My breakfasts with Al

My breakfasts with Al
                        

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln

The word great is tossed around too much these days. That was a great meal, a great car or a great house. The problem is the meal will be eaten, cars will break down and the house will be sold at one point. Almost nothing we own will be great forever.

The people in our lives are the only investment that will be great forever. Yes, people sometimes turn on us, but every now and then a friend come along who is a diamond, shining for the whole world to see. Al Mast embodied what a great friend is all about.

I met Al when we both attended the same church. I saw him when I first started attending there, but I didn’t talk to him much. I wanted to meet people my own age, he was retired and had grandchildren my age. I went on a mission trip with him and his wife and some other people from church. I had the opportunity to get to know him. We rode in a 16-passenger van, for 16 hours, going to Alabama. You get to know people quick like that. I knew he loved God, and wanted to please Him no matter what. One night just he and I went on a walk and I told him I was afraid I would never get married, he told me he thinks at the right time, God will give my a wife.

Over time, I felt that I would benefit by spending time with Al. I asked him to be my mentor, and he agreed. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into — I mean that in a good way. My biggest worry was that he would be set in his ways and he would think he knew everything, but he wasn’t that way at all. He was a student of life, when he didn’t know something he acknowledged it. I always admired that about him. However, if the truth be told, sometimes it frustrated me. Because, there would be things in the Bible that I wrestled with, and I thought Al would have a better understanding of because of our age difference. Most of the time the answer was the same — “You know, I wonder that myself.” That took real humility. Sometimes we would talk it out together and come to an understanding.

Our breakfasts went on for about 10 years. Sometimes we could not meet because he and his wife went to Florida for a month in the winter. We would call and talk to each other. It got to the point where something would happen in my life, and I couldn’t wait to tell Al about it.

With what happened in the world the past two years, our phone conversations replaced breakfast. We would still meet, but it wasn’t as frequent as we would have wanted. I called him one day last month, and learned that he was in the hospital. He told me he was coming home in a couple of days, I told him I loved him, and him being Al, he told me “I love you too, brother.” A week went by, I called him again and asked him how was it going. I can’t remember everything he told me, but how he made it sound, I asked, “You’re not in the hospital again, are you?” “Oh yes,” he replied. We talked for about five or ten minutes, made plans for breakfast in a few weeks, and again, I told him I loved him, and again, he told me, “I love you too, brother.”

I woke up on a Saturday morning and saw I had a voicemail telling me Al had passed away. I dropped my phone and cried. My wife came and hugged me. It felt like someone had shot me in the chest. I was upset because I never got to say goodbye.

At his calling hours, I told him goodbye. Psalm 55:6 sums it all up: “And I say, ‘Oh that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.’”


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