Thank you all so much for your comforting words and prayer! It has been a whirlwind rough time since we found my son on Tuesday a.m. My wifes three brothers flew in from Colorado and Georgia, and gave us great comfort during the afternoon/evening visits around the bonfire. I learned I can actually make it until 11:30 p.m. before being told I'm snoring in a yard chair.
What I did not share, and some of you already know, is that my son was in a horrific motorcycle crash at age 16, which left him immobilized in a hospital style bed for a year while his leg and knee healed. He hit a parked car at 55 mph with no helmet, since he'd given that to a passenger who flew, landed and 3 months later was back playing lacrosse on the high school team. My son however, suffered for the remainder of his life with chronic aches and pain, from an enormous list of injuries. The impact pushed a parked car 10 feet and left 2" of his left femur on the road, and one of his shoes on a roof top. He fought for recovery, clung to life, and overcame it all. 18 years later, at the time of his death, he had a great job, was close to being debt free, and was looking forward to buying a house, and finding a woman to share his life with. He had grown so close to the Lord, and become biblically literate in a way we could not possibly have imagined. We were completely amazed and blessed. It was without a doubt the most joyful time of his life, and he just loved talking about God with his friend Windmill, whom ya'll know.
We were always a motorcycle riding family with both my sons and wife riding. We rode both offroad and street, training the boys from 5 years old on. My wife quit riding for a year after Jake's accident and sold her VFR. But she kept her gear in case she would ever redevelop a love of the sport. One day I picked up a beautiful ZRX1100 in the appropriate green and brought it home in a trailer. My wife grabbed her soft saddle bags off the shelf, tossed em over the seat and climbed on the bike, then declared "this is my new bike". I had not even thought about her riding again, but boy was I happy, to see happiness coming back to her. She bounced back and in 2012 rode with me on her R1200R to Alaska. The darkness of my son's accident and the affect it had on our life and even our favorite family pastime was dissipating a little at a time. Jake himself only rode a few more times, due to the risk of falling with tons of metal in his leg and knee, but I have the photo of him smiling on my XR650r riding through the forest behind our home in Missoula. I had to kick start it for him and help him get on it, but he overcame the fear and rode again! We all really needed to see him ride again!
Now we enter the final chapter of on earth with Jake, but while it's selfish, I'm more concerned for my family and the unimaginable grief, not about Jake because he's with his savior given his rock solid relationship with Christ. We look no further than Isaiah 57:1 and believe it fully represents why our son is no longer here. We believe he was called home to spare him from the evil to come just as Isaiah said. He was a sensitive spirit, far more than most people, and hated sin which he now saw so clearly around him in a fallen world. He had changed his entire belief system from an encounter with God. He had a story about laying in bed and asking God "if you are real, then show me".
We never got the full story as to what happened that night but he said it was so amazing that we would not believe it if he told us. He claims it was some kind of vision, an epiphany. He says Jesus came to him, proved he is real and alive and flipped the switch on his life. From that moment on, Jake just grew in God's wisdom and understanding. Someday I'll get the full story, but I would have believed it even now, having witnessed the change in Jake., and many miracles over the years. In the meantime my family thanks you for your prayers and kind words, and I thank you for your friendship. I look forward to riding with ya'll again. Ed