I was just browsing through some very old posts of mine and found this from Wednesday July 21, 2004, after attending Dr. Conyers funeral at First Baptist Church of Waco, the same place that just over a year later was where we said goodbye to Kyle...

There was something special about being at the funeral of a man I hardly knew because it gave me the opportunity to examine my own life and to be affected by the words of others and learn again by the words of those close to him the things that are really important.

Sitting next to Jason and in the same room with Christy and knowing that Kyle was also there somewhere, while listening to Dr. Conyer's brother and son and lifelong friend made me think about this: One day, hopefully many years from now, I will stand up at the funerals of friends, and they will stand up at mine, and we will give an account of each other's life.

We will speak of years spent together.

We will talk about how we made each other laugh and how we tried our best to help each other find God.

We will remember the little things said that the sayer forgot, but that altered the course of our lives forever.

We will speak of the silent moments together, the moments that needed no words to legitimize as holy moments.

We will openly tell of our love for our friends, and yet silently regret the many missed opportunities of verbalizing those words.

We will remember the special seasons of friendship, and yet grieve over times of estrangement when circumstance and misunderstandings kept us apart.

Mentioning the quirks and oddities of our friends will bring laughter to the room, each one pointing to the things we lack and long for in ourselves.

At that moment we will understand the brutally intense power of words that seemed to be just mere words before that day: Loyalty. Laughter. Grief. Tears. Friendship. Love.

And the best I can hope for, and work my ass off ensuring, is that years spent in relationship will be worth the sentimentality of that moment.