My son was in 7th Grade.
My oldest son was exclusively a baseball player. But because there were only three boys in his entire 7th Grade class in his small school, his buddies had talked him into joining the middle school basketball team with them and several of the 8th Grade boys. While naturally athletic, he wasn't a very good basketball player, and didn't much like it anyway.
Prior to one of their games, as I sat and watched from the stands, their pregame warmups had devolved into frivolity, and the boys were all at one end of the court attempting crazy trick shots; shots from the half court, over-the-back hook shots, backwards heaves from far away, etc. Generally just goofing off and playing around as middle school boys are wont to do.
Except for one.
One young man -- an 8th Grader, and one of the best players on the team -- was at the other end of the court taking his warmup time very seriously; working on his dribble, shooting free throws, practicing mid-range jumpers, and generally preparing for the game. Eventually, he'd had enough of his teammates messing around at the other end of the court and as a leader on the team, he finally strolled over to let them have it.
"Hey! Why don't you guys stop screwing around and start working on things you'll actually use in the game!"
With that, the party was over, and everybody got back to work.
I can't remotely remember the outcome of that game, nor most of the many that followed. I know overall, the team, hailing from a really small school, wasn't all that good, but they had a couple pretty good players, and this one young man stood out from the rest.
That young man's name was Ben Elo. Roughly one year later, Ben died after getting out of his shower at home from what is still a relatively unknown cause. He was 14 years old.
Needless to say, it was a tragedy beyond measure. I did not know him or his family well. Aside from him being a friend and classmate of my son's, and a polite young man, I knew little else of him except how impressed I had been by him and his work ethic that day at basketball practice, and equally impressed at his fearless chastising of his teammates. I mentioned as much to his mother some years later as we developed a professional relationship.
While it was no secret Ben was a good athlete, I would go on to learn he was a very talented soccer player beyond his years, and had been playing on an older-aged, elite traveling soccer team for several years. His future as a high-level soccer player was very bright. He dreamed of playing soccer at Notre Dame, and had said as much to their head coach, Bobby Clark, when he attended their soccer camp just two weeks before his death.
Also needless to say, his funeral was a heart wrenching affair, attended of course by nearly all his classmates, and a good number of people from our town. At his funeral, his parents handed every attendee a blue, silicone bracelet embossed with the Bible verse they thought most exemplified Ben's character, Micah 6:8.
"Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly."
It was a simple blue silicone bracelet. You know the type. Embossed, not printed, so it was simply blue.
I'm not a big jewelry guy. The only ring I wear is my wedding ring. I wear a necklace with a cross on it as well. At various times in my past, I've worn a gold chain bracelet. I don't wear a watch.
What jewelry I do wear has to be jewelry I don't ever have to remove. I never take off my wedding ring or my necklace. Ever. The only reason I'm not still wearing a gold bracelet is because whatever last one I had finally broke off my wrist and disappeared. Because of their simplicity and durability, I have worn various silicone bracelets over the years. Right now I have a silicone bracelet from the Cincinnati Reds and another red one I got from this year's Christmas parade that reads, "Jesus With Us."
At Ben's funeral -- I don't remember the exact date, but it was late July, 2008 -- when they handed me Ben's blue silicone bracelet, I immediately put it on, and it has never come off my wrist since.
Never.
Several years ago, a few years before I moved to South Carolina, I served a year as our local Kiwanis Club's chapter president. Monthly, we would honor a local youth for their civic and faith-based commitments to our community. As chapter president, I would have my picture taken with the young recipient, and that picture would often end up in the local paper with a caption notating the award. It was most always a black and white picture buried somewhere inside the paper.
After one such publication, I received a kind phone call from Ben's mother. She had seen the photo in the paper and was calling to thank me for still wearing Ben's bracelet. She mentioned how, after several years, it just felt to them that people had begun to forget about Ben and had moved on from his passing and she was thankful to me that I was, in my small way, still keeping Ben's memory alive by wearing his bracelet.
I shared my gratitude and mentioned that I never remove the bracelet, and after some small talk, we ended the call. I immediately grabbed my copy of the paper to look at the picture. As mentioned, it was a black and white photo, and my wrist bearing the bracelet was not in any way predominately featured in the shot. In the photo, the bracelet was barely visible, and, in my opinion, completely and utterly indistinguishable. To this day, I have no idea how she knew it was Ben's bracelet I was wearing. She just knew.
For 14 years, I'd worn Ben's bracelet, every day, every night, literally 24 hours a day. It was a little faded, and the emboss a little worn, but it was there, a daily reminder from a forever 14 year old boy to "Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly."
Until last Sunday.
As I dressed for church, and pulled on long-pants jeans I almost never wear in our balmy weather, I heard something drop, and I looked down to see Ben's bracelet laying on the floor beside my bed. It had snapped clean, and was gently laying there, almost as if waiting to be picked up.
It has been some time since I've felt such sadness. I felt as though I'd lost a friend. We've been through so much together, a part of me I've come to just accept. Few people over the years have actually mentioned anything to me or asked about it, but I have to guess other's have noticed a blue bracelet on my arm for as long as they can remember. In many ways, it has come to represent and honor the loss of many friends. Losses that reinforced the notion of our own mortality, and the temporary station we hold in this world.
The realization that we all have only a certain amount of time here on Earth formed the foundation of my and my wife's desire to move close to the beach and live life to the fullest while we still can. Ben's bracelet made that move with me and enjoyed the salty air as much as I do.
I did the math. That blue bracelet has been on my arm nearly 25% of my life. I know it sounds corny, but it is upsetting to me that it's no longer there.
Fortunately, it's not gone. I still have it. I'm thankful it didn't fall off in the ocean or blow off my arm as I drove down the highway. I haven't decided just how, but it will soon be on display somewhere in my office. I might get it framed, I haven't decided yet.
I should add here, before I close, that my son wore Ben's bracelet in the same way I did, 24/7, until his original broke off his wrist just a few months ago. Some time ago, he had reached out to Ben's mother, who still had a stash, and she sent him several to keep on standby and maybe to hand out to others. He immediately donned a replacement and still wears it everyday.
The rainbow at the end of this story is that when I reached out to tell him mine had finally fallen off, he informed me he still has a few left over, and I'm going to pick up a new bracelet from him when I visit in a couple weeks. The irony -- and perhaps the karma -- is that it won't be a new bracelet at all. It will be a 14-year old bracelet, just one no one's ever worn before.
14 years old -- the same age as Ben.
What's the life lesson here? I don't know. Perhaps you can figure it out. Or maybe, we just all need to take our own lesson out of it. As for me, I'll just keep trying to Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly.I hope that's enough to honor Ben.
POSTSCRIPT (if you're up to keep reading, and you should...)
Before I posted this publicly, I wanted Ben's family and my son to read it, as much for accuracy as for their general thoughts. I really wanted to be sure I was honoring Ben appropriately, and my memories hadn't faulted me. They both responded with some edits which I made to the piece before posting it. Additionally, they shared some thoughts with me and I wanted to include them, but thought it best to just add them verbatim instead of trying to weave them into what I'd already written. Here are their comments below...
MELANIE ELO (Ben's mom): "Generally speaking, I always want people to know that Ben loved Jesus and that he talked to people about that. The one thing I recall from the memorial was sharing that ‘if Ben were here today, he would want you all to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. We will see Ben again and he would want to see you in Heaven too.’ ...Any chance to talk about Faith in his life is always good."
M. ELO: "We chose the (Micah 6:8) verse because it represented his character so much and it became part of the mission statement of his memorial fund. He wrote a paper on his favorite (Bible) verse, which was John 15:5; 'I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without Me you can do nothing.'"
M. ELO: "When you grieve deeply, you want to know people remember... I looked at everyone's wrist and every picture to see if they still had (Ben's) bracelet on. I just seemed to be a mark of remembrance to us. While (we know) people didn't stop wearing it because they had forgotten about Ben, it felt that way to us -- that's why we appreciate you wearing it so much."
