So today, I found out that a friend of mine who was our high school ASB president passed away last night/this morning after fighting for 4 years with stomach cancer.  Words cannot hope to portray the amount of grief this has caused not only myself but the community in which he was a part of.  Below is a letter for a prayer request that I wrote to the Director of Faith Formation at St. James Catholic Church, where I’ve been going for Mass and RCIA, and I hope it can shed some light into my feelings on the subject matter.

Hi Helen,

I found out this morning that my old ASB president from high school passed away after battling stomach cancer for the last 4 years.  This young man is one of the few individuals who I have known that acts in complete selflessness, who isn’t out there to take advantage of you in some way, or who expects something in return for the things he does in life.  He is one of the very few who walks the walk, and doesn’t just talk.  As one of my friends put it when I told her his story, she said “it sounds like you got exactly what you saw with him, which is very rare.”

Although him and I weren’t really best, or even good friends, I would still consider him to be my friend.  This is hitting me especially hard because of the acts of kindness he has shown me.  This might sound weird, but I have a list of things people have done for me in my life.  Things that, when they happened were the sweetest, kindest, or most compassionate things a person has done for me.  The list is VERY small, and the amount of people on the list is even smaller.  He is on that list.

We’ve known each other since middle school.  Back then, I used to have a lot of problems trying to control my emotions.  I had a terrible anger problem with frequent outbursts toward my teachers and fellow students.  I was violent and I was angry at my living situation of being in foster care and the things I had to go through with my biological parents.  These behaviors served to isolate me throughout most of middle school, and I spent most of it alone.  He was one of the few people who was ever nice to me.

By my sophomore year in high school I had dealt with a lot of my former problems and exercised a considerably larger amount of control over myself and my emotions.  One day, him and I were talking and I casually brought up how much it meant that he was so nice to me in middle school.  I didn’t really expect anything beyond a “no problem”, but instead he gave it his all, like he always would.  He looked me in the eyes and said “James, I never thought you were crazy, or a bad kid, or mental or wasn’t going to amount to anything.  I realized that you were going through things that, to be completely honest, I cannot even imagine in my lifetime.  You had to deal with a lot of really gruesome things growing up, and it affected you.  But it never changed my opinion of who you were, or who you were going to become and I knew that, because you’re a strong person, you would be ok.  I never saw you as anything more, or less, than what you are, a human being.”

Those words meant, and still mean the world to me and are words I will carry with me for the rest of my life.  Very few of my friends really understand the things I went through.  Most feel as though they could go through the same things and turn out to have less problems or feel like the things I went through weren’t that bad.  The friends who do understand this, even fewer ever vocalize it.  Still, this young man who barely knew anything about me outside of school, who wasn’t a close friend, knew enough and knew the right words to say and it amazes me every time I remember it.

He was a truly remarkable individual and to have battled through cancer for as long as he did while maintaining his purity at heart is truly astounding to me.  He serves as a shining inspiration for the kind of person I wish to become, and I believe he can serve to be an inspiration for the kind of people we should all aspire to become.

His name is Sam Marx and he will be sorely missed not only by me, but by the community that he served.  He is an outstanding individual and an outstanding Catholic, and one of a very select group of individuals who not only knows what it means to be a good Catholic, but put that knowledge to work in his every day life.

Thank you for listening to my story, and if you can please pray for him as he makes his transition from this life on Earth to eternal life with our Father.

-James

The days move on and on…
James Harmon