What Will You Leave Behind?

In the end, it will matter.

Many years ago, on a frighteningly cold and snowy winter morning, I was leaving for work when I met him. While driving out of my townhouse complex I was stopped by a man who asked if I had booster cables in my car. I did, and at the risk of making myself late for work I opted for the good deed.

Plus, the guy was super hot so what other choice did I have?

Knee deep in snow and sub-zero temperatures, his smile was magnetic and this situation wasn’t bringing him down at all. We chatted just long enough to pump some life back into his Jeep, and long enough for me to get his name.

He seemed to be the nicest guy on earth, and he was definitely the hottest. So despite him having a real name, I named him “Hot Neighbor.”

I went to work that day and told all the girls about the hot neighbor whose car I boosted. And I secretly wondered if we’d ever cross paths and have a reason to chat again.

As time passed I learned by observation in the neighborhood that he had a wife and two small children. Sure it would have been nice if he were single. Maybe I would have pressed harder to put myself in his way and get noticed. But hot neighbor was clearly a family man so our relationship was based solely on waving at each other in passing, never to speak again.

Eventually I moved out of the neighborhood and life went on.

Over a period of many years I would strangely run into hot neighbor once in a while.

I signed my son up for diving lessons at a city athletic club. At the first class I sat myself up in the bleachers to watch, when who strolled over to the poolside?

It was hot neighbor. He was the coach.

Despite him coaching my son’s diving classes we never did converse throughout those sessions. I just recall him waving up into the bleachers once or twice, as if he remembered that snowy day and the fact that we used to be neighbors.

Another night, many years later, we both picked up pizza at the same place so again, we chatted a little in the parking lot while holding our pizzas.

This man really was the nicest man on earth. Just a pure soul who was genuinely interested in whatever moment he was caught up in. His smile, his attention to who he was talking to. He was just a great guy.

At some point over those years we ended up becoming Facebook friends although I cannot, for the life of me, remember how. Not even to this day can I remember how we chatted long enough in a single meeting to ever reach Facebook friend status. But we did.

Through social media I learned that hot neighbor loved sunrises and sunsets. He also loved his family and God. He was an actor and film producer in the local city scene. And he was the drama director at the biggest church in the city, which happened to be my church at the time. This church was so big that I didn’t even know he and his family attended it.

Nevertheless, it was cool to follow him on social media and watch someone live out their passions so freely and happily. He seemed larger than life. Through the internet I watched his kids grow into teenagers and caught his snapshots of beautiful sunrises and sunsets for many years.

One morning, only a few months ago I was having my morning coffee and scrolling through social media when his status update appeared in my feed. It was a message from his wife and it left me dumbfounded and speechless.

Hot neighbor had passed away suddenly.

She wrote that although she wished this was one of his many pranks, it wasn’t. He was gone.

I was literally struck, and for no good reason because it’s not like he was a major player in my life. He was just hot neighbor.

But he was also too young, too vibrant, and much larger than life online. How on earth could this have happened?

I wasn’t even a close enough friend to feel comfortable adding to the never ending stream of people leaving their condolences on that Facebook update. But make no mistake, the news rocked me to the core for some reason.

In the days that followed, our local TV news channel did a segment about his sudden passing and I was still in disbelief. He had died of heart complications while playing basketball at a community athletic club. He was only 48.

A few days after that broadcast his wife also shared a link to his funeral service online. This was no regular service, it was a full 90-minute video production put on by that huge church they belonged to.

I clicked the link to watch it, and I cried.

I’ve never seen such a huge outpouring of wonderful people saying the most wonderful things about another human being. They talked about how he always fully immersed himself into any conversation he had with others. He was truly interested in the lives of people he came into contact with.

He made a difference.

And they said that even though he lived his life to the absolute fullest, he was always RIGHT with his creator and wasn’t afraid of death. He knew that he would be taken care of in his afterlife because that’s just the person he was.

What an amazing feeling it must be to live in such a way. How many of us can say the same?

His real name was Gerrick Winston and in speaking to the kind of person he was, all you need to do is read a segment that was written in his obituary:

“In lieu of flowers, please take someone out for coffee or lunch, enjoy the sunset, seek the truth, and hug your loved ones. He would have wanted you to live life to the fullest every day.”

To this day, thoughts of his wife and kids pop into my head at times. I wonder how they’re filling the insurmountable void in their lives. It still seems surreal that I’ll never see another funny film moment in his Facebook feed, nor will I ever see another of his vibrant smiles in a head shot. Actors post a lot of those.

Then I start to wonder how much of an impact I may have on lives here on earth. How many people would stand up and speak about the legacy I leave behind? And what would that legacy be?

Do I even impact ANYONE so profoundly?

Is it possible to live a life so full that in your eventual passing, you’d be comfortable letting life go? As Gerrick has proven, it IS possible.

Maybe that’s something we should all strive towards in an effort to make our world a better place — while we’re still in it.