Matthew Gerdisch came into my life in the third grade. A cute, new boy from Chicago, Illinois, he was a noteworthy addition to my elementary school class of maybe forty students, and within a few weeks, he had been more or less adopted into the Sycamore third grade family. 

I was not so welcoming. 

Truthfully, my standoffish reaction had nothing to do with Matthew and everything to do with the fact that at that age, I was fiercely possessive of my small group of friends and exceedingly wary of newcomers. And yet, he somehow managed to wiggle his way in.

It took a minute, mind you, but Matthew was uncommonly persistent. And today, I’m forever thankful that, even then, he was fiercely committed to making new friends, and yet, what made Matthew special wasn’t just that he uncommonly came into my life but that he uncommonly remained as well. 

For twelve years, Matthew Gerdisch was in my orbit. In the beginning, our relationship was marked by a tempestuous on-again, off-again third grade romance. In middle school, it mercifully evolved into a comfortable kind of camaraderie where I teased him about his attempts to embody an abercrombie model and he retaliated by squirting me with silver nitrate during science class. 

Honestly, those years were some of the best times of my life, but by the time eighth grade rolled around, I was ready for a change. See, I wasn’t especially proud of the person I’d been in middle school. At the time, I felt I had more than a few skeletons that I was ready to leave behind, and high school, especially a boarding school sequestered in the northern cornfields of Indiana, would provide me ample opportunity for reinvention. Cutting ties seemed the natural thing to do, and whether intentionally or accidentally, the friendships that had sustained me from before pre-school to the brink of high school almost all fell through.   

Matthew was a notable exception. Distance and diverging interests ensured that our communications and interactions weren’t very frequent or long-winded, but there was a rhythm to them and an understanding that we could always pick up where we left off. 

I spent this last week trying to put my finger on why this might’ve been—why Matthew was different—and in the eighth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Master Aristotle gave me an answer. In his view, there are three kinds of friends: utility friends, pleasure friends, and goodness friends. The first two are accidental and therefore easily dissolved. The final is the kind that can last a lifetime. 

Matthew was a goodness friend—not just to me—but to many. In saying this, I know I’m diverging from Aristotelian canon, but to be honest, Master A never met Matthew. I think the latter would’ve blown the former’s mind because while, for a majority of people, love is conditional, predicated on proximity, pleasure, or personal and pecuniary interests, Matthew loved people for their sake. I mean, he certainly didn’t love me for his sake. Good grief, Matthew was many things but a masochist wasn’t one of them, and I definitely didn’t make myself easily loveable what with being a snotty elementary school kid, an insecure middle school girl, and a remote relic shut up in a northern Indiana cornfield. Yet at every stage, Matthew managed to make me feel like I mattered, and that’s why his friendship had such tremendous staying power.  

So when I learned last Saturday that he’d passed away, it felt like a hole had been punched in my chest as I realized that this boy who uncommonly came and uncommonly remained was, now, uncommonly gone. 

There’s no name for someone who loses a child, a little brother, a love, or a friend. It’s not supposed to go that way, and God and I have had words the last few days because while I know that Matthew is living now in the light of eternity, the rest of us are living in light of tremendous loss. 

What are we meant to do now that he’s gone? How are we meant to go on?

I have no easy answers, but I’ll share my thoughts simply because, at the end of the day, all of us who knew him have a say in whether Matthew becomes a memory or a legacy. You mourn a memory. You live a legacy. And I’m pretty sure Matthew would’ve preferred the latter. 

So do as he did. Love persistently. Give generously. See the good in people—not just the bad. End every call with “I love you to infinity and beyond.” And know that somewhere out there, Gerdyboy is cheering you on.

He lived an uncommon life, but it was a life well and truly lived.

We have the opportunity to make sure it doesn’t end with him.

Matthew, it was an honor and a privilege to call you my friend, and I cannot wait for the day I get to see you again.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4