My cousin Joe died on Wednesday. He was 46 years old. I received a call from my dad on Friday early in evening asking me to pray for Joe. He told me that he had just talked to Joe’s father, my Uncle, who told him that Joe had collapsed while at his girlfriend’s apartment. His girlfriend had performed CPR on him until the paramedics arrived. The paramedics worked on him and got him to the hospital. Apparently, Joe had stopped breathing long enough to affect the quality of his brain activity. Once at the hospital the doctors put Joe into a medically induced coma to perhaps give Joe some time to pull through. He never did. Joe was taken off the medicine that put him into a coma on Tuesday afternoon and at 1:30am on Wednesday July 23^rd, my cousin Joe died.

            I have to tell you that I didn’t know Joe all that well. His family moved to Spring, Texas when I was five (that was 36 years ago). My family moved back into Cincinnati in 1972 one weekend and Joe’s family moved to Texas the next weekend. Throughout the years I would hear tidbits of information about Joe; I knew he got married and then divorced, I knew that he and his father traveled to Alaska annually to fish and I believe that they were pretty close. I hadn’t seen Joe for 35 years until last August when my siblings and I threw a pretty big party celebrating my dad’s 70^th birthday. Joe came with his mother and father. He looked significantly older that his 46 years. I don’t remember having a lengthy conversation with him that day. I am sure that I said hello to him and told him who I was. I did watch him occasionally and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. At the end of the party Joe, with his mom and dad in his truck with him, drove off to go back to the hotel and leave for Texas the next day. That was the last time I saw Joe.

            In tribute to Joe Stuhlreyer, I want to make the following points. These come from what I have thought of since I heard of Joe’s death from my father on Wednesday afternoon.

            Point #1 – You never know when this life on earth will end. I think we think that we will all live until we are 85 or so, but the truth is we do not have the foggiest idea when that time will come. So, live life to the full, get to know God and other people and love them.

            Point #2 – Get to know people. When you meet a person be fully present. This means that you give them your full attention and spend more time asking questions that help you know them better than talking about yourself. This means to love them more than you love yourself (sounds kind of biblical doesn’t it.). One more thing on this point, don’t interrupt others while they are talking either to you or to others. If you think about it, that is a pretty selfish thing to do.

            Point #3 – Tell the people around you that you love them and appreciate them. Tell this to your wife, to your husband, to your kids, to your parents, to your in-laws, even tell this to your cousin whom you have not seen for 35 years. Tell it loud and clear and make sure they understand it.

            Point #4 – Establish your faith and trust in God today, right here right now. You never know when you won’t have any more chances. If you have already done that, get to know God better and share your faith with others. Is there anything else more important than this?

            In order to practice what I preach (or write in this case), let me tell you something – I love you and I appreciate you. If it weren’t for you this ministry would not exist. You are important to me and to God. I hope to get to know you better as time goes on.

Steve

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 7:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.