I truly believe that the greatest gift that you can give to another person is to genuinely let them know that who they are and what they do matters. It has been my goal in 2014 to become a more thoughtful person. A string of deaths to some individuals who positively affected my life led me to conceive this series. As the words to my favorite song go, “And for those who have stood by my side, you are the story I tell.” You are the words and pages to my story.
Over the course of the next several months, I will be writing open letters to those who have positively impacted my story. I’m not going to lie. It is my goal to make you cry, not out of grief or pain but out of the realization that you do truly matter. I am not doing this in order of how important you are to me. For the most part (other than birthdays or other important events), the letters will be done in a random order. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you come away from this with the realization that you are extremely important to me.
Dear Aldo,
In theory, church should be a place that is welcoming and inviting for all who attend; yet, for one reason or another that is not always the case. Unfortunately, people often tend to remember the situations at a church where they felt unloved. They don’t often share the good experiences. It’s time I do my part to change that.
You probably don’t recall when we met, but I’ve never forgotten. It wasn’t 2002 or 2003, when I began attending both Core and Wednesday night service on a regular basis. It was two years before that, during a Sports City in 2000. Despite me being only 13 years old, you still approached me and asked me if I wanted to be a part of a basketball team with you for the 3-on-3 tournament that went on that night. I didn’t care whether or not you were any good or if we won. I just thought it incredibly cool that a high school kid would approach me and want to be on a team with me.
Our paths didn’t cross much from that point on until I started attending youth group functions. I was not surprised to discover that you were that same open and friendly guy as a college student and youth leader that you were as a high school student. You started doing stuff with my group of friends, and it was great.
You helped my music tastes grow. You showed me that there was more out there (even on the Christian scene) than 89.7 played. Because of you, I learned about bands like FM Static and Hawk Nelson. I’ll never forget how much you hyped up Anberlin in 2003. Eleven years later, they are one of my favorite bands, and I am listening to them as I type this letter to you. One of my favorite memories of my high school years is the night we went to the Vic to see Relient K and Anberlin perform. Even though your beloved Cubs had just frittered away the NLCS two nights before (and we had to pass Wrigley to reach the venue), we had an amazing time seeing some amazing bands. That show became a measuring stick by which I compare all other live shows.
Some of my favorite memories at Stone happened in the sound booth on Wednesday nights. I’ll never forget the one night that the drama team did a skit and one of the girls pronounced Potiphar as “Pot-a-fire”. You walked around the sound booth saying “Pot-a-fire, pants on fire” and we couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t always feel like I belonged with some of the people in the youth group. Whether it was their fault or mine is irrelevant. What matters is that in that sound booth, I always felt welcome, and I always enjoyed myself. Thank you for that.
There’s a couple things I learned from you that I’ve been able to carry on for the past decade-plus and hope to carry on for the rest of my life. First, it’s to recognize and appreciate good music. I’ve grown to love music more and more each year. That’s a seed you planted in me. More importantly, I learned to treat people well, especially young people. At that age, not only do people need to be treated well, but they also need good influences to show them how they should be. You treated me well when you had no reason to. Though our paths do not cross as often as they once did, I still value and appreciate your friendship, and there is no reason for us to not meet up at some point.
All the best,
JD
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