Love and Friendship Some years ago I was blessed to have a friend that was that special kind of a once in a lifetime friend we all hope and pray to have, the kind of friend that Richard Kipling talked about in his poem The Thousandth Man, the kind of friend that can loan you money and yet money would never be discussed because that is the kind of friend he is. DL Brantly was this kind of friend to me. We coached little league together, we played golf together we did just about everything together, DL used to eat dinner at my house 5 to 6 nights a week for over ten years. He had a knack for showing up just about the same time as I was bringing the meat off the grill. His picture still hangs on my dining room wall. I will never understand why God took him away from me. He was 42 years old and he suffered a massive heart attack early fathers day morning in 2005. Devastated doesn’t even come close to describing how I felt. I cried more when DL died than I did when my own Dad died or when my own brother died because that’s the kind of friend he was. The family invited me to join them for the family viewing which turned out to be a blessing because the box had to be closed after the family viewing. I learned a valuable lesson at that viewing. I was standing next to him with tears streaming down my face when DL’s dad told me to place my hand on his chest. I looked at him like he was nuts, I never liked looking at the dead, there was no way I was going to touch the dead. Mr Brantley told me to place my hand on his chest because it would give me closure, I would feel that he was gone and when I placed my hand on his chest he would feel that and he would feel my love for him and this would give me the ability to say good bye. As I placed my hand on his chest I could feel all the emotions pouring out of me, I could feel that he was at peace and I could feel that he was gone. Mr Brantley was right and I was glad I had done what he told me to do. Later I cried all the harder because I wished I had done the same thing when my Dad died. When my Dad died I stood there looking at him and I noticed he had a Rosary in his hands so I asked the funeral guy where it came from and he said they provided it so I reached in my pocket and pulled out a Rosary and asked him to swap them. As he was changing them my Uncle Harry asked where mine had come from and I told him that Dad had given it to me a few years ago it had been their mothers. Uncle Harry smiled and said Dad would like that and he wished he had one, thats when I reached in my pocket and pulled out another one and told Uncle Harry that this one was for him but I hoped he wouldn’t need it anytime soon. I bonded with my Dad that day even though he was gone but now I wish I had put my hand on his chest and said good bye. I know now that I will touch those I love because it does give me closure and I do believe that person feels my touch and my love and that is how I want to say good bye to the ones I love. After the viewing Dl’s momma asked me if I would say the eulogy at the funeral. I told her I didn’t know if I could because all I could do was cry but I told her I’d let her know in the morning. That afternoon I went to see my good friend Ted Land, the pastor at the Presbyterian church, we had been friends for many years and he had baptized both of my children, he had said many parents had asked him to baptize their children but I was the first one to ever ask 6 months before the baby was even born. That was because Baptizing my baby was important to me, my wifes church didn’t baptize babys and I understand here we dedicate babies. I wanted to baptize my baby because when you baptize a baby you are thanking God for that precious gift He has given you and that was important to me. Ted and I talked for quite a while that afternoon, he knew how upset I was. We held hands and prayed together and asked God to give me the strength to do what I needed to do for the family. I was DL’s best friend and I knew him better than anyone so it made sense for me to be the one to give the eulogy. The next morning I told the Brantleys I would be honored to give the eulogy and I prayed several times that day asking God to give me the strength to do what I needed to do. I prayed that prayer all that day and that night and again the next morning before the funeral. As I walked up to the pulpit I prayed that prayer one last time. When I stepped into the pulpit I paused and asked God to please give me strength and as I looked out from the pulpit into the crowd I suddenly experienced an overwhelming feeling of love, warmth, comfort and confidence. A feeling that was so strong, so powerful and so amazing At that moment I realized I was experiencing Gods love first hand. I am a man of many words but I will never find the words to truly describe just how awesome and wonderful Gods love is and that’s a shame because I really want to share it with everyone I meet. To this day I don’t really know what all I said that day, I know I spoke for about 35 minutes and I had people laughing and crying as I told stories about my friend, but I can’t remember what I said because it wasn’t just me talking, I had some help. God answered my prayers that day. What happened to me that day was a miracle, I had lost my best friend but I found a new one and it changed my life forever. A few weeks ago Dawn talked to us about Why Me, she was a little surprised when she handed out the slips of paper that said Why Me and I told her my first thought was Why Me Lord, why does God love me, I’ve never done anything special, why does God love me and why did God give me that gift a gift so special that I can’t even figure out how to share it. I have always believed that God is watching from a distance and I am very grateful that every now and then He takes a closer look. A while back I told everyone that I had tremendous faith, that my faith was almost strong enough to make Job look like a doubting Thomas. The truth is my faith is that strong and the reason my faith is so strong is because I Know that God loves me, I don’t know why me, I just know that God loves me and that is the foundation of my faith. That is what makes all the difference in my life. I wrote an article once titled Remember To Say I Love You and in it I commented how when an old person dies people say “oh they are in a better place and they are happy now”, but when a young person dies he doesn’t think he’s in a better place and he ain’t to happy about being there. That is when God reaches down puts His hand on your shoulder and says welcome home son, then God fills your heart with His love and makes everything ok. I don’t believe there are any sad people in heaven. If Gods love can make me forget the grief of a lost loved one I am pretty sure His love will make me happy thru eternity. Also in that article I told the story about the time when Billy was 3 years old and we were visiting my Dad in St Louis. We were sitting in the living room with my Dad in his chair and me on the couch and Billy was sitting on the floor playing with my Dads antique toy cars. Dad had some neat old cars from the 1930’s and 40’s. We were just sitting there visiting when Billy looked up and said “I love you Dad” and I said “I love you too son“. My Dad looked at me and asked “what does he want“, I was like huh? And Dad asked again “what does he want” and I laughed and said he doesn’t want anything and my Dad said “he must want something why else would he say that” and I said maybe because sometimes it just feels good to say “I love you Dad”. Dad said “oh” and I paused a moment and then I said “Dad” and he looked at me and then I said “I love you Dad” and he smiled and said “I love you too son”. That was the first time he had ever said that to me, maybe because I had finally taught him the right response. When I was a kid I would say I love you Dad and he would always respond with “me too”. I was never sure if that meant he loved me too or if that meant he loves him too. The older generation was never very good at expressing their emotions or showing their feelings. I love you was not something that was said much around the house when I was growing up and that’s sad because its not a hard thing to say. I wrote the article “Remember To Say I Love You” after the death of the actor John Ritter. In the old days when an actor died he just disappeared from the program but they couldn’t do that in this case so they had to write the show around his death. They wrote a script that said he had left the house to run to store to get something and while he was at the store he had a heart attack and died. This got me to thinking about how important it is to say I love you all the time to those you love. I worked in Punta Gorda and every day I had to drive south 17 which used to be one of the most dangerous highways in Florida. Every morning I would tell my wife and kids I love you as I left to go to work. Because you never know when some fool is going to do something stupid and get an innocent person killed I always wanted to make sure that if God forbid I died on the highway the last thing my wife and kids would remember about me was me saying I love you. It didn’t matter if I was going to work or if I was just running to the store to get something, I always made sure I paused as I went out the door and said I love you before I left because I feel like it is important that that be my wife and kids last memory of me, me telling them I love you. Its really not a hard thing to say. I want everyone to take a moment and try to remember the last time you said I love you, I hope it was today, if not it should have been. We should never take love for granted and the fact is it does feel good to tell someone I love you. So the next time you are leaving take a moment and tell someone you love them. None of us knows Gods plan and he could call any one of us home at any time on any day so we should make sure the people we love know that we love them. Please, please, Remember to say I love you, it might just be the most important thing you ever say.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:54:14 +0000
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