Still thinking of Jon

I can't help but continue thinking of him, particularly in light of the recent discovery in his case. I don't want to appear as if I'm obsessive about the life of this young man I barely knew, but my brain has yet to make sense of his apparent death.

I can picture him as clearly as yesterday, sitting at my table, joking with my children, wearing his green t-shirt, thoughtfully listening to his camp colleagues describe their lives and their goals. He remained quieter than the young women; seemingly content to listen and observe. His manner with my children - treating them as intelligent beings, equals and friends - earned their respect and regard, as well as that of my husband and me.

My six-year-old daughter still asks about Jon and the other camp counselors.

"Will they come back next year?" she asks, eagerly awaiting another week of vacation bible school and in particular the water games with buckets and balloons.

"Somebody will," I answer gently, wondering if I can avoid ever telling her about what happened to Jon.

It seems incomprehensible that we spent a genial Tuesday evening with Jon, bid our farewells that Thursday, and then on Saturday he went up a mountain from which he would never return. It's incomprehensible that this mountain took Jon, plucked him from the arms of his loving family, took him from the work he so obviously loved, and kept him, refusing to give him back to the dozens of searchers who blanketed the area in the last two weeks of July.

The world was blessed to have Jon Francis, and my heart aches for him and his family and all those for whom and with whom he worked and lived and prayed.

I can't make sense of it. Perhaps I never will.