See you tomorrow?

Does the name Brad Will mean anything to you? I’d wager that if you ask anyone in Oaxaca, they’d be able to identify him - that he was the U.S. journalist who was shot in Oaxaca. That was on October 27, 2006 – the following day President Fox finally sent in federal force to try to bring some peace to Oaxaca. Although there were 3 other deaths that day, many people believe that it was Brad Will’s death that finally caused Fox to intervene. There is also debate as to who shot him and whether or not his death was accidental.

While this makes a good current event, that is not my purpose in writing about it. Why then? Well, that morning, I walked by a young gringo trying to get a taxi. I remember him pretty well because at that time there were hardly any tourists in the city, so spotting one was usually exciting. We both saw each other, but I didn’t smile or say hello, I just walked by (just for point of reference, I actually do tend to greet most people I meet on the street).

That afternoon, news started coming out that a journalist had been shot. The pictures of Brad were kind of gory, but I wondered if that hadn’t been the guy I had seen that morning. A day or two later, I found a picture of what he really looked like, and I became more certain that I saw Brad Will the morning before he was killed. That bothered me a lot, but I couldn’t quite figure out why.

Days later, I finally realized what I was having trouble dealing with. It was the knowledge that I walked by somebody who was going to die later that day, and I didn’t even acknowledge him. I don’t expect that I would have made any life changing remarks or anything like that, but I still wish I had at least smiled. That was an important reality check for me that we are never certain that we will have tomorrow. But, even more than that, we can never be sure that the person we could show Christ’s love to, even just through a simple smile, will be around tomorrow either.