I'll miss you, my friend...

This is really hard for me. Everyone who knows me, especially John, knows that I have a hard time getting in touch with my feelings. Up until this point I’ve been able to hide my feelings with humor but now I feel like I need to say what I’ve really been feeling. When I got the call from Becky I felt like I was dying. Instantaneously I felt regret that I wasn’t there for my brother. I wondered what kind of friend I was that I didn’t even see this coming. If there was ever a way to take John’s place I would have done it in a second—just so that he could go on living. He touched so many people and he had so much going for him and I wish I could have been there to help ease his pain.

Seeing John in the casket yesterday wasn’t the John I know. The John I know was full of light and life. John was a good friend. He was always there. When I was a convert to the church I was a quiet kid but John helped me come out of my shell. John and I clicked from the first day we met. We were instant buddies. We both shared a silliness about us that bonded us. We fed off of each other as we would harass and tease Sunday School teachers, pick on the girls, and make up stupid songs. We would crank call people using a phone-tapping device that Jim built. I would also call girls and talk to them and get them to express all of their deep feelings about John meanwhile John would be in the other room listening and laughing. I don’t even know how many houses or how many times we toilet-papered the same house but it was fun every time. Our goal was to try to get more than 150 rolls on one house.

We had a lot of good times—a lot of wild times. Even during those times, John was still serious about a few things—working hard and helping people. He’d always push me to be a little bit better at everything. Whether it be helping me to go out home teaching or dragging me to another service project that I didn’t want to go to, he was always there to be the example. He taught me how to work and we had a lot of jobs together: we delivered phone books door-to-door in the summer, made sandwiches at Schlotsky’s, worked in the photo lab at Walmart, and did the occasional security job together.

John would help anybody… really ANYBODY! Like the time that me, John, and Brandon were out doing some security work and we stopped to get a drink at Circle K in the middle of the night. John offered a ride to this drunk guy and we ended up driving him across town only to find out that he was a crazy pimp that wanted to kill us. He used to go with me to my Pop and Granny’s house and he always ended up trimming their trees, mowing their lawn, or doing anything else he could to help out. He would always try to fix stuff and if he didn’t know how to do it he would sit around playing with it until he could figure it out. He was always eager to learn—he wanted to know how to do everything. He would ask so many questions until he knew every possible detail about things.

John was the man. All the girls wanted him and all the guys wanted to be him. I’m blessed to have known him and to have been part of his family. I am honored that I got to be his friend. He helped mold me into the person I am today. He was the glue that held our quorum of friends together. It didn’t matter if you were a scrawny little nerd with a mole, a lanky blonde with a flat-top and braces, or a short, fat kid with a crooked nose, John accepted and loved us all and none of our imperfections mattered to him. I want to try to be more like John every day of my life.

John, I love you. Thanks for always being my friend (If I were saying this to you face to face you’d be laughing and singing the theme to “Golden Girls.”) I look forward to seeing you again one day.


-Gary Miller