Goosebumps near.
When I was pregnant with Quincy, before we knew anything about him, I read a quote from Abigail Adams about her son, John Quincy Adams. The “Quincy” stood out to me and we decided that if it was a boy, that would be his name.
It was some time after he was born and through the years of his childhood, that we revisited the quote. I had it printed on a tiny t-shirt that his teddy bear wore on one of the many hospital stays. We recently discussed how perhaps it would be his first tattoo when he turns 18 very soon.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our boy is a Senior. And for those of you who have prayed for him and carried us in the most figurative and literal ways over the years. I have a story for you. Some of you were there when he was born and they whisked him away from us. Some of you were there when it was his own two feet that walked himself back to the operating room for the….we literally lost count...time. You stocked our fridge and drove our other kids to practice. You helped my Mom hold down the fort or supported Andy in extra generous ways as we tackled the next surgery, the next hospitalization. You loved him from near and from afar and kept praying when we could no longer find the words.
Andy wrote a song at one point in which he pleaded, “Please, God. Remember his name.” Watching this boy suffer over the last 18 years has brought me to some of my lowest, darkest moments in my own faith journey. I searched the darkness for goodness and often felt I was coming up empty.
Recently, however, I had the now man-child in the car alone on a rare occasion. He broke the silence in the car to say, "You know how I know God is real?"
Me: "How?"
Him: "I get goose bumps every single time I pray.”
A tiny glimpse. The scarce, this-side-of-heaven, glimpse. Could it be? Could it be that all the years that we prayed and pleaded for His nearness to Quincy that He was in fact showing up for him. While I came up empty, He was drawing near to Quincy, close enough that the hairs on his body stand up. His suffering did not stop when we wanted it to, yet in the apparent silence and unbeknownst to me, God was drawing near to him. Goosebumps near.
And when anyone asks me about Quincy today, I don’t know how to describe him other than, he is “good to the core.” He is the epitome of strength, resolve, maturity, depth and goodness.
He is a man of few words and having recently discovered a ridiculous guitar talent, Andy and I sometimes listen upstairs to the blues licks that come streaming from his room and comment, “The boy has something to say.”
He is loyal and true to the few he lets in and if you are amongst them, you know how lucky you are.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Quincy Jay Landers is a Senior. Loving him has been our great joy and honor. There is no level of pride sufficient.
And that quote.“It is not in the still calm of life…that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this…Great necessities call out great virtues.” (Abigail Adams)
No truer words. Quincy Landers.