"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."So many thoughts have been swirling around in my head these past few days: Life on earth is short. Things are things. Time passes quickly. God transcends time and space.
My childhood neighbor, Christopher Harris, died on Monday afternoon. He was sitting in his car outside his home when a large oak tree from the other neighbor's house fell and crushed both cars. My cousin's daughter saw it happen. She was playing on the porch across the street from my old house.
I received this news just minutes before I went to sign all the paperwork to close on our new house in Hawaii. It was a very bitter-sweet day for me. That home on 10th Ct was the only home in Ocala I ever knew. Chris was a huge part of those memories.
For the longest time growing up, we had an empty lot next to us. In fact, my cousins and I played there fairly often; it was like a hidden jungle. I remember once we tried to camp in the lot. We started a campfire and had our tents up, but it just happened to be the same night someone attempted to break into our van in the front yard. Needless to say, I didn't sleep outside that night.
In late elementary school, we met this family at our church, Abundant Life. Jo, the mom, and her four sons: Steve, Chris, Dylan, and Derek. I was in between the older boys, but in the same grade as Chris. Steve's birthday was a day after mine.
I don't remember all the details because I was so young, but I remember that Jo was a single mom at the time. She had been working hard and also had her name in the Habitat for Humanity pool to have a house built for her. She had already volunteered hundreds of hours on other home projects with Habitat. All she needed was the land to have her home built upon. Someone in my family owned the lot next to us... not sure if it was my parents or my grandpa who actually had the deed.
Needless to say, we gave away the lot, but we gained some wonderful neighbors. We all helped build the house, too. It went up pretty fast, actually. Everyone who helped was a volunteer, except for the construction foreman I'm sure. The house was up in no time and now our family had new friends to help combat boredom.
We'd always find something to keep up occupied outside. I remember playing football behind my dad's fence yard in the back lot. I was a tomboy back then, so I loved "hanging out with the guys." When we bought a used trampoline, I'd jump with Chris and Steve all the time. We made up these goofy routines, gymnastics style, and had our younger siblings serve as judges. Looking back, it was really silly, but that's what we did... I remember once Steve and I double-bounced Chris so high that he came down and did a butt buster on the bar and flipped off the tramp. We were all a little more careful after that.
This one time, I think it was Christmas or something, Chris and Steve got a laser tag set as a gift. We spent all night outside shooting at each other and hiding behind trees in the front yard. It never got boring when you had neighborhood friends to hang out with.
Another thing I remember was meeting this guy Zac. He was around our age, so we all decided to make this secret club. Behind Chris and Steve's house was a giant pile of cinder block. It was in stacks, just waiting to be used. So, we fashioned some type of fortress out of it and created a secret password to enter--typical. I, being the girl, even made member passes for everyone. We were official. I don't remember going there much, but we had member cards.
Then there was basketball. We didn't play all the time, but when we did it wasn't pretty. The outside porch light wasn't very bright in front of my house, so we had to improvise. We found a broken lamp in my mom's shed, took the shade off, and set it on the roof of the house. We coined this action and called it "ghetto basketball." It stuck. After all, my dad's bench seat from his work van sat in the front of our house. So technically, we might have been playing "ghetto basketball" without the lamp even on the roof! When I went back to Ocala to visit my family and ran into Chris still living next door to my childhood home, we always joked about it.
I didn't know Chris much as an adult. Although we went to high school together, we didn't interact a ton. Even after high school, we had some mutual friends, but mostly went our separate ways. But that doesn't erase them memories we created together as kids. We'll always have that, or at least I will. I don't know where Chris is right now. At one point, I know he professed to be an atheist, but I don't know the intricacies of our God. I am not the judge. I am praying peace and comfort over the entire family during this hard time.
