Remembering Jeff Getz

Reid here.

I caught a leaf.

The leaf came forth in spring, light green and tender. Summer came and temperatures increased. The leaf grew in size and depth of green. Rains came, often times gentle, sometimes hard. The leaf held on. Winds blew, sometimes softly, sometimes with a typhoon's force. The leaf held on. Fall came pushing away hot temperatures. More storms came. The leaf held on. The leaf's color changed showing a new beauty it hadn't shown before. Fall drew to a close.

The winter sun was shining bright. The sky was cloudless. The air still, crisp and clean. The leaf let go.

God blessed me to be there to catch it. 

The weekend of October 25-27, 1996, I went to Kaneyama, Fukushima, a moutainous area known as Aizuwakamatsu. A fellow JET, Jeff Getz, had invited me out to just hang out for the weekend. I liked Jeff. We seemed to have a lot in common: a love for Jesus, previously teachers in the United States, both quite comfortable with solitude, both having traveled around the U.S. sleeping in our vehicles, both having a bunch of different types of jobs in our (then) young lives, and Simon & Garfunkel. Yeah, I liked Jeff.

That weekend, we drove in and around the mountains taking in the amazing colors - deep reds of the maples, warm yellows of the ash(?), deep greens of the cedars, brilliant blues of the fall sky. I had not seen a fall so beautiful before. The company was very good, too. Jeff and I talked a lot about God.

We also talked about other things, too. I remember Jeff told me a story about when he used to teach. He would take his students outside on a fall day to some nearby trees. They would try to catch leaves as they fell. After this experience, he told them something like I said at the beginning of this post. He then had them just sit for a little bit thinking on this and any parallels they may draw from the experience.

The next weekend, Jeff went hiking. He fell from the edge of waterfall and died. They found him three days later.

I think of Jeff every fall when I see leaves falling from the trees. I try to catch one. When I do, I hold it for a bit and thank God that I could know Jeff.

I hope to see Jeff again someday.