My Friend Nathan

I was blog hopping and found the blog of my friend Amy Peterson. Amy was a graduating Senior in HS when I was an incoming Freshman. We went to church together and got to know each other on a mission trip to Minnesota. Amy also has MS and was a huge help and encouragement to me when I was struggling with an illness and being in the hospital so much.

Amy had 3 brothers. Her youngest brother Nathan was one of my good friends. We were in the same class and huddle at church. Nathan was....well there are many ways to describe Nathan - funny, compassionate, faithful, charming, class clown, great athlete, leader, struggling and wonderful. On her blog (ttp://ericswife.blogspot.com) Amy has several stories about Nathan. I read those and have been thinking about him a lot the past few days. Nathan died in a car wreck on December 26, 2003. It was incredibly hard on his friends and I can't imagine the pain his family went through, and is still going through.

I wanted to share several of my favorite memories about Nathan.
Nathan had a unique sense of humor and the uncanny ability to make people laugh at any given moment. Sometimes this was not at the best times..but he was always funny. He could take the most mundane things - like a Wet Floor/Piso Mojado sign that someone put in our huddle room and make it into a long standing joke.

Nathan loved old cars. His first car was a 1967 Cougar. When he got it I really thought it was meant for the junk yard. He worked for months to get it in semi working condition but he was so proud of it. One day he was driving down I35 in Austin and started smelling and seeing smoke come out from the hood. He pulled over to take a look. A few minutes later there was a big boom - his engine had literally blown up. Nathan's next vehicle was an old, ugly brown pickup truck. This truck was not only old, it was antique. But Nathan loved it. He named it some girly name I think. When we painted our huddle room Nathan painted a picture of his truck on the wall.

Nathan Paul Dodd was more than just a funny, charming, cute, athletic guy. He was one of the most amazing Christians I've ever met. He would have been the first to tell you that he was a sinner and that he had faults. One of the things that amazed me about him was that he truly believed in confession. He would go to a party with his football friends on Friday night and on Sunday he would come before our huddle, admit his mistakes and openly ask for help and forgiveness.
At Westover we had a 4pm church service for awhile. Once a quarter the teens would do the service. One night Nathan was going to be giving the lesson. He went up to the front of this huge auditorium and started talking about music. He spoke about how Satan can really get us to be ok with things that we shouldn't be through the music we listen to. Nathan was a varsity wrestler. He would listen to heavy metal or rap music before his meets. Up in front of the church he pulled out about 5 of his cds and said "I don't want to listen to this stuff anymore because I know that Satan uses that against me. " and he broke his cds.

The last story I will share about Nathan (for now) is his compassion. He was the big stud at his high school. He was Captain of the Football and I think Wrestling teams. All the girls loved him, all the guys thought he was cool. Nathan somehow befriended a group of special needs, or disabled kids. He refused to make fun of them like his friends did. Instead he became their buddy, their champion and defender. I think he even took one of those girls - a girl in a wheelchair to his prom.

It makes me smile to think about my friend. He was truly special and someone I will always miss.