This has been such a rotten couple of days.
Amanda Gillam died yesterday. Looking at that sentence right now is as strange as reading something about E.T.s landing in Livonia. It's just bizzare.
I got a call from a member at the Roseville church of Christ, informing me that Amanda was in an east-side Detroit hospital. The doctors were quite certain that she was brain-dead. She'd been taking a nap in the afternoon. Her mother went in to wake her up for dinner only to find that she wouldn't respond, and wasn't breathing. Her father tried to revive her, but she wouldn't be revived.
When I arrived at the hospital, Amanda had been on life support over night. About 20 minutes after I arrived, a doctor came in to see Amanda's parents, asking them to consider taking the life support away. They bravely, yet agonizingly, agreed that it was the best thing to do.
Those of us who were there, went into the ICU room where Amanda was, and said our goodbyes. When Amanda's parents were ready, we were escorted to the hallway. A curtain was drawn around Amanda, and the medical staff removed her from life support. When the curtain opened, all of the tubes and monitors were disconnected...and she lay motionless.
When Amanda was 12 years old, she had to be practically forced into the youth program at Roseville, where I was youth minister. It didn't take her long to recognize what a powerful impact she could have amongst her peers. Through the years, the two of us had an energetic and dynamic relationship. Sometimes we complemented each other, sometimes we exasperated each other, but never did either of us stop loving the other.
Amanda was my dear sister. My dear, energetic, generous, creative, funny, tough, delicate, tender, no-nonsense sister.
And I miss her.
Please pray for all who were close to Amanda. Please pray especially for her parents, Steve and Debbie. Amanda was their only child.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Amanda Gillam
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5 comments:
Dude, you sure have been surrounded by grief lately...
If you neeed to get away to a place where your drives fly 300+ yards because of the altitude and look at snow-covered mountains for a break, come on out...
I guess it's a good thing that you have been posting a lot about laughter lately...
Mark, I sure do feel for you. I know you are hurting. You are in my prayers!
Not a day goes by and I can't wait til we are out on the course again . . . laughing about Mrs. Habersham!!!
For a while I kind of pretended maybe this wasn’t true. I was very sick around the time Karen Fralick called me to share the news and I wasn’t able to attend Amanda’s funeral. I guess it became a sort of disconnect. Maybe funerals are more about the people left behind than about those who leave us. Maybe it is our need to grieve, corporately, maybe it helps us move on?
Since all that I participated in was a random phone call, the news has sort of not been true for me. I thought of Amanda as still here once in a while. And then I read Kari’s blog today, which linked to yours and not having talked to you in a while here I came wanting to see what was new. And there was the news, I’d almost not believed. Not had the chance to accept.
Amanda and I didn’t always see eye to eye either, and she’s the best example of late of “not knowing what you have till it is gone”. She’d found me on MySpace not long ago and we’d begun to reconnect and I was thankful…that she was always someone who saw things in a more happy way than I did. She was the optimist to my pessimist.
I will really miss her.
I hurt for Amanda's family and friends. I have walked this road and there are no words to say.
I know this, Amanda's family was blessed to have you present, just as my family also was blessed.
Prayers...
I am deeply sorry for her passing at such a young age. The last 5 or so years of her life were very difficult physically and emotionally. She was engaged in 2004 and it was broken on Christmas eve of that year. A year later, lost her grandfather. She was also in and out of hospitals. Nevertheless, she was a faithful Christian and an optimist.
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