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YES! Blogs

Flourishing - to the End

Wes Wick

In late November we said, “Goodbye, and see you later” to a precious brother in Christ, a very close friend and YES! board member, Art Gaeta.

Recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma, Art died less than a month shy of his eightieth birthday, an age consistent with the average American male lifespan.

But there was nothing average about Art. Probably more than anyone Judy and I know, he exemplified the flourishing, young-enough-to-serve life to which we aspire.

  • As recently as August he was back in the classroom teaching Spanish as a substitute teacher. (Art readily admitted to flunking retirement several times.)

  • In July he served with City Impact and our YES! team in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

  • In June he traveled to Spain, Italy and France with his wonderful wife Candace.

  • In May he attended what would be his last YES! Young Enough to Serve board meeting and shared his passion to see YES! reaching out more deliberately to the Spanish-speaking community.

    As we encourage flourishing in life’s later years, we realize not everyone flourishes right up to the very end. Lots of pain, misery and disability often accompany the final weeks, months and sometimes years of physical and mental decline.

    For Art, too, severe pain, misery and confusion were present in those final weeks, but he bravely squeezed so much love, meaning and encouragement into his lucid moments.

    Here’s Art encouraging Judy and me, as we called to express our love and concern:

Art waves as we stood together on a picture-perfect day this past July. We had no idea that Art’s final waves would come just four months later. Life here on earth is often so much shorter than we realize.

What a beautiful picture of being fresh and flourishing, right? And, oh, our blessed hope of eternity with Christ.

May we all hang on courageously to the promise of Psalm 92:14 (NKJV):

They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing.

We deeply miss you, Art, but get that heavenly casita ready...we’ll be with you soon.

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