This remembrance was written in the weeks following the September 11th terrorist attacks. I am grateful to be able to offer it afresh as we have the chance to remember the heroic gravity of a mature faith.
“Vicarious”
We were a great team that year, a bunch of seventh graders on a winning streak. Wheaton Christian Grammar School had their basketball juggernaut. David, Brian, Chuck, Dave, Steve, Todd, several other boys, and me had yet to be defeated, but we were looking at our Goliath. Vinny was the center for St. Francis Middle School, and none of us really knew if he had been held back a grade and, if so, how many times. A mustache like that just doesn’t grow on a 13-year-old, and we had yet to play anyone over 5’11 til we met Vinny. It was to be our toughest game of the year, but we were up for it. Our star player wore number 23 before Michael Jordan did. Todd had come through in the clutch before, and we knew that he would again. We were not concerned, until Chuck left his T-shirt on the practice court the day before the big game. Todd went up for a lay-up and came down, all the way down, twisting his ankle and ensuring a rare spot on the bench for the next day. St. Francis exploited our weakness, and we lost… the only game of the season we didn’t emerge the victor. And we all knew it was because Todd hadn’t played.
People who amaze me are those who have good reasons to be cocky, but aren’t. It’s even more remarkable when you encounter them in junior high. Todd was like that. He was the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome, with bright eyes and a bright smile seeming to create an aura around his curly black hair. Todd was not only smart, he was also fun, studying hard but not so hard that he forgot to laugh. He didn’t even need star athlete status to have his pick of the giggling girls that surrounded us. So he picked Gail Johnson, the blond and beautiful brilliant woman who held my heart through three years of middle school. But I was not jealous. It seemed somehow just that a girl like her should be with a boy like him.
On top of all this, Todd simply was a nice guy. He was friendly, warm, and had a sweet gentle spirit that made his friendship come easy. To whatever degree junior high faith in Jesus can be genuine, Todd’s was.
I was honored to be friends with him. In so many ways, while navigating those unconscious adolescent questions of identity, I wanted to be like him, for all the wrong reasons.
Three years of junior high friendship came and went. There were more basketball games, more soccer games, more girlfriends, more sleepovers, more class parties, and more carefree moments of childhood. Freshman year came and we all went our separate ways, some to Wheaton Central and some to Wheaton Christian High. I went to Wheaton North, and only saw Todd a few times after that.
Our adulthood brought different lives and forgotten friendship. I became a world-traveler and urban dweller, living in the heart of Washington. He became a husband and worked for a software company, settling down in the suburbs of New York. By the time I married, Todd had had two sons. His faith had become all the more real. He traveled a lot for business, he taught Sunday School at the local church. We had both found our lives, and I was glad for mine.
What would happen if our middle school wishes were granted? What would life become if just once we could actually switch lives with our junior high heroes?
Fast forward some years…
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil,
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory
forever and ever,
Amen.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer offered that prayer one last time on earth.
“Tell Lisa I love her.”
“Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”
And Todd became a hero. United Airlines Flight #93 plowed into a field in Pennsylvania instead of Washington DC. His words would rally America.
In the weeks following that fatal day, pictures of Todd flashed on televisions nationwide. His picture was carried in Time and Newsweek, and in newspapers around the country. He had become older, but his gentle and humble and joyful smile had not changed. The Wheaton Daily Herald carried a picture of our basketball team, all of us standing tall and smiling, twenty years and a lifetime ago.
Who can tell the twists and turns life takes? Who can predict how the future will emerge and what is hidden in the haze of years not yet born?
I am grateful to have grown up with greatness, the seeds of which were sprouting even then in the life of a gifted little boy who should have been cocky but was not. The character that would carry him through the darkest hour was in junior high taking shape. The will to make a choice like the one Todd made that day was not formed overnight. Shrouded in the whispered tones of desperate prayers for help and offerings of forgiveness, the fruit of that gentle life lived well was bravery and sacrifice in the moment when courage was required.
Todd’s death makes me grateful for life. I have my sweet Tara, my calling is clear, my life is established with new adventures to emerge. I am content and full of gratitude. Yet even now, with the clear-mindedness of adulthood, I still want to be like Todd, but this time, for all the right reasons.