Zakk

It seems so hard to believe that such a good friend is now gone; at only 17. Our hearts feel empty knowing that he is not here any more. We all know that he is now up in heaven with the Lord, which is where he belongs, but at the same time that makes us wish we could go too so that we don't have to wait so long to see him again. This is going to make our lives so different and our summers. Summer is when we got to see him the most; at cam pouts and other get togethers. We all have so many memories of Zakk that will never be forgotten and we will keep him forever in our hearts until the day we see him again, up there in the clouds.

Zakk was a great friend and earned his place in the hearts of all those who knew him and spent any amount of time with him. His love for music, constant drumming on everything or air drumming where ever he happened to be, singing whenever he got the chance, all the times he made us laugh, that smile of his that was always there, the beautiful eyes that we all know he hated, the way he was always joking, but yet serious at the same time, playing football, baseball or volleyball at cam pouts, how he never let his size get in the way of his dreams, taking his own trails when we were at silver creek falls, how he had to climb up that opening in the side of the falls and get stuck, always talking about music, the time he showed us the right way to make and eat a marshmallow, when he wasn't afraid of his shoe stinking when we past it around the circle, the big heart he had, how he helped Josh sing that song he started when they were the only ones even singing, looking up in the rafters of the campfire thing and seeing him up there singing with us, teaching us new games, how he helped make everyone be quiet and listen when it was time to decide what game we all wanted to play, what a help he was with all of those 13 year olds who had to be inisated, how he always said "hi" and gave wonderful hugs, a partner in mattress surfing if you were a guy, the one to make a quiet moment loud, always there to help out or just laugh with, all of the crazy times we all got to spend with him; these are just a few of the things that made Zakk so great, special, and different from any other friend we had and exactly why we loved him so much. He was a part of our group and he will be greatly missed in so many ways.

I want to be like Zakk when I grow up. He was the best and greatest and most amazing of all of us. His faith and confidence in the Lord has given us all a new inspiration to have no fear. We should all live such an amazing life and go just like Zakk has gone. We keep wondering why he had to go but now we understand how Zakk was too good for us and truly too good to be down here on earth any longer. He was small, but his heart was so much bigger. We never knew that he would leave us so soon, but now we want to go up there to heaven where we can be with Zakk and our Lord and so many others like Zakk who have left us. He is our hero, an inspiration and example to all of us of how we need to live our lives. He's up there now, I can just see him playing for the Lord, with his crazy purple hair, singing in that choir of angels and making everyone up there laugh, just like how he always made all of us laugh while he was still down here with us. Life won't be the same without him, but we'll live it to the fullest just like Zakk has taught us to and meet him again one day in glory land.

Because the slide show that they had at his memorial didn't have any pictures of Zakk at cam pouts or other get togethers, which was because his family didn't have any, we decided to make a scrapbook for his family with pictures of him with the brethren. We would like to get copies of any pictures anyone might have of Zakk and we are also going to let anyone who wants to write down as many memories and stories that they want to about Zakk, which will also be in the scrapbook for his family to read over and over again. We are going to kind of try to keep this a secret from his parents for as long as we can. We have opened an account at Walmart.com for people to upload any pictures of Zakk. The email address/login ID is crazyandconfused92@hotmail.com and the password is RIPZakk. Thank you to anyone who uploads pictures for this.