I went to an evangelical church for the first time in 20 years to say goodbye to an old friend

I suppose I am finally at the age where I say things like, “We used to be really close in high school, but we lost touch along the way.” Up to this point, all of the funerals I’ve attended for folks my age were young people who lost their lives to accidents or violence. Now, when the calls come that begin with “I don’t know if you heard yet…” they end with stories about cancer or heart attacks and are followed wit questions like “How old are their kids now?” Something shifts when your friends stop having heart attacks from drug overdoses, and instead, it’s their bodies giving way to the progress of time. 

Gabe died of pancreatic cancer.

He and I met at youth group at the wannabe mega-church our parents attended just outside Nashville. Eventually, we went to the same homeschool supplemental program at church. In retrospect, The Academy was just evangelicals attempting to reinvent school by putting homeschool kids in the equivalent of a gateway drug for private school. All of the teachers were young folks who went to the church. It was in this incubator of purity culture colliding with raging hormones set to the soundtrack of Sixpence and Creed that Gabe and I built our friendship. 

Like most of the kids I knew in Nashville, we were all the children of musicians, and that came with its unique struggles to carve out our individuality separate from the last names that defined us. It was pretty common for those of us who grew up in and around the city only to give first names so that folks wouldn’t know we were a Chapman, Smith, Grant, or Cyrus.

My father’s story was not one of success, at least not by the time our feet landed on the ground in Music City. He had a tremendous amount of success in the 70s and 80s, touring the world and sharing the gospel. With the 90s on the horizon and the rise of Contemporary Christian Music as its own genre, moving to the LA of the South seemed like the next logical step for our family. Gabe also had a father in the music industry with whom he had a complicated relationship. This collective trauma acted as a foundation to build one of the most hysterical friendships. 

I became the Gene Wilder to his Richard Pryor. We were in drama class together, and they almost had to stop putting us on stage during improv because of how absolutely unhinged we would get when we got rolling. 

My parents taught us not to tell the whole truth about our experience with homelessness. As we bounced from hotels to the Walmart parking lot and a long list of squatter houses, I never told any of my friends about what we were going through. Our church taught the prosperity gospel while our family was living in the third layer of hell. If people knew we were poor, if they knew we lost our house, then they would know that God’s grace had left our family. Not even my girlfriend/not girlfriend because we had “kissed dating goodbye” knew about what was happening at home/not home.

I told Gabe.

He was the only person who actually knew what was happening. He was the only friend I would let come pick me up at the dilapidated home we were squatting in. Some nights after youth group, he would take me to wherever we were staying, and we would just sit there talking for hours. We talked about the Bible and faith, the girls we liked, and deep conversations about race and politics. 

I smoked my first cigar with Gabe. 

As the oldest sibling of five kids going through the unimaginable, I carried much of that weight on my shoulders. I had become a hybrid of older sibling and third parent. Gabe came along like an older brother who put the yoke around his neck so that the burden would be just a little lighter for me. 

No one in the world made me laugh as hard as he did. If there is a Heaven, mine would be sitting in Gabe’s old car parked behind that dilapidated house, telling jokes. 

When my family finally moved away from Tennessee, I sort of dropped off the radar until I respawned as a priest in my early twenties. I had deconstructed my time in the evangelical church and found a home in Orthodoxy. I began a new life in ministry with a “just add water” family after marrying a single mother with a two-year-old. I was suddenly an adult (lol), and life moved on. There wasn’t much time for catching up with old friends from the past you were trying to forget while attempting to figure out how to pay for diapers.

As I’ve gotten older, I realize that relationships don’t have to last forever for them to be real. Gabe and I needed each other at precisely the moment we did. Then, our lives diverted onto very different paths.

He went on tour with one of his favorite bands and carved out a space for himself in the industry. He walked out of his father's shadow, as did I, and we became the men we hoped we would become. The ones we said we would always be on those long talks parked in his car. We lived to watch our youthful ambitions mature into fulfilled dreams. He fell in love, began a family of his own, and spent his days on the road singing, dancing, and entertaining.

A mutual friend of ours reached out to me last week, “Hey brother, I wanted to let you know…” and just like that, Gabe was gone. But it wasn’t just like that; he got a diagnosis and went to treatment and fought like hell. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know. The boy who saved me had grown into a man who was dying, and I wasn’t there for him like he was for me. I’m choosing to give myself the same grace that Gabe would have, instead knowing that we needed each other at a flashpoint, and sometimes that has to be enough. 

I stood in the atrium waiting for another friend to arrive at the funeral. Notably, I did not burst into flames when I walked through the door, so this was already shaping up better than I expected. Faces I recognized from church began to flood in; none of them recognized me. When I left church the first time, I was a boy with a clean face, and now I am a man with a graying beard. A lot of life has been seen by these eyes in the time I’ve been gone. I’ve missed so much while out there living life on my terms. 

When Jessica finally arrived, we took our seats on the chairs that felt just like the ones we grew up on: there was the stage and the lights and the modern spectacle I traded in for the altars and candles and ancient spectacle, thinking any of that made a difference. 

It would be easier to list who wasn’t at his funeral. This felt part church, part a season finale of Nashville, and another part high school reunion. 

It was a funeral.

This was goodbye.

I listened as people who knew Gabe in the years that followed told stories similar to the ones I had from high school. He grew into a man who still yoked himself with the suffering of others to help lighten the load. He stayed consistent in his love of his neighbor, just as himself, his children, and his God. He loved God and devoted his entire life to that cause. He didn’t stumble. He didn’t fall. He didn’t lose his step and make fools of us all. He ran the race and made it to the end. 

“Well done, good and faithful servant,” was a verse quoted repeatedly during the service.

Gabe had done it. 

Then there is me; I didn’t take communion or stand and raise my hands at the appropriate parts of the worship songs. Instead, I hid in my mind in that sedan as Gabe and I laughed our way to my house, hotel, or parking lot. He leans over and hugs me, prays with me, tells me it’s all going to be okay, and listens to all of these doubts, fears, and uncertainties. 

None of the stories I have of Gabe could be told in church. They are the stories of two young men trying to understand where they fit in the world. They are full of cuss words, sneaking cigars, and trying to find the lines we aren’t allowed to cross. Yet, we were filled with such faith; we truly and sincerely believed.

As I looked around the room, hundreds of people gathered; every one of them nodded in agreement and certainty that Gabe was now in Heaven. Meanwhile, I don’t even know if God is real anymore. I used to. I would have died for God if given the chance, but today, I am not so sure. Maybe it’s the Father’s turn to take a couple of the punches; enough of his children have died already. How could this loving God take a man from his family at such a young age? If the Almighty wasn’t listening to all of the people in this room, and around the world, who prayed for healing, then what hope does someone like me have?

At some point, I jumped off the straight and narrow, but Gabe continued to walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Will they say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” at my funeral? How could they? I have been the most unfaithful servant, full of doubt. I have fallen so far from where I was when Gabe and I were friends. I’m an outlier even amongst other deconstructing Christians, posing such anathema questions as “Is Jesus even worth holding onto?” 

I grapple with all of these feelings as one of Gabe’s friends tells stories that pick up where I dropped off. He remained the same. Constantly loving, eternally enduring, and full of grace for those like me. If we could go sit in his car after his funeral, he would have listened to all of my self-absorbed thoughts about him dying and then crack a joke like, “Bro, I don’t care that you are making this all about you; I’m dead, dude.” 

At the end of it all, one more song was sung and everyone stood to their feet, arms in the air as they worshiped the God they hope is now holding Gabe in Their arms. I hope They are, too. 

I stumbled out into the light of day from the dimly lit sanctuary. There are some friends from high school; true love really did wait for them, and they’ve been married this whole time. The rest of us weren’t so lucky. Most of us are divorced and have blended families, and others are still single. Then there is me, the outspoken heretic living his best queer polyamorous life. There are hugs and handshakes and “What on earth have you been doing the last twenty years?” 

It’s complicated.

I haven’t cried yet.

I begin to pull out of the driveway of the church when the retching feeling of tears begins welling up, and I slam on the brakes. 

“Gabe!” I scream into the nothingness of my car.

“Yeah, bro?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing; I feel so utterly lost. I feel like I just walked out of your funeral one step closer to an atheist than I was when I entered. That feels like I’m stepping on everything you stood for, but it’s true. I don’t know where I fit anymore, man. I was physically homeless as a kid, and now I’m spiritually homeless as an adult. This isn’t how I expected any of this to turn out.”

“Me either,” he laughs.

I laugh, “Yeah, I guess not. I’m sorry you are dead.”

“I’m good,” he smiles.

“What am I even doing? How is it possible that you are the first of us to go? How did I survive, and you are gone? It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense! How are you so certain, and I am so full of doubt? You had unending faith, and it didn’t save you, and I’m down here still sinning and…”

“Man,” I think this is when he would take my hand, “You know what my mama always said, ‘he’s just working on his testimony.’”

I’m alone in my car, tears soaking my beard, and I don’t know what to do. Had I just gone to church? Was this conviction or engrained guilt by an institution designed so they you can never escape? I don’t miss any of this, but I miss him. But I had to walk away, to go find myself out there, away from all the pain of the memories of this town. The collateral damage of that is that I missed a lot. 

I don’t know if Jesus will save my soul, but Gabe saved my life. He was there for me when I needed it the most. Now, what do I do with the fact that he couldn’t save himself? I hope that Gabe is correct and that there is a God who loves us, that They are bigger than I can comprehend, and that this will all make sense in the end. If everyone was like Gabe, I think the churches would be full. The problem is, the reason he impacted so many folks over the course of his life, is because he was rare; the exception, not the rule. 

Gabe reached the end of his journey, full of faith, and now I’m left behind to journey on. Will they say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” at my funeral? I don’t know. But what I do know is that if there has ever been someone worthy of it, even for all his flaws, it was Gabe. For me, today, that will have to be enough.

Because I’m still out here working on my testimony.