will go through.  I knew Stuart only from afar.  The last time I saw him was 6 years ago.  Despite hearing about him, my daily life didn't intersect with his ... like yours did.  Yet, I have been ... my family has been ... my friends have been profoundly affected by his death.  Should you choose to make the same choice, here's what you may not know:

• People far removed from you, people who don't even know you, but find out about your accidental death will mourn because they know and love someone you know.  It will be on their minds.  It will make them hug their own kids, nephews and nieces and whisper prayers in young ears that they don't make the choices you did.
• There will be a sense of sadness and/or depression that lingers throughout the days that follow your death.  It will grip those who didn't know you well at the oddest times.  It will cause them to question their own ability to make sense of the world.  It will cause them to doubt the goodness of God.  It will cause them to see the dark side of life.
• Others will dream about you ... and your Momma ... and wake up and cry.  They will wonder what you were thinking.  They will wonder why you didn't see the danger of what you were doing.  They may even be mad at your choices, but not for long.  They will wish they could have had a heart-to-heart conversation with you and shed some light into your decisions.
• At your funeral, others will cry for you and cry for the hurt they see in those who knew you better.  When they see your Momma, your Dad, your Grandparents cry and see the pain in their eyes that hangs there like deep pools that may never run dry ... they will cry all the harder.
• They will have conversations with their children, who feel that a young life was taken too early, and they will have questions that will never be able to be answered.  They will feel helpless.

Again, dear friends of Stuart, consider these things.  Your life is bigger than you think.  Your life is touching a far bigger spectrum than you may know.  Your life matters.  Your life counts for something.  Your life ... it's just beginning.  At this point, you have so much more to do, to say, to become, to invent and to reinvent.  At this point, there is nothing too big that can not be undone or  nothing too small that can not be grown.  You are unique.  You have been designed for a purpose that only YOU can fulfill.

Hold on young friends.  Your life matters.  Your life matters because someone, bigger, wiser and perfect, created you.  God.  God loves you.  God knit every part of your gorgeous body to do good things.  Look past church, look past t.v. portrayals of religion, and look past tradition.  There is a God who chose you to be a force to be reckoned with in this universe.  He has such a beautiful and effective plan for your life ... and He desires that you know it ... and live it.  It's no secret.  He wants you to know it ... and to know Him.  Search for it, friends.  You will find it.

Signed,
one deeply affected by the young life of Stuart Spencer