Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Good Letters

Home
Catholic
The Boy Who Lived Large

The Boy Who Lived Large

Last updated on: August 17, 2015 at 1:00 am by Vic Sizemore

The Boy Who Lived Large 2015-08-13T12:59:48-07:00 Vic Sizemore

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Friday we took the kids and hit the road for Aiken, South Carolina. We were going down to attend a memorial service for my sister’s stepson Tyler. Tyler was sixteen years old.

The service was nice. The pastor had lost a six-year-old daughter to asthma, and was particularly tuned in to the family’s pain.

My nephew Jesse wrote a letter to Tyler, which one of his friends stood and read for him. He wrote to Tyler, “You were so warm, so happy, so loving, and as wonderful as those words are they still don’t seem to do you justice.” He wrote, “Tyler, you were the embodiment of unconditional love…”

The pastor spoke of everyone’s memories of Tyler. He loved to sing, and he had a specific song he attached to each significant person in his life, singing it when he saw that person.

His favorites: Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Night”; The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight,” which he changed to party tonight; “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,” which he sometimes changed to I’ve got the whole world in my hands.

On our drive my wife had reminded me of one holiday gathering at my parents’ house at which Tyler kept reaching for the hand-churned butter my sister had gotten at her co-op, trying to shove more of that real butter into his mouth. He paid no attention at all to the stick of margarine on the table.

“With all his limitations,” she said, “he knew good butter.”

Tyler had his limitations. He required a lot of care.

Just down the street from our house here in Lynchburg are two houses built by L’Arche, an international network of homes founded by Jean Vanier, where a few staff members—but mostly volunteers who take it as their spiritual vocation—live in community with those who have severe disabilities. I see them taking walks together in the neighborhood, and I can easily pick out who is giving care and who is being cared for.

L’Arche homes aren’t simply there to care for challenged people while keeping them out of the way. They are about something far deeper than that.

“Those we lock away and think worthless have the power to teach and even to heal us, writes Vanier. “When you start living with people with disabilities, you begin to discover a whole lot of things about yourself.”

While it would no doubt teach us a great deal about ourselves to live in community alongside the severely challenged, that is not as far as it goes. Vanier is not saying that it is a good discipline for the volunteers, a way to self-knowledge or even holiness, the way a puppy teaches a child to care for another living being.

That’s missing the point entirely.

Tyler’s existence in the world was not an opportunity for those around him to develop their own character. That thinking reduces the importance of a boy’s existence.

Maybe we are tempted to see his life as well as his death as nothing more than a sad case, a tragedy—his awareness of life circumscribed as it was, and his death coming so early.

However, we who think we know so much more than Tyler did walk our days in a waking dream every bit as much as he might have seemed to.

We are sure of things that prove to be false; we are unsure of the mysteries we desperately hope will prove true in the end, but which we cannot grab hold of or understand any more than he could have. Not really.

If we see our understanding of ultimate things, of mystery, as something like taking a running jump from a beach in California, even at low tide, to Australia, we see how ludicrous it is to boast that we know much.

From the perspective of such great distance, our understanding and Tyler’s are so close as to be indistinguishable.

According to Vanier:

The greatness of [humanity] is to accept [our] insignificance, [our] human condition, and [our] earth, and to thank God for putting in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of [humanity] is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day.

In his memorial letter, Jesse spoke of the vows he exchanged with his brothers Bryce and Tyler, and concluded that, “Out of the three of us, I have to say you have been the one who lived out all those promises most consistently… and not by anything you did… but just by who you were.”

Just by who he was.

He was a boy who loved to laugh. Loved music. Loved to sing. Openly accepted every person as a friend. Loved unconditionally. Lived in the moment. Took life every day as it came to him.

If you were to ask me how to live a satisfying life, I would honestly say something like this: Live in the moment, give love generously, laugh often, and absorb yourself in music. And don’t forget: life is short; eat real butter.

By these standards, Tyler was a boy who did not just live. He lived large.

Originally published in Good Letters on August 8, 2012.

Vic Sizemore earned his MFA in fiction from Seattle Pacific University in 2009. His short stories are published or forthcoming in StoryQuarterly, Southern Humanities Review, Connecticut Review, Portland Review, Blue Mesa Review, Sou’wester, Silk Road Review, Atticus Review, PANK Magazine Fiction Fix, Vol.1 Brooklyn, Conclave, and elsewhere. Excerpts from his novel The Calling are published in Connecticut Review, Portland Review, Prick of the Spindle, Burrow Press Review, Rock & Sling, and Relief. His fiction has won the New Millennium Writings Award for Fiction, and been nominated for Best American Nonrequired Reading and a Pushcart Prize. You can find Vic at http://vicsizemore.wordpress.com/.

The above royalty free image of “Mound of Butter,” 1875/1885, oil on canvas by Antoine Vollon is attributed to Cliff on Flickr.

Previous Post

August 14, 2015

Taming the Busy Trap

Next Post

August 18, 2015 In Defense of Air Conditioning

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A. G. Harmon Alissa Wilkinson Allison Backous Art Authors Brad Fruhauff Bradford Winters Bryan Bliss Caroline Langston Chad Thomas Johnston Chris Hoke Christiana N. Peterson Culture D.G. Myers D.L. Mayfield Daniel Bowman Jr. David Griffith Elizabeth Duffy Faith Film Greg Wolfe Guest Contributor Interview Jan Vallone Jeffrey Overstreet Jessica Eddings-Roeser Jessica Mesman Griffith Kelly Foster Lindsey Crittenden Morgan Meis music Natalie Vestin Nick Olson Peggy Rosenthal Personal Reflection Poetry Friday Reflection Relationships Review Richard Chess Richard Cole Sara Zarr Shannon Huffman Polson Sonya Bilocerkowycz Tania Runyan Tony Woodlief Topical Categories Uncategorized Vic Sizemore Writing

Select a Month October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 February 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

For you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its what?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Light Power Glory Wings