Yo Bro.,
Wow Bro., been a while. I guess not so long really, Dec. 22nd, 2014… but it seems a long time to me. You are the only man I ever called “Bro.” – I guess the same is so on your end. Don’t know if I ever said so, but it was a privilege to do so.
I awakened at about 01:30 this morning, somehow dreaming about you. Some other stuff, I suppose, as well, but, most definitely you. It’s about 03:30 now (28 degrees – Wowee!, but I see your e-mail site is yet functional, so I thought I’d drop an e-mail to you. Not much gets through these days, but I guess the e-mail is “forever”).
Wow… let me think… what to say. I had a lot to tell you, or just “say” to you, as I lay in bed and the thoughts just rolled by. I considered the hour it is in Ca., where you used to live, and the time it is now, here in Germany. Would be about 18:30 hrs. where you lived… funny how that is. When you died, I used to await Deb’s call to me at 21:00, before I went to sleep at the Best Western near your house. It was her habit (one I made, for me, as she was the last thought I had for that day) to call me at 06:00, the next day!, before Debbie left the house for her school day. Funny how that worked out… me, ending the day – her starting hers. Well, it rather kept me on “the straight and narrow”, you might say. Those were trying times, there in Oxnard, and I won’t deny, I was glad when I finally flew back to Germany – though, being there for your death was the greatest privilege of all of life for me. Really Bro., thanks for calling me there. It couldn’t have been any other way. I am honoured. You will be happy to know Takeko is doing well, just as you planned for her. According to our guess for her age, she must be going on ninety or thereabouts. The retirement center has treated her like a queen, and Deb and I went to visit with her on July 4th, 2016, I think it was… yeah, I think it was 2016. She didn’t know us very well, and was more comfortable being inside, with the other folks she is accustomed to being around, but, Deb and I had her out at their gazebo for their big picnic and she seemed to enjoy it all. I should image she will be with you before too long, but, your provisions for her have done exactly what you set them up to do. Well done, Bro. It occurs to me, that is one of the “assignments” you had in mind for me when you called me. Well, I asked our Lord to help me with it all, and He did. Really! But what am I saying?… you would know all about that.
So, Bro., what’s to say. My thoughts this morning had much to do with our growing up. Mostly, it was me, but you being fifteen years older, I always knew who you were, though I didn’t see much of you, with your Navy deployments and all. What to recall: “Tommy’s outboard (ELGIN, by Sears) motor” – always on its wooden stand, up against the inner wall of the garage. Ole’ Dad used to take it just outside the garage door, every summer, and place the metal garbage can under it, filled with water, and start the motor. I grew up with that, don’t cha’ know. I can still hear and smell the running motor – and see Dad engage the prop, and the water swirl about as he put it through its paces… every summer. When I asked Dad about it, it was this, “That’s Tommy’s motor.” Dad loved you Tom… he loved you a lot. When I was much older, high school I guess, Dad and I went on a “cross-country” trip the summer of 1970 ~ Florida to Ohio… Mom was there in Ohio for a couple of weeks with that part of the family, so we thought to join her and do a little “guy trip” together – it was great… though Dad began suffering with his emphysema on the way back… that was difficult – it required I drive all the way from West Virginia to Florida, overnight… I am sure God took care of us on that one. (I recall dozing off at the wheel a time or two… oh my!) Let’s see, where was I? – Oh yeah, somewhere along the years, about then, Dad said to me, “Naw, Nick, the hardest thing I ever did was leave Tommy at the Military Institute in Marion, Alabama.” I can only imagine, Bro. I can think that Dad would have happily cut his own heart out as to have to do that… I would, had it been me. Well, you did your time there and then joined the Navy. I think God is that way with us. I know Mom prayed for you every night… and I know there is something about a mother’s prayer that absolutely has you “doomed to heaven.” Well, you know what I mean. Deb is that way with my boys… they cannot escape her love… and they never will.
I was going to mention your mask and fins, always hanging on a nail, way up high, in the garage in Miami. I “grew up” knowing that, “Those are Tommy’s” as well. They got old and decaying as the years passed. I must have found a way to get up to them, probably by standing on Dad’s work bench, because I recall the rubber next to the nail was cracking and “sticky.” Not much use anymore, but like the motor, “Tommy’s”.
Point is, Bro., you were always in Dad’s heart. I was a lot older (an adult, as they say), before I began piecing together “the signs of love” around and about me as a child in that garage. I didn’t have any questions about it all then, but I began to recognise just how much Dad loved you over your young years with him. I realised, slowly, what a magnificent joy it must have been for Dad to give you the outboard motor! They didn’t have much money, so that must have been an unbelievable gift for you. I can imagine Dad, building the stand for it in the garage (in secret), keeping it covered and out of your site, and then presenting it to you on your birthday! Wowee, Bro.! I can only imagine! Now all you two had to do was rent a row boat, most anywhere… everglades, the bay, a lake… just anywhere! The world “offshore” was now in your grasp. You must have had many a joyful Saturday with Dad. I know that’s when you went on your jaunts, as Dad called em’, cause that’s the day of the week he did stuff with me – whether we went fishing (no, we didn’t use “Tommy’s motor” then… not until Dad retired did I see that beauty in action… and even then he had to order some parts from Sears to get it running again… he was always ordering parts for this or that from Sears – by mail, by check… always), or the Saturday morning he and I got up (I must have been five or six) and we went out to the sidewalk in front of the house – must’ve been about 08:00… no neighbours were up yet, and we wound up the rubber band on my new “balsa wood” spindly airplane (you remember those things); placed it on the sidewalk and wallah! – it took off! It flew! That was one of the great moments of my young childhood memories! Not much to it, really, I suppose, but in my five years of experience, one of those truly great things that Dad was so good about. I suppose it was back then that I learned “If Dad says we are going to do something, then we are!” I learned to trust him, Bro. I think you learned the same – the evidence was all around me in the garage. Something must have gone dreadfully wrong in your teen years. I can only guess how much it hurt Dad’s heart… whatever it was.
Well, that is one of those things of life, I am sure. I have faced a couple of “times” like that myself. Deb and I are facing one, even now, in the way of your “name’s sake”, ole’ Sam. He doesn’t fully appreciate his middle name, “Thomas”, but I guess he will, perhaps some years from now. You’d be proud of him though. He is almost thirty-three now, a man of his own making. He’s weathered some difficulties along the way, of course, but has made a name for himself and has great potential. The difficulty I spoke of is that he has, somehow (well, you know how), lost sight of Jesus. What is true, and known to you and me so well, Jesus hasn’t lost sight of him! So, I take my place, along side of our ole’ Dad, and wait. That’s not such an easy thing for me, Bro. But, I have Dad to look to, in the way of patience, a firm hand, a loving hand, a good and quiet heart. How many times he showed me all of those attributes! I can, from time to time, hear him say, “Awe, Nicky!”
What a great heritage you and I have, Bro. I was late in coming, but, nonetheless, I came. God has been so good to me… to us.
OK, it’s getting on to 05:00 now. Deb will be getting up shortly to get ready for her school day. I may just stay up to see her off, and then maybe snooze for a bit and wait for the sun to come up about 07:30. I’m retired now… did I mention that? Yeah, I’m 65. When you turned 65, I was in the Azores. Do you remember the time I called you and said, “Hey Bro., you’ll be turning 70 pretty soon I think… when?” Your reply was, “I turned 70 a couple years ago, Bro.” Ya’ know, somehow, at the time, I was under the impression you were thirteen years older than me. Sorry I missed your 70th Bro. You’d be 80 now!
More later Bro. I’m glad you kept your e-mail box open!
Love
Nick
