April 24, 2008

Dear Ones,

Scattershooting and just reflecting today. Dad came home from the hospital Tuesday just completely exhausted and slipped away to heaven in his sleep sometime Wednesday morning. One of his neighbors pulled me aside as we were waiting for the funeral home to come for his “worn-out, collapsed tent” of an 84 year-old body. (Isn’t that what the apostle Paul had in mind in 2 Cor. 5:1? “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”) This neighbor, not a believer, advised me to retain an attorney ASAP, for the hospital was surely negligent in releasing him in such poor condition. Tom means well, but he is completely ignorant of some spiritual realities that we just cannot ignore.

Dad had had a heart valve transplant done by Denton Cooley in 1975, an amazing 33 years ago. Dr. Cooley signed his name on tape on his patients’ beds with two hearts in the place of the ‘O’s in his name. I do need to try to contact his office and see if that heart valve, that he himself designed, has opened and closed more in some other patient’s chest. All that to say—the blood thinner that Dad had to take for those 33 years had to be monitored on a regular basis, and it is possible that it got out of whack during the 4 days of his hospital stay. For whatever reason, probably best known by God, his heart gave out.

It was a good heart. In more ways than one. Dad was a good provider for us. He and Mom raised 6 children, and I never remember going to bed hungry. He worked hard, and he read voraciously. I could always call with my questions, about gardening or cars or whatever, and I could be sure he knew something about what my question concerned. We were by no means wealthy, and Dad taught us to fix things (he tried to teach us to put HIS tools back where they belonged when we were finished with our projects) and to improvise. He and Mom gave us a lot of freedom to make decisions when we were old enough to decide. I remember telling him I was going to join the Marines; he told me he didn’t think I could make it on the Green Team. Of course, I had to prove I could. That perspective on his part came from his service in WWII in the Army-Air Force. He was probably concerned for me out of his own military experience, but he wouldn’t forbid it.

When I came back from Vietnam, I could not get a flight home to Harlingen out of San Antonio. Back then, airlines had to sell military members tickets at a discount, and I was sure the folks of Texas International (“Treetop Airlines” as they were known) were saving their seats for passengers paying full fare. When I called home about my dilemma, Dad and Mom drove the 5+ hours one way to pick me up. I’m sure Dad went to work the next day with very little sleep from that long drive.

Of course I can never forget the day the Sheriff drove into the driveway. I had thrown a lemon (green and hard) over the car a few days earlier, hoping to drop it into the bed of an approaching dump truck. My timing was off. The lemon hit the truck windshield. My brothers and I sped off, but the 1953 Pontiac station wagon we were driving was VERY unique, so the truck driver brought the Sheriff with him when he came to get his glass fixed. No doubt he had spotted the car in the driveway during the course of his driving one day. Dad called us three boys out and asked us individually if we had done the deed. My older brother said, “No.” My younger brother said, “No.” When he asked me, I said. “Yes.” He sent us inside, made arrangements with the truck driver to pay for a used windshield from a junk yard, and then came in to ask me one question. “Did you learn anything today?” That was all he ever said or did about that part of my criminal past. I expected a whole lot worse, but he was a wise father who just knew he didn’t have to say or do anything else. No, it wasn’t THAT day that I decided to go into the ministry, but how does a young person forget that taste of mercy and grace? Short answer: he doesn’t.

One Christmas, while we were opening presents, he went outside. We didn’t know why, but Mom did, and shortly she asked us if we could hear anything unusual. We couldn’t but we went outside, and Dad was riding a used moped that was a Christmas present for us three older boys. Up and down the driveway he had gone, thinking surely we would hear the sound of the engine and come out to investigate. Once the engine was started, the rider had to pedal the ‘bike’ up to a certain speed before the small engine could take over and maintain a respectable speed, probably 25 mph! It was a great Christmas present.

Dad was really afraid of mice. He once was lifting the seat out of the old pickup when a mouse scurried out into the light. Dad threw that seat up into the air and skedattled away. Mom was telling another story of another mouse the other day. Dad, on one end of the broom stick, was more afraid of the mouse than it was of him!

When we lived in Arkansas, out of town near Siloam Springs, Dad would read the Bible to us on the back porch on Sunday mornings. I’m not sure why we weren’t in church, but he knew the value of God’s word. His oldest brother, my Uncle Arthur, would read the Scriptures before our evening meals when we would go to OK for family vacations. Those trips were the highlight of our year! Time spent with cousins…

There is much, much more that could be said of Dad. But today his experience of life is far beyond what he (or we) could ever imagine. I attempted several years ago to preach a short series on heaven, and those three sermons are posted on the website I’ve mentioned before that Toby put together for me. It is Jerry's Sermons and you can read about what Dad and other loved ones may be up to in their new life in the presence of God Himself.

Thank you for your prayer support for all of us. It can be easily said that God is so good to us in ways too numerous to recount.

God bless,
Jerry for Suzie too.