Dan

 

A friend of mine has died yesterday. I say a friend, for that is what he is, but there are many people who were much closer to him; I do not post for your sympathies for my loss.

He was younger than me, and had lived for twenty years with MS. One might say that the world is diminished by his no longer being with us; and certainly, those for whom he was a tangible presence, his family most of all, will feel that loss sharply. But in a very real sense, the world is not diminished at all: the world is immeasurably enriched by his having been given to us; and he himself is still alive, in Christ. He is still where we are, in Christ. He and I had lived in different cities for the past fifteen years, he was already a real but intangible presence in my life; now he is a real but intangible presence in our lives. Alive in Christ, he no longer endures the advance of MS; though he was already so very fully alive that I doubt the untrained eye can tell the difference in his now fully-alive now fully-glorious body, it will be such a small thing.

One day, we shall meet again, face to face, in the fully-accessible new heaven and earth, and then my own constraints (for every person has her constraints, we are not infinite but particular, unique, personal, embodied) both the dyspraxia I live with daily and any other constraints that will form me in days to come, will also be made glorious. Not stripped from our resurrection bodies but freed from harmful intent. Until then, may I live each day as my friend did, with immense gratitude, and joy, and love.

Thank you, God, for Daniel Cooper. And thank you, Dan, from the bottom of my heart. You are a legend and a role-model. May you, and all those who love you, rest in peace, and rise in glory.