“Do you know
Dave Gurney?”
I was barely
19 when I first met Dave at the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo. Utah. I
was to spend 8 weeks under Dave’s tutelage, preparing myself for the following
96 in Paraguay.
Dave was
tall, handsome, and clean, an instantly likeable guy with bright eyes, a crisp wide
smile, and a kind voice. After just a few minutes in his presence, I quietly assigned
to him the role of mentor.
The Spanish
portion of Dave’s lessons weren’t an issue for me; I had studied the language
since Junior High, and not only could I conjugate verbs with my eyes closed, I
also knew the difference between the familiar and formal. Spanish Rs rolled off
my tongue like those spoken by Speedy Gonzales every Saturday morning of my
childhood.
The language
of a Mormon missionary, however, did not roll so easily off my tongue as the everyday
words and phrases having to do with the purchase of ice cream, the location of
the bathroom, and the color of apples. Although I had been born and raised in
the church and had to that point never questioned its teachings, my faith had recently
and for the first time been seriously tested by the news that my older brother
was a homosexual. This shook my foundation, and I carried the weight and
confusion of it and with me into the MTC, right into Dave’s classroom.
Dave was
unique in that he commanded our respect by earning it, while at the same time
lowering the barrier between student and teacher just enough for us to consider
him a good friend where we to meet again someday. In time, Dave became more to
me than a teacher and a mentor; he became someone in whom I could confide.
Every
Saturday morning Dave would drag two of the classroom’s desks out into the
hallway and spend a few minutes with each of us in one-on-one conversation.
This may have been part of his assigned duties, but I have no doubt that Dave
took the time seriously. We were young and untested, full of trembling
confidence and far from home, headed to a foreign land that by all accounts was
50 years behind our own experiences when it came to just about everything. Dave
did his best to settle our tremors, inform our fears, and answer our questions
about an immediate future that held little in the way of certainties other than
diarrhea, worn-out shoes, and lots of prayer.
During one
of these Saturday conversations with Dave, after whining about missing my
girlfriend, confessing to a palpable fear of tapeworms, and expressing my
dislike for the communal showers in the MTC dorms, I felt impressed to share
with Dave my concern that my family would not be together forever due to my
brother’s lifestyle. Dave sat across from me, his knees pressed into the
underside of a tiny desk, as I cried big tears and spilt my dark fears into his
life. I had not spoken to anyone in such detail about my overwhelming confusion,
my wavering faith, and the many broken emotions stemming from my brother’s rapid,
and as I understood it at the time, voluntary fall from grace.
Dave
listened to the very end of my worrying without a word of interruption or a
care to the fact that we had by far exceeded the normal amount of time allotted
to each of us during those one-on-one Saturday morning conversations.
Floundering in a spiritual quicksand of panic and grief, I looked up at him with
tears in my eyes, and realized that I had grabbed hold of my mentor’s ankle in
a desperate attempt to save myself, without a moment’s thought to his own stability.
The sharp pain of regret for my selfish behavior pricked at my heart.
To his great
credit, Dave didn’t flinch, but instead smiled warmly, a reaction that will
always stay with me. He didn’t judge my brother, counseling me to love the
sinner but hate the sin, or make hollow promises about what would happen in the
way of a miracle were I to serve my two year mission faithfully.
No, Dave
simply listened to my fears, then looked me in the eyes with unwavering
confidence and told me that all would be well; I was doing great, and had a
good head on my shoulders.
As I flip
through my mission journals more than two decades later, I laugh at the pages
and pages written with such earnest yet desperate conviction. I wanted so badly
to be spiritual, to have meaningful, life-changing experiences, and I wrote in
my journal as if every day were a fulfillment of those righteous desires. I don’t
remember so many of these supposed moments of feeling surrounded by God and
heaven and all his angels without reading them, but I can relive with great
emotional detail the personal interactions and experiences that I didn’t write much
about, at least not in the flowery language meant for a prideful Sunday pulpit.
So what did
I write about that long conversation with Dave?
“He is so
good and I want to be like him when I get back. I love him.”
No emotional
dredging equipment is needed when it comes to my experience with Dave.
The crowning
moment in my apprenticeship with Dave came in the form of a prophetic visit to
our classroom by his wife Katie and their first-born Taylor. I held baby Taylor
in my arms and marveled at the thought of one day being a good and happy father
to such a beautiful, bouncing child. I looked up at Dave and Katie, smiling and
loving and tender with each other as they were, and in that moment the hope that
someday I would have a family just like theirs took root within me.
On our final
day with Dave, my classmates and I lifted him high above our heads for a metaphoric
photo. It is a moment I will never forget. That photo is a happy reminder of a
debt I simply cannot repay.
Not three
years later, my mission in Paraguay finished and the tapeworms flushed from my
system, I was driving to the beach in North Hampton, New Hampshire, seated
behind the wheel of my little white pickup truck. A fiancé far more gorgeous,
blonde, and happy than I had ever dared dream of loving me rode shotgun beside
me. We would be married at the end of the year.
“Do you know
Dave Gurney?” Elizabeth asked.
Her casual
and very unexpected dropping of Dave’s name pushed me into a free-fall through
fond memories.
“Yes, I know
David Gurney! He was my favorite teacher at the MTC!” I answered, eager to know
the how and why and when behind her question.
“He’s
married to my sister Katie.”
My mind
flashed back to meeting Dave’s happy family, holding Taylor in my arms, and my
silent hope that I would someday have a family just like his.
Wow.
In the years
since the day Elizabeth asked if I knew Dave Gurney, I have come to learn that
God doesn’t answer my prayers, no matter how humble, specific, earnest, and
sincere I might be when uttering them. He does, however, from time to time, pay
heed to my under-breath mutterings, coin-toss wishes, and silent hopes. While I
retain scant faith in God’s fascination with the details of my daily life, I do
know that he was paying close attention when Dave’s tiny family ignited a
candle of hope within my heart 27 years ago.
Beyond
marrying sisters and having three kids each, Dave and I are, in fact, almost
nothing alike. Dave is successful, driven and goal-oriented, while I am at best
ambivalent and wandering. I don’t work hard; I would rather sit on the bottom
rung of the corporate ladder than climb it, and I haven’t earned much in the
way of respect in this world. Over the years Dave has stacked achievements like
cordwood, building up a large supply of success and security for his family,
while I continue to stare up into the trees of life, mouth agape with awe and a
wide, idle wonderment in my eyes.
But we
remain friends and brothers, and Dave remains a mentor.
Several
years ago, Dave and I met up during a reunion at the family cabin in the
mountains of Utah. We picked right up where we left off, which meant that Dave
asked a lot of selfless questions about how I was doing, what I was doing, and
where I was headed. I have always loved that Dave still cares about me enough
to show such interest, but in my heart I have always felt as though I have let
my mentor down, because there’s never much to tell.
That year,
Dave had managed to scrounge up a couple of bikes, and he asked if I’d be
willing to take an early morning ride with him into the mountains behind the
cabin. I wanted to sleep, but I got up and went with him, in spite of being
certain that I would die along the trail from either exhaustion or a cougar’s
bite.
After a few
minutes of pedaling, I gave serious thought to turning back in order to
retrieve my lungs from under the blankets where I must have left them. Not
wanting to let Dave down, however, I dug deeper, sucked at the thin air, and
prayed that the sidewalls of my heart wouldn’t blow out from exertion.
This past
winter I spent some time alone up at the cabin. I wrote a lot, slept a lot, and
thought a lot. News of Dave’s diagnosis and upcoming treatment weighed extra
heavy upon my mind and heart one afternoon, so after packing a few snacks, a
water bottle, and my pistol into a backpack, I headed up the same trail Dave
and I had ridden together years before. This time, however, I took to the trail
on a snowmobile. An overnight storm had dusted the trail with fresh white
powder; it swirled about behind me as I sped recklessly up the mountain,
dodging low hanging branches and sliding around curves at high speed.
The trail
flattened out for a spell, and instead of pushing the snow machine even harder,
I slowed to a crawl, standing as I rode to get a view of my surroundings. I
stopped altogether when to my right I spied a grove of aspens, their leaves
gone for the winter and their ankles buried in snow. The sun was low in the
western sky, and her light partnered with those trees and a winter wind to cast
long, quaking shadows on the white ground. I looked up at those towering trees
and thought about Elizabeth, about our kids, and about silent, inspired hope.
Yes, I know
Dave Gurney.
(Dave passed away on August 11, 2016 at the age of 49. I was honored to share the above at his celebration of life service.)
