Dead at 15

I did not know him, or his family, yet I can’t get him out of my mind.

Curtis Geesamen.

A 15-year-old kid who, as many us once did during our summers, joined his church and others for a week-long youth camp focused on fun and spiritual renewal.

During a simple game Curtis suffered blunt head trauma… an accident that took his life away.

Curtis’ youth camp was organized by LIFT Student Ministries, a camp that I attended for many years and worked at many more… a camp that I gave blood, sweat, and tears to over many hot summers… a camp that changed my life.

Further, Curtis’ accident happened on the grounds of my alma mater, Cedarville University.  A place that I love nearly more than any other place on this earth.

So why can’t I get him out of my mind?

Curtis walked many of the same paths that I did as a kid his age.  But he shall walk no further.

Today, he walks down streets of a city far beyond.  Curtis has left the rest of us to find our way without him.  And someway, somehow, Curtis calls out to me as a reminder that life is short.  Fleeting.  But a vapor, then gone.

Those thousands attending camp with him will never forget the lesson he taught them this week.  I know I won’t.  As Reagan said of the Challenger astronauts, “We will never forget [him], nor the last time we saw [him], this morning, as [he] prepared for [his] journey and waved goodbye and ’slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”

Tonight, I lament with the Geesamen family.  I lament with Cedarville.  I lament with Dan Brown and all of those who have been changing teen’s lives since 1992.  This week, I wish I were still an integral of producing camps for youth.

I wish I had been there, if only to be a part of the healing that will come… albeit somewhere long down the road of an unforeseeable future.