By ESTHER YU
The package came in a manila envelope with a case for contact lenses inside. On the side labelled “L” for left, was a simple note, folded over five times so that it just barely fit. It read, “Do ya like em? Hope so, cause they’re yours.” On the side labelled “R,” was a pair of shark tooth earrings.
I smiled as I read the accompanying letter. Jose Mackintosh had made these earrings for me weeks before he sent them to me but waited until he was in the Missionary Training Center to send them.
I remembered the telephone conversation we had months before, when he called (or did I call him?) from Hiko, Nevada. Jose had just discovered the art of making jewelry from shark’s teeth. He was going to make himself a necklace and make me a pair of earrings from them, he said.
I’ve never found a chance to wear a pair of shark-tooth earrings but the precious gift has now become even more valuable to me.
Maybe you don’t recognize the name but he was the missionary that was stabbed to death in Russia, while leaving a home that he and his companion had been visiting.
When I heard about his death and the brutal circumstances, I was very upset. I’d heard about the stabbing the night it happened but it wasn’t until I came to work and picked up a newspaper that evening that I learned it was Jose.
He was a good friend from my freshman ward when I lived in Gates Hall of Heritage Halls. He lived in Kimball Hall, one building over from me.
I first noticed him during a testimony meeting. He stood up and started talking about cows. The ward was laughing at his narration. He was so funny. But while he was being funny, you could tell that he was also sharing a very sincere testimony. He was telling the ward about how grateful he was for the Lord and his creations.
He talked about how he would be out with the cows — probably milking them, I don’t remember — and he would look up and see all the beauty around him and marvel and be grateful. It was a very touching testimony. He was teaching humility and gratitude for what the Lord had given us, in his very simple testimony. That’s a Thanksgiving lesson right there. And that’s the thing. It didn’t take Jose a day with a special label to remember how blessed we are.
From comments Jose made and letters he wrote to me, I know Jose thought he wasn’t very good about being flexible with clashes in other people’s personalities. But I wonder how accurate his self-judgement was. Because Jose was so good at uplifting others. He liked to be goofy a lot, and make others laugh. In one photograph I have of us, he is pretending to eat the fuzzy ball off the top of my ski hat. He was fun like that. I sometimes felt like he was pushed by sense of duty to be funny and make others laugh. He wanted to help so much. And he did.
Jose had a serious side that I was very lucky to know because he understood me when I needed help. One night, I was so upset that I couldn’t go to sleep. I just wanted to go for a walk and talk but it was very late. I believe it was around midnight, but Jose was always there for me. We walked from Gates Hall, all the way up to Provo temple, around, and then back. All the while, he just listened.
Jose and I kept in touch at the beginning of his mission. At first, he wrote that he’d write to me several times a month. But then I never heard from him again until three weeks before his death. I discovered that he had been trying to e-mail me for the last few months on my Y route account, which I had never used before. So I finally sent a response. I asked him if he remembered the night we walked around the temple.
One week before his death, I heard from him for the last time. I had a printed copy of the e-mail but I took it out when I heard about Jose and have since lost it. I wish I could quote exactly from the one part I remember best. He was talking about how well his mission was going. But he created a metaphor describing how he felt. He said he’d felt so helpless when we were walking around the temple. I was so upset and he didn’t know what to say. But that the experience actually helped prepared him for his mission because he had so many similar experiences since then. His metaphor said that he felt like some clumsy giant bumbling around in a fragile china closet of emotions.
But no matter how Jose felt about that experience, he acted exactly right to help me out when I was sad. I wasn’t in his mission, I can’t say from experience that he was a wonderful missionary. But from the love I know he has and from his excitement when he wrote to me about how his mission was going, I know he worked hard and was successful in that love.
I know Jose appreciated our friendship but looking back, I wish I had been as good a friend for him as he was for me. He was so easy-going that it was easy for me to be a jerk when I was in a bad mood. I just took him for granted because I knew he would always be there for me and love me as a friend.
Now all I’ve got is good memories, some pictures, a few letters and my shark tooth earrings. But even more, I’ve had a lesson reinforced more strongly than any gospel teacher could have taught me. How to really be a friend. I’ve thought about him and my relationships now and realized how little I truly understand friendship when compared to Jose. It’s not just appreciating them in your mind. It’s showing them you love them.
I’m still learning to trust and love others like he could. While we were in the dorms, he visited daily. And here I am with so many great friends that I really value … and yet have not even tried to contact since the semester began.
I’ve taken this Thanksgiving to talk about what I am really thankful for but gratitude should never be confined to one day. It’s great to think Jose is wonderful. He is. But there’s a better way to show appreciation than thinking, by being the kind of friend Jose always was.
