
our sweet adam...my precious friend of 27 years...has gone home this morning. after a BRAVE and very long fight with Cystic Fibrosis.
i have planned in my head for this since i was five. my mom told me that my new friend adam had an illness. she let me know he might not live past his 13th birthday....and yet he kicked 32 birthdays in a row with humor and bravery and strength and laughter. while he fought most of his battle privately, publicly we all knew what he was up against.
i spent several of his birthday's in a hospital room with our friends and him while he was there for his 2 week treatments growing up. i watched him leaving rooms, excusing himself when his coughing got uncomfortable or painful. missing him at school when he would be out for weeks, sick. watching him struggle with his weight...
he dealt with his illness with his classic humor and light spirit. he used his gift of humor in young life to show others God's love and brought many of us to tears, repeatedly with his insane dances and jokes and beautiful smile.
while i have planned for this in my head for 27 years, the reality is a lot harder to deal with. to tell my heart about. i am most thankful that my friend had a relationship with Christ....this i know and this alone comforts me to know that because of that, our precious friend passed from this life with struggled breath into eternal life with our Lord, breathing the freshest heaven air he has ever tasted. adam struggles no more, he fights no more. no more bottles and bottles of meds, no more oxygen tanks, no more late night emergency trips with a scared wife in the ambulance, no more long hospital stays...no more coughing, no more seizures.
my friend is free. he is free of pain but he is also eternally free. what we live for, those of us who call Christ our Savior, what we believe and set our lives and hearts for, adam is already living.
i have many many memories of a life shared with adam...he was my first crush in 2nd grade, he was my first boyfriend in 6th grade...he took me took a movie when we were 12 wearing his bright green irish pants and we held hands while his mom sat in the back of the theater..he was my catillion partner in 6th grade, while i towered 3 feet over him in height, we laughed and played silly the whole time.....he was there for me in high school and was my first homecoming date...again, our pictures were awesome with the height difference, we had so much fun! we shared young life together...he and my friend anne were the only two friends i had when i moved back home after dropping out of college after a very debilitating fight with depression...they took me to bennigans for my 21st birthday and we drank gross cheap beer and laughed together....he always made me laugh....he always made me think, if he can laugh like that, with his illness than i need to step it up and enjoy life too, be thankful and live bravely like he does...i was blessed to be at his wedding to his beautiful bride, jen. a God-send in my opinion. i was so happy and blessed to get to witness them coming together and getting to meet his sweet jen. i loved her immediately because she loved him. she took such great care of him and adovocated for him like crazy with all his medical issues and hospital visits. she was and is a brave warrior for being by his side and loving him courageously, knowing she would have to let him go one day.....i look up to her more than she could know...his sweet family, his mom and dad and brothers....i love them deeply as well. watching them take care of him since i was 5 and celebrate who he was to them!
while i have many hilarious memories from the last 27 years, the most treasured and most beautiful memory i carry with me about our friendship took place two weeks after we lost sydney. i sat in adam's house with jen and some dear friends...we sat at the kitchen table over coffee and talked....and adam looked up at me and asked me to tell them about our daughter. he wanted to hear about our sydney. i spoke through broken words, tears..many tears and tried my best, two weeks out, to tell of our beautiful sydney grace. as i was speaking, adam rose from the table and met me at my chair...i stood up and he grabbed me in really hard embrace and he just held me. that tiny thin thing of a man held me tightly and cried in my ear...he just kept saying he was sorry, so sorry for my heart hurting...he didn't know what to say but he loved me and he was sorry....if you knew anything about this man of laughter and joking, you knew this was a VERY personal moment that he didn't just do all the time...especially not with me, who he loved teasing for most of his life..i was a good target! we stood there in his dining room for what seemed to be hours and he let me go and just looked at me...."we love you guys," he said....something in his eyes, something in his painful grin and tears let me know i had had my most beautiful moment with my friend.....we went back to talking and telling stories and laughing....but i held close to my heart that jewel i was given that night.....i went home knowing i had been blessed....
adam gave liam a ball that night...a spiderman ball. he told me to tell him it was from mr. adam. liam adored mr. funny adam after meeting him and getting to see him several times when we would go home to dallas....and liam loved his spiderman ball...it is his FAVORITE to this day....liam, for the past 2 years has made drawings and cards to send to jen and adam to help him "feel better"..and he would pray for him and ask about him a lot...he knew mr. adam was sick and would join his sydney and Jesus in heaven one day, but he still prayed for his funny adam and always told me that "God would save him"...i love that i got to share a part of my funny adam with my son...
i had prayed for adam's miraculous healing all my life...since i was little and prayers were rehearsed to growing up and trying to find the right words....to that very blessed night at his house, afterwards going home and begging God on my knees in my old room at home to heal him...to make a miracle happen...to heal his body and make him whole....BUT i wanted it on my terms. i wanted to see it happen. i wanted to receive the blessing of that miracle by getting to live out our lives together as friends here on earth....i was two weeks out from sydney's death, so you can imagine my prayers as not so sweet but yelling more at my God to save my friend....i was hurting and i was mad.
through the next several months, i struggled very deeply with our daughter's death and how i viewed this life and how my faith worked itself out here....as my heart began to let go of the anger and bitterness over losing sydney it was then God started showing me more about adam.....one day, i told ian, i am ok. i will be ok when i hear about adam....not before, but i am now...here is why:
i prayed forever for adam's healing....on this earth. here and now....selfishly, my prayers for his healing included me getting to see him live here....happy and healthy and whole...
but if i were to pray for God's will, i would see that God's answered prayer might also look like healing on the other side of heaven. and for adam, that meant fresh breaths and no more suffering or struggling...and if i loved my friend that way i said i did, then i would choose healing NO MATTER what it looked like, because it was not up to me and adam deserved God's best.
we all deserve hell. the wages of sin are death. but because of the Cross and what Christ did for us while we were still sinners, we were given a second chance. we were given the MIRACLE of healing...that one day, we would pass this crazy suffering life, into a world of peace and a LIFE with a sweet good God that saved us while we were still stupid frail human beings long ago who wanted to be our own god....the miracle is that adam DOES get to be healed....it is not a question. it is fact. my dear friend is forever healed and forever restored to a perfect life, the one God created for him.....and that is reason for me to celebrate and know that my prayers my whole life, that stinging crying prayer back in dec of 07, that they were answered. today. today my prayer for adam's healing was answered.
i don't get to see him whole and healed. not yet. but God does, His son does....even our precious daughter does.
but i will. oh I WILL. thank you Jesus, for your life that was able to heal my sick friend. a life that makes heaven my home, not here. an eternal home that i will share with You..and my friend one day.
thank you, for the beautiful life that was Adam Lokey....thank you for letting us have him here with us for 32 years...for letting his LIGHT shine here for others to be moved and changed and forever touched....
thank you that while my heart grieves and my soul hurts today....that the next time i see my sweet friend, he will be whole, healthy and perfect!

i pray for his sweet wife who has walked this really hard journey with him..who has taken care of him and adovcated for him and loved him as she had to watch him suffer, especially so much this last year...please be near her, please comfort her like no one else can...whisper to her all day long, that you will take care of her and that you are never far from her call...please help her now say goodbye....please be with his parents and two brothers as they face the reality they have known was coming since march 29, 1977...please comfort them in their sadness but remind them of your PROMISE. help them say goodbye to their precious son and return him back to You.....thank you that you chose that sweet family for adam and adam for them...
thank you that you will sustain us as we miss him and that you will be our peace when we have nothing here to hold on to...
thank you, that because you ROSE again.....my sweet silly adam is there with you now.










