Miss you, "Little Brother"

 

It was 20 years ago today when my "little" brother Tom died on January 5, 2001.  Even though we knew he was terminally ill, I didn't really expect he would be taken from us so early, or suddenly.  I take comfort in the fact that Tom faced his life, his death, and his reunion with our Creator with faith, courage, and a sense of humor.  But, on rare occasions, he also faced loneliness and despair.  I want to use this 20^th anniversary to remember a few of the special memories we shared.  

 Tom was really accident-prone.  A lot of my earliest memories of Tom involve his hospital or doctor visits.  There were numerous times that Tom would run into the house crying out for Mom, bleeding from either tripping over or running into something!  I couldn’t say the exact number of stitches he had to endure before his 10th birthday, but as we got older, we would joke about it!

He was hitting bullets with a hammer in the garage one day, just “to see what would happen”.  Naturally, one exploded and put a fragment in his finger that wasn't discovered for quite a few years, when it became infected, and he had to have surgery to remove it. 

Once, when he was skateboarding in the parking lot of a nearby business, he got a wheel stuck in a seam of the concrete, fell, and broke his wrist! 

His antics didn't stop at childhood.  When he and his family lived in Illinois, they all went tobogganing down a hill.  On Tom's first run, he hit a stump or rock or some other obstruction that caused the toboggan to fly through the air with Tom on board, hit a tree-stump, and he broke his pelvis.

It makes one wonder if Tom was accident-prone, or if he was just so happy-go-lucky that he’d do whatever he was doing to its fullest extent, and whatever happened, happened.

Not all of my memories of Tom are unpleasant, though.

There was a salmon fishing trip we went on one day after he returned to California from Illinois.  I knew that Tom loved to fish the lakes for trout, but I wasn't sure about his enthusiasm for fishing on the ocean. 

I had expected a quiet ride to the marina because Tom had been really introspective the last few years upon learning about his illness.  But he was enthusiastic about the trip; he talked non-stop about this and that, nothing, and everything.   He talked at great lengths about his plans for his future, and the well-being of his kids.  The hour and a half drive seemed like only ten minutes.

When the boat got out in the open waters, Tom laughed at me for getting seasick, as I always do!  I wondered why he wasn’t feeling nauseous, as well.   He told me that he’d been a deckhand on a fishing boat for a while when he lived in Washington State, and didn't get seasick.  He said he’d seen much bigger swells up there, and he was really surprised at how "a few little swells" affected me.  I found out later that he wasn’t being entirely truthful to me.  I was told that he used to get really sick on the ocean, too!  I think the medications he was taking was holding back the seasickness this trip.

There were two traits of his that I particularly admired.  First was his ability to meet and get to quickly know people well, developing life-long friendships.   He was so outgoing!

On our fishing trip, he made it a point to meet each of the other fishermen and even took some pictures of them and their catches to send to them after developing.  The captain of the boat gave Tom his business card good for a free fishing trip, the next time he felt up to it.   He was right there helping the first mate when he cleaned the fish, talking up a storm.  He caught the first salmon, and he caught the biggest fish!  He was talking about that trip for months afterward, and looking forward to another, as I was.  Alas, it wasn’t to be.

The second of Tom's traits that I have always envied was his ability to see, appreciate, and draw or photograph what I call "singular beauty".  We can all look at a bouquet of roses and see how beautiful they are.  Tom would look at the same bouquet and see the beauty of each rose, each petal, each stem, and even each thorn. 

While our fishing boat was on its way to our fishing hole, the sun was beginning to rise, and it was just beautiful.  I mentioned it to Tom, and he said "Yeah, but look at the way the fog is giving way to it, and the way the waves reflect its light."  Even with this description, I couldn't see what Tom was seeing, but by the way he said it I knew he was in his element.  He got his camera out and snapped some pictures.  After they were developed (digital photography wasn’t around yet!), it was obvious to me that they captured the scene exactly as he described it that day.  If he had not taken his camera, he probably would have taken out his paper and pen and drawn it freehand.  God blessed him with an artistic talent I can only dream about.

Tom was a good man, devoted to his children and all of his family.  He was happiest when talking with or about his kids.

Tom was able to see the good in all people and was very quick to make friends.  He was always bringing home a stray cat or dog or usually, a new friend.  Once you were a friend of Tom's, you were his friend for life in good times or bad.  His loyalty knew no boundaries.  I am unflinchingly proud to call myself his brother. 

Please take a few minutes today to pray for him, won’t you?  Thanks!