Earlier in my blog I told you about Agustav who had passed away on Sunday. Marie, the mother is from Beach, North Dakota from where I retired. Not only is she a friend, but her mother and dad are good friends of mine. We all attended to First Lutheran Church in Beach. I watched Marie grow up, get confirmed, go to college and then get married. She picked a wonderful husband Nathan, the writer of this tribute. This is a heart felt piece so get the tissues ready. Agustav was 7 days old when he was taken to heaven.
Gone As Unexpectedly As He Came
"Agustav came and went so quickly that it is only now that I am able to sit and reflect about his life. As Marie is at a loss for words, she will most undoubtedly agree that I have too many words when fewer is probably the wiser. It would seem difficult to fill pages writing about a person that only existed 25 and one half weeks and only showed his face to the outside world for one week. But in that time he lived more life than it seems I have in my many years. Agustav Christoph Blomker was a name that weighed more than he did when he was born. He had the name of kings and was the bearer of the King of Kings. His spontaneous leap into existence was a shock to his mother and father. He placed the look of concern on the face of his first doctor. He caused his mother surprise with his energetic frolicking inside her womb. He was a wonder to his father in his apparent anxiousness to participate when battle was joined with Mimi the Pug. He confounded his second very aged and learned doctor who placed him on a helicopter and banished him to the wizards of the NICU. He then vowed that he would no longer be contained. With his legs forward he sprang into the world and fought the wizards valiantly as they tried to bind him with their plastic tubes and elixirs. For one week he lay imprisoned in a plastic tomb; the gaze of the wizards never wavering. Still he filled all of the wizards with amazement at his will to thrive and an even greater amount of bewilderment at his final escape. With that as your story, who can be so arrogant to proclaim one week is too short of time to live. I am reminded of the writing of St. Augustine as a matter of fact. Maybe you knew it or maybe you didn't but in his early adulthood St. Augustine was a tried and true pagan; a heretic; an enemy of the Christian Church. He had a pagan friend; a close friend who, while extremely ill, converted to faith in Christ. When St. Augustine's friend had recovered from his illness, St. Augustine vowed to reclaim him back to his pagan beliefs. Almost immediately after, his friend's illness relapsed and he died. The young Augustine was devastated and described the separation of yourself and a friend, a soul-mate as the greatest human pain possible. However, later, the older Augustine, the Christian Augustine, Bishop Augustine came to realize that the death of his friend was an act of shear grace by God. After the friend's conversion God took him to keep him safe, to protect him... to protect him from Augustine and his pagan vow... for all eternity. It was an act of God's eternal grace that took Agustav so early Sunday morning. Agustav will never know pain or heartache or sorrow or loneliness. He will never know the sin of this world. He will never know us as bad parents or parents with all the shortcomings of fallen humans. He will only know the glory of the presence of God. And in that, I envy him. But his mother and father have hope... the hope of the great day of the Resurrection when we can stand next to Agustav and we can all look together at the shining face of our savior, the Lord Jesus... the true King of Kings. Marie, Agustav, and I thank you for all your prayers. May God bless you as he did us."
Nathan
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