Tribe Life Tuesday: The Voyage

A weekly post from my childhood to grown-up friend Carrie ~ 

sharing her awesome life and her desire to have community while doing it!

Happy TribeLife Tuesday!

Today is an exceptionally special day. Today, I am privileged to invite you to sit down at the vast banquet table where there is more than enough. The plate I am bringing to the table overflows with honor, gratitude, some pain, joy, sorrow, and an immeasurable amount of love and I am so excited to share.

I believe the greatest gift humanity can share with one another is relationship. We get to experience the highs, lows, and middles of this gift together and we do this out of our own free will. Being known, accepted, and loved freely by someone is a priceless treasure we are fortunate to give and receive. I had the privilege of receiving such a treasure from an incredible human who recently passed away, and it’s my pleasure to share a small bit about him today.

His family and ours have been intricately woven together over 25 years. The relationship our families share is as rich as it is delicate. Their family had 2 amazingly stellar girls and ours had what seemed like a million children, but it all worked. My perception tells me it was really TribeLife: it was late nights, long talks, loud laughs, deep hurts, hard conversations, and family vacations. It was beautiful. As I write this, I’m realizing how hard it is to just tell you about him alone without telling you about them all. Because that’s just who he was: The Family Man. And he didn’t just include those who carried his DNA, he was the "all are welcome to the table" man. He was everyone’s adopted dad, the selfless, give 1,000% fellow.

His name was Eli. I had tried avoiding writing his name because it makes it that much more tangible, but you deserve to know the name of this incredible man. I loved so much about him, but there’s not enough time to share all of that, so I’ll share my top few favorite things.

• I love that he knew no orphan. He was a father to all who needed one.
• He was a jokester and I have been embarrassed by his jokes and outlandish behavior in public far too many times to remember.
• He was an avid Star Trek fan and you were going to know it.
• I loved that he wore joy like no man I’ve ever met. It was fiercely masculine yet incredibly gentle.
• His skills were rich and varied: he could be performing stand-up comedy while simultaneously conducting a private investigation and be great at both. He was special.
• He loved well, gave big, and deposited all he could in the legends he leaves behind, his family.

 A poignant man whose influence is yet to be fully felt has moved on to the best place there is!

A life well lived indeed.

Thank you for reading!

See you next Tuesday,

Carrie

P.S. I also knew this wonderful man. Carrie's words only scratch the surface. May we all go home to our savior with people saying, "Wow. Now THAT was a great human being." -- Wendi