October 20, 1968 - A BIG day in THIS boy's life!

I remember October 20th, 1968 like it was yesterday.  We lived in an awesomely HUGE new house that my Dad had built in River Plantation in Conroe, Texas that backed up to what felt like a thousand acres of unexplored piney woods just waiting to be tamed.  Only two years before, my sister Jamie was born, bringing the number of my female sibs to a grand total of THREE.  I’m not kidding when I tell you I remember crying my eyes out as an 8 yr old when Jamie’s arrival was announced from the Montgomery County Hospital.  Nothing personal, Jame, but I was in serious need of a little brother to balance things out!  But NOOOOOO!!!!!  It was “not to be” in the life of THIS poor, outnumbered little eight year old.  Turned out Jamie wasn’t THAT bad after all - but I REALLY wanted a little brother and that just didn’t happen.  But I digress.  This particular moment is about 1968 – in late October about the time the Oilers were on their way to another lackluster season just up the road in H-town.  (Oilers lost to Jets that day as it turns out.)  In fact, it was a Sunday about like any other Sunday in the life of a Southern fundamental Christian family.  I’m thinking we attended our usual morning Sunday School classes at the Conroe Church of Christ where we took turns reading the Red Letter Edition King James Bible out loud to each other from our little school desks, trying to sound as “right” about it as possible, I’m sure…followed by the usual Sunday morning service where I honed my pencil drawing skills to a fine art.  All this while Harry Gipson delivered another stirring rendition of the Plan of Salvation, after we downed a shot of Welch’s and a stale unsalted cracker, just before we wrapped it all up with six verses of Just As I Am.  It’s no wonder we had to be called down for running out of the auditorium and recklessly barging the cold aluminum push bars on the big, glass double doors as we sprinted out into the Fall sunshine for another game of tag.  Anybody else remember waiting on your parents for what seemed like days while they stood and talked to other parents after church was over?  But it was that afternoon that I remember so well;  we were hanging out at the house after church that Sunday when the phone rang in the kitchen.  It was Dad on the other end announcing that Mom had given birth to a BOY!  “WooHOO!”, I shouted.  “It’s a BOY!!!  A BROTHER!!!!  I got me a brother!!!!!!”  I must've chewed a dozen of those blue bubble gum cigars.  Believe it or not, they let me name this little guy, too.  Along about then, I was a huge Bart Starr fan.  Don’t ask me why I was rootin’ for a Green Bay Packer back in that day and time, but Bart Starr was my man.  Well, I thought that was about the coolest name I’d heard, so I remember asking them some weeks before this big day if I could help pick out his name.  (I guess after you’ve named five kids already, you’re running out of possibilities, so you let your kids in on the process.)  I believe his middle name, Farrell, is some kind of nod to a family name – but I’m still clueless as to whom that would be???  But his first name, and the one you all know him by is Bart…and I, yes I, his ten year old brother, chose that moniker for him and it stuck.  What a day that was…and what a happy camper I was when I heard the news.  I cried that day, too…only this time, they were tears of sheer joy.  And a lifetime (about 42 years to be precise) with that brother was pure joy, I promise you.  From teaching him to throw a curve ball to watching him strap on his pads as an All State Offensive Guard playing football for Ft.Worth Christian, it was my life’s purpose to show my little brother the ropes.  Even when I stumbled a bit in my early adult life, he was there for me.  The past few years, we had learned to lean on each other to pull through life’s travails.  And we spent some spectacular moments together (thanks to him), at the 2008 Masters and in the infield at the Nascar race in Ft. Worth, where we enjoyed breakfast with his good friends, the Waltrips.  I’ll never forget those very special moments, but the early ones when he was just a little bugger are the ones I cherish most.  As many of you know, it is our times together as a family at holidays and special times that are our family’s specialty.  (Lots of you have joined us in those times, too!)  Well, so today is Bart’s birthday.  He would be 43 if he were still here on this planet counting years with the rest of us.  But, as you all know, he was called home a little over a year ago and is counting time a little differently nowadays, I’m guessing.  And since Bart’s been gone, when we come together for those family times, we celebrate the amazing moments we had with him here.  And thank God he lived such a full life, because our memory banks are chock full of funny, shocking, sad, and some very poignant moments together with this special man.  A man that I had the JOY and PRIVILEGE of calling B R O T H E R.  I cried the day he came into the world.  I bawled my eyes out the day I heard he was gone.  And I shed some tears with good friends today as we remembered my little brother on this, his 43^rd birthday.  As always, sending prayers up for Suzi and their boys, Gabe, Luke, and Nate in Colorado Springs today. Miss you, Bart…but I’ll see you again one of these days.  Save me a place!

One year ago today...

It was about midnight, maybe a little later, one year ago tonight that the shrill sound of the cell phone erupted uncharacteristically in the bedroom, disturbing a rather routine and common evening.  I'm not sure why I even had it in there...usually it's plugged in downstairs.  But on that night it rang loud and clear...piercing the still night with intrusive sound and light.  Little did I know the voice of my brother-in-law on the other end would bring a message that would shatter our world - in a moment.  Like a bomb going off, he spoke the words that my baby brother had collapsed and been rushed to the hospital.  Even tho' in that moment, Bart delicately clung to life, it would not be long until that same phone would break the silence again to announce that he was gone...gone to another world...much too far from our own.  I remember all the strength going out of my legs and only being able to crumple to the floor by my aspen log bed firmly gripping the heavy texture of the cowboy comforter to steady my balance.  I remember crying out, "NOOO!  NOOO!  NOOO!  Not Bart!!!"  Over and over.  And quickly that thought, why not me instead?  Why not ME?  After a year of ciphering on that question, I'm prepared to own that it just might be one of the most arrogant things we/I ever utter, I suppose.  God chose whom he chose and for reasons I/we may never know.  And so this past year has been another tough lesson in acceptance.  To learn, again, that pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, that hardship is the pathway to peace.  How many ways can we say that?  Acceptance of that which I do not understand nor WANT to accept at all is once again placed in front of me...this time in rudely, starkly, heart-breakingly cold fashion.  But there it is...and there it has been...sitting...for a year now.  Impossible to believe it's been that long.  It's like time just froze in some ways.  If I could indeed freeze time, could we possibly beg God for a reprieve, manipulate the Creator of the Universe, make an alternative suggestion that He allow this to take a different course?  Maybe that we wake up from this dark slumber to find that we were only having a bad dream and instead of the grueling work of acceptance being our lot, we get to experience complete relief and redemption from the world-rocking nightmare that has befallen us by waking UP?  Damn....no such luck.  That empty wish has long since subsided, of course...and made way for the stinging reality of his absence from this world.  So many days driving home from the office, I've reached for my cell to hit the contact photo that says "Bart"...only to remember that there's no one there now...that the phone that used to ring is not even his number anymore.  Some stranger now picks up her I Phone with the 719 area code followed by the seven digits that used to connect me to the Life that would complete my week.  Just not there anymore.  Oh, yeah, I get that "he's in a better place"...and that "he's here in another form and all that sh*t".  On my good days, I think I can even see a little progress in the acceptance process.  But today, on the anniversary of his death, I just don't feel it.  I just MISS him.  And those words are SO inadequate...pitifully so.  I lack Bart.  I lack his laugh, his stories, his activity, his troubles, his judgement of me, his fear I'd be inappropriate, his goofy faces while he was doing an impression, his long prayers at family of origin dinners, his giant Diet Coke in hand, his "seasoned" work car with the back full of samples of this and that, his need for that "doo-dad" for that car so it would continue to run, I lack his unmistakeable faith in God...no matter what.  On days when mine had completely run out, he would listen one more time and tell me it was going to be OK.  The older brother getting consolation and counsel from the younger.  It was not always welcome, but today, I'd trade a LOT of important stuff for an hour of that counsel.  Bart had come into his own and was on a rocket into that dimension of Life where few people get to live.  And it was stellar to watch.  Though he flamed out quickly - in an instant - we all got to see an amazing transformation and the coming into his own of a man who understood the Calling.  Make no mistake, he was as human as you and me, sometimes more so, (just ask Suzi) but he had a focus on that calling that Ty Lovell called "laser-like", and it was an inspiration to watch.  Amazing.  And now he's gone...but not forgotten, as Tulio posted today.  Nope, Tulio, he's not.  Not a day goes by that he or Suzi or the boys don't cross my mind.  Gabe turned 13 yesterday.  Becoming a man after his dad's own heart.  And I guess that's how we're going to get to "see Bart" in the future...through his boys...through his family...his legacy.  Well...I've made my grief and dissatisfaction with reality known quite enough here by now, I'm sure...so I'll stop my whining, and finish with this:  Bart's death has motivated me to live life with a sense of purpose and intention that I simply did not have before his passing.  I didn't know that would happen...I didn't anticipate it.  I didn't plan to open a Sober Home for men in my rent property and spend my Sundays as a Chaplain, teaching in a residential treatment center that I have come to call "my church".  I guess I just kept doing what you all told me I needed to do to survive the grief and a year later, new fruit has been borne.  Hmmm...and I've had an inspiration even in the lean and difficult stretches of this last year that is palpable.  It's him.  I can feel it.  It's his wind at my back, his foot on my accelerator, his unshakeable faith in my back pocket...moving me to the next place.  That's how I get to experience him today.  And I guess that's enough.  You know how I feel about the loss.  So, thanks for listening and for sticking with this story until I got to the good part.  I hope Bart's life and death have inspired you, too, this year...to greater things than you thought you'd be doing.  I hope you're surprised like me...that you are walking in a faith that is more real, that is more human, that is more visible...and surprised that it has taken you further than you thought you'd have traveled in the last year.  Maybe that's just ol' Bart - doin' his usual job of motivating and loving us on to deeper love and good works.