On the way to drop Luke off at the airport for his mission, he asked me to stop at Brother Badger’s house so he could say goodbye. Of all the goodbyes he had said over the past few weeks, this would be the last.
We had to wait for a few minutes, as his in-home caregiver was helping him get out of the shower. His daughter, who was visiting, let him know that Luke had come to say goodbye. A few minutes later, Brother Badger was wheeled out of his room with a big smile on his face, a bit out of breath, wearing a shirt he seemed to have hurriedly put on and a towel quickly draped over his lap.
There was something about the joy and youthfulness of the moment—like two little boys greeting each other before going out to play. It touched me in a way few things have, and I struggled to hold back tears.
They talked for a moment, and Luke asked if him if he would still be around when he got back. Brother Badger said yes and that, in fact, he would be there when Luke’s first baby was born. They hugged, and I had a premonition that this would likely be their last time together in this lifetime. Luke walked out of the house- a new heaviness in his step.
How does it seem like only yesterday that they had their first encounter, 15 years ago?
Luke, a restless four-year-old little boy, swinging on the freshly planted tree in the church parking lot after long hours of church meetings. Brother Badger walking by and kindly asking him not to do that, as it might kill the young tree. Luke calling out to him as he walked away that he was a stupid idiot. Me, mortified.
Luke, later that day, shuffling up Brother Badger’s sidewalk to the front door, a scowl on his face, carrying a plate of apology cupcakes I had forced him to make and hand-deliver. Brother Badger opening the door, kneeling in front of Luke, and telling him that it took a big man to own his mistakes and that he respected him for it. In that moment, like a light switch, I watched something in my son inalterably shift. A new devotion and loyalty to a new friend.
Brother Badger as his Bear leader in Cub Scouts. Watching Luke, who despised silly songs and antics from anyone but Brother Badger, sing along to songs about bear juice and bear hunts. Brother Badger in his bear hat, Luke later purchasing a set of bear suspenders for him to complete the ensemble.
Brother Badger coming to our house on a Saturday morning to teach our boys to tie fishing flies.
Bringing them his favorite puzzles, ones he had already completed and disassembled, to share with them.
Years later, Brother Badger asking me why he hadn’t seen Luke at church in some time. I shared that Luke was going through some difficult things. I watched as Brother Badger hung his head, eyes filling with tears. He told me that he believed their friendship had existed before this lifetime. He hadn’t always been an easy person to get along with, he told me, but there was something about that four-year-old little boy with the plate of cupcakes that had changed something inside him, too.
Luke turning 16 and being ordained a priest at church but waiting weeks to pass the sacrament for the first time because Brother Badger was now in a nursing home. He wanted Brother Badger to be there beside him the first time he blessed it. Watching Brother Badger struggle to make it to the sacrament table, assisted by several brothers, so he could sit next to Luke. A walker now sitting beside them. The most meaningful blessing of the sacrament I’ve ever witnessed.
Brother Badger asking his ministering brother to pick him up from his house so he could attend Luke’s graduation party. Watching him being pushed across our driveway in a wheelchair, a big smile on his face, saying he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Luke driving his prized restored Toronado to Brother Badger’s house on warm nights so they could go get ice cream together.
And now, watching them say goodbye…
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I woke up the morning after he died thinking that the world felt a bit strange, a bit off-kilter, that day. It was the first day without David Badger in this world.
But maybe, I realized, he isn’t really gone from this world. There’s a piece of him walking the streets of New Hampshire, in a young man wearing a missionary name tag, whose life’s trajectory would have been very different without the man in the bear suspenders.
And he will be there, in some measure, just as he said he would be, on the day Luke’s first child is born.
