Zach Sobiech is Amazing

I am laying in bed with a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes. My wife fell asleep before me and since I don't have to work tomorrow I thought I would browse Facebook for a few minutes until I fell asleep. Expecting to find mostly things I didn't care about and statuses to pray for Oklahoma (which we should), I stumbled upon a video. In fact I stumbled upon this video. Open that link and you will find a short story and a 20 minute documentary about a young man who I do not know and had never heard of until about an hour ago. Yet here I am. Laying in bed. Crying over a stranger who died this morning.

If you haven't watched the video yet, here's a spoiler alert, this kid is amazing. His name is Zach Sobiech and despite having never met him, I am borderline heartbroken that he's gone. You may have noticed I said that Zach is amazing and not the past tense was and that's because death cannot stop the impact of a life lived this way. His legacy lives on in everyone he knew so the least some random blogger can do is to show him the respect he deserves and give him a present tense compliment. Zach will continue to be amazing long after his death, just ask the girl who fell in love with him, or the sister whom he calls his his best friend or his parents who look up to him.

I'm not really sure why the story of this remarkable young man has touched me the way it has. I mean it's always tragic when a young person dies but in this instance it's more than that. Maybe it's so sad because he so very clearly has so much to offer the world. Maybe it's so sad because I can't stop imagining the pain his girlfriend and little sister and the rest of his loved ones are going through as I type this. Maybe it has gotten to me because I'm constantly wrestling with the idea of my own mortality. Maybe it's so sad because when I listen to the words of his hit song "Clouds" I hear the heartbreak from a kid who seemingly couldn't stop smiling even as his life slipped away. Chances are pretty good it's some combination of all these things and a few more that I can't properly put into words.

I guess at the end of the day learning about Zach just makes a lot of the things I do seem pointless. In this moment there is nothing I would like more than to live less pointlessly and more like Zach Sobiech.  I cant help but think that if more people spent just one day with the perspective that he had on life, the world would be irrevocably changed for the better. And I can't help but think that I should start today.