The Final Chapter?????

I came across a post on the Viral Myocarditis Facebook page from a grieving mother who lost her adult son 3 months after his marriage. The comment she shared from was from her sons wedding dance when she was on the dance floor with him, and she said to him " DON'T LET OUR STORY END... I know everything about your life since before you were born and it is the most beautiful story.". Three and a half months later the story for this mother did end. As with many new people we have encountered since Stephens's passing we all have a story that ended way too soon.
This got me thinking about our own lives as well as our friends and loved ones. Our lives are really a story told over many chapters. Some books are long and some are not and really don't have a finish. When you lose a child it is like the book you are reading just ends. Imagine reading the latest John Grisham legal thriller and you get to the part where the story is laid out, you know the plot, you know all the characters, and just when you get the jury verdict and your turn to the next page in the book and it is blank! You keep tuning and all the following pages are blank as well. Darn, you don't know how the story ends.
I tried to apply this to Stephens life and yes Darla and I knew the first 20 chapters of his life and some would say the story ended indeed but I would disagree. The first 20 chapters were really quite good. There was plenty of drama, plenty of successes, plenty of failures, some tears, and plenty of laughs. I really don't want the story to end, so instead of Stephen writing the next chapters of his life the task is left to all of us to fill in the blank pages.
Stephen touched more lives than we will ever know, and his influence is still being felt as I write this. You don't know how much this means to our family that he is not forgotten and as time marches on and Stephen's memory fades a bit we will continue to write chapters in his book. At this point I have no idea how the story ends as we are still writing it. We thank all of you who continue to submit work to the book as well. Each of your thoughts, prayers, words of encouragement, support of Stephen Reynolds Foundation events, and all of the random acts of kindness help make work on Stephen's book possible.
It is a great story. and Stephen still touches people's lives to this day. Our past 4 scholarship winners are going off to school for another year of college. I know they will go on to do many great things in this world, and will live each day Renny's Way!
I will keep this top of mind as move forward realizing as a parent you are very present for the first few chapters of your children's lives but as you get deeper in the book it is all about them as they make their mark on this world and it does not seem to matter if they are present physically on this earth or spiritually the words continue to get put on the page and the story continues.

Living Renny's Way!