For those of you who are familiar with Justin Day, perhaps you know that this year was an anomaly of sorts. Usually, I post the suggestions I drafted up for the observance of Justin Day several days beforehand. This year, not so much.
Yesterday was Justin Day. For those of you who are not familiar with it, Justin Day commemorates the birthday of my brother, who would have turned 25 yesterday had he lived. Instead, he is frozen in time at age 17, the age he died in a hiking accident on Peru.
This particular Justin Day was harder than usual for my family. Harder for me, too. Justin was born here in Southern California, in the Northridge hospital. He barely survived his own birthday, and it took the heroic actions of a team of doctors to give us the few 17 years we had with him. As a child, he loved Universal Studios and admired the daring of the stunt men he saw working there. Even though the last six years of his life happened in the community of Pleasant Hill, Justin was a native of Southern California, through and through.
When we would visit Justin and I's home region of LA, Justin would stick his head out the window, breathe in the smog, and go "Ahhh!" the way some do when they visit the mountains.
This is the first time we have observed Justin Day in the area he was born. For me, it was the first time observing Justin Day with my parents since college started. Somehow, that was harder than when I'm on my own; I wasn't there for his birth. For me, it is a commemoration of his whole life; to them, it is a very specific day they remember vividly.
Yesterday, to celebrate, I wore a shirt Justin brought back for me from Romania, and carried with me the karibiner that says, "No Fear, No Regrets, No Holding Back." When we went to the movies for the evening, the films we saw reminded me: Justin's short life was not in vain. He touched many lives both before and after his death, and his memory has been an ongoing source of inspiration for me. Although I do not believe they are aware of it, in a very real way the people we love never truly leave us. Justin Spencer, Dean Spencer, Leonard Knapp, Joyce Gutsche, Sonny Ines--they may all be sleeping in Jesus, but their lives and legacies continue to live on in everything we learned from them.
No fear, no regrets, no holding back. That is Justin's legacy, and worth living every day of the year, not just on October 1, Justin Day.
1 comment:
I carry that karibiner with me every day. Can't wait to see him again in the end.
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