Thank You Louis

For those of you who do not know, Louis is my deceased brother. Louis was two years younger than I am. He dropped out of high school before completing his first semester of ninth grade. At 14 yrs of age, he became ensnared in drugs that almost killed him. But, by the grace of Jesus Christ, turned his life around to garner a G.E.D only two years later and then went on to marry and become a Bible thumping preacher.

Louis and I were as different as brothers can be, but we were good friends. I was the Big Man on Campus (BMOC), athlete, class favorite, teachers' pet, decent student, well groomed. So over-powering was my shadow to him as we were growing up with only two years of age separating our growing up that I did not realize that he was suffocating as a younger brother over my reputation.

So anxious was Louis to be noticed that he opted for being everywhere and anywhere I wasn't present. I was well groomed, Louis refused to cut his air when hassled by coaches who had expected Louis to be a mini ME. He would have nothing to do with that expectation.  Louis smoked cigarettes in junior high school and fell into a group of so called friends among whom he would be noticed. And when derided by my coaches for his anti-hero mannerisms, Louis rebelled and refused to even consider getting a hair cut.

A hairdo that had grown into a two foot diameter afro hair cut had brought the ire of the entire school district  to bear on his decisions. Louis was expelled before even completing the first 9 weeks of his freshman year of high school. I did not realize that Louis had also been targeted by police and have been arrested and burdened mom and dad with his legal fees.

It wasn't until my brother had been brought home from a hospital emergency room where he had been dumped in an unconscious state by his so called friends and drug junkies on a sidewalk outside the ER entrance circle that my relationship with Louis changed dramatically. These so called friendly hands into who Louis entrusted his life, did not even enter the ER to let the hospital staff know that an unresponsive comatose patient had been brought in.

I was home from college visiting when my mother called on the telephone to inform me that they had been at the hospital where Louis had been saved from his drug overdose induced coma. She told me that he had almost died and she said she needed my help in to bring him into the house when they arrived. I became morose in my thinking that Louis had almost died and I never knew his life had spiraled down to such an extent.

Mom and dad arrived from the hospital, came into the house and mom asked me to help bring Louis into the house. I walked outside and helped Louis get out of our car. He had to lean on the car as he was still high, weak-kneed and unsteady. He and I did not say a word to each other as I helped him out of the car. A wet dis rage was the only way I could describe Louis' stature.

My relationship before that moment had been one of berating Louis for being such a burden to the family. A sudden sadness came over me when I saw my younger brother. I started to cry as I embraced my little brother of thirteen. I recall my first words to him after that moment when I realized that he had almost died; they were the first words of love and care that I had ever expressed to him:

"Louis, Oh Louis, I am so sorry I wasn't there for you. Louis, you don't need me to discipline you, I'm your brother, not your judge. What I do want you to know is that I don't want you to die. Please don't kill yourself; I love you so much."

We exchanged hugs so powerful and intense that nothing else needed to be said, as I helped him from the car to the house.

I went on to college as mom and dad helped Louis maintain an apartment. Mom had told me that Louis had decided to visit our Aunt and cousin in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was all sort of mysteriously hush, hush. I asked her how I could get in touch with him and she said that she didn't know and only added that Louis was going into exile and getting away from his existing environment. She said that she did not know his plans because he didn't know them and that he would call us when he gets to where he is going.

It was a couple of years later that I finally heard from Louis. He had ended up in Portland, Oregon where he was sharing an apartment with a friend of his who had fled there ahead of him because he had family there. Louis had never gone back to our local school and still refused to cut his hair. But, he had apparently cleaned up his life and kicked the drug habit. The next thing I heard about Louis was that he managed to get his high school equivalence certificate at 15 years of age. He had not even needed to go to public school to graduate. And what I heard next floored me.

Mom told me that Louis had turned his life around and enrolled into Multnomah Bible College. A year or two after that I heard that Louis had moved to California, where he had met a divorced lady friend who had a young daughter and that Louis had asked her to marry him. And shortly after that I learned that they were moving to Boise, Idaho.

Shortly after that, Louis called me directly to ask me if I would be his best man. "Of course," I said. After he and his bride to be set their plans, I flew up to meet with them, It was the first time in about six or seven years that I had an opportunity to talk with Louis about his life since he had gone into self-exile.

Louis explained what his life was like from the last time he and I saw each other. He said that he went into self-exile to get away from the drug trafficking that he had fallen into. Without getting into details of why he felt he had to flee, Louis shared the story of his last evening before he left on his first leg of his exile journey. He said that he had been pursued by drug traffickers and the law and that the only safe place he he could sleep was in his truck while listening to a religious station that mom had turned him on to. Even more memorable was his mentioning that he parked his truck in a church parking lot under the shadow of a cross cast on his truck.

I knew from what he told me that Jesus had a huge hand in his life. I did not need to know anything more than that. His wedding was wonderful and Louis and I spent his last evening single in a wonderful loving embrace as we gave thanks to the Lord for saving his life.

I went on to a business career and ultimately to change my focus in a more mission minded manner by subsidizing my ministry by teaching high school mathematics. Shortly after mt teaching career started, Louis called me to ask for advice. He explained that he had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and that he had been put on the liver donor list.  His doctors had given him six-months or less to live. IT broke my heart to see his frail copper toned skin as he struggled to breathe with his oxygen bottle as he met me at the airport when I came to visit him and his wife and child. It was my first visit since the wedding.

Louis died before being able to get a new liver. Only one or two years later did the medical industry find a treatment and ultimate cure for Hepatitis C. Louis had asked that I give the eulogy at his funeral. I wrote the piece below as I was taking a graduate course in my study to become a certified high school mathematics teacher. It ultimately became the basis for my eulogy to Louis at his funeral. And in testimony to the power of its memory, it became a favorite to all of the students I read it to.

I think my students enjoyed it so much because it was a true story and conveyed my excitement of something my brother Louis introduced me to before he became mired in drug trafficking. Louis turned me on to model rocketry.

Several years before I wrote it, as a Deacon and Bible study teacher to 20's and 30's singles, I realized the impact model rocketry had had on my life. I shepherded many single parents with marriages shredded by divorce or death of their spouse who struggled to direct their sons and daughters to something that held their interest and help them focus on the wonders of God rather than on their circumstances.

I turned my model rocketry hobby into a Bible study by inscribing scriptures on streamers packed inside the rocket body tubes. The rockets would go up and the streamers would pop out enabling the rockets to gently return to earth. The kids ran and ran to catch the rockets before they touched the ground. To their amazement, they noticed the streamers and unbeknownst to them the scriptures written by their parents. They saw how they were singed, as though having gone through fire. To them, they had just gotten God's attention.  In fact, that is what the Bible study was called, "Getting God's Attention."

The knowledge that God is present in your life and will answer the prayers of those believing in Him is something all fathers should impart to their sons.

I hope you enjoy the paper I wrote.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank You!

The crowd of wild-eyed, mesmerized little boys chanted in unison, "Six! Five! Four!" I felt my heart pounding as though it would leap from my chest. "Three! Two! One! Ignition!" My finger pressed the button, and an electrical current traveled through two small wires. "Liftoff!" Swish! The slender tube streaked skyward with a cloud of smoke. I thought of, my brother, who had introduced me to these flying marvels that had held my interest for over 45 years. I said a silent prayer.

Forty-five years ago, had it been that long? It seemed only yesterday that I dove into the intricacies of designing, building and flying rockets. I even tracked them and used my newly learned trigonometry to determine how high they went. My high school physics teacher talked me into entering the district's first-ever interscholastic rocketry meet when I was a senior. I entered five events, four for which I received first-place ribbons: spot landing, egg loft, high altitude, and glider. I had a lot of memories in those rockets when I went off to college.

I confess; I wanted to be an astronaut. Bitten by the bug to see the earth from space and to float weightless in the black vacuum I had only read about, I could feel myself pressed back in the capsule seat as I swished off into imaginary orbit with every flight. What a rush!

Once I had moved out of the house and into the dormitory at college, mom boxed up and stored my rockets in the garage. One weekend visit home, mom roused me from my near vegetative state in front of the television. 

"George, George, George!" she exclaimed. "What!" I answered back.

She pointed to the yard and continued to exclaim, "Your, your, rockets! The, the, the boys!"

I caught a glimpse of her concern, as I followed her finger out the window. I saw little balsa wood fins popping off the rockets which two little boys twirled. A little boy I didn't recognize had joined our eight-year-old neighbor boy, Jason, in a jig of destruction. I felt this overwhelming sense of indignation swell up inside of me as I saw the empty storage box lying nearby.

I darted outside, not really mad, just kind of mindless. Jason bolted away like a scared rabbit as he saw me approach. But, the other little boy just continued twirling Big Bertha, a rocket I had so painstakingly birthed and proudly flew. (Big Bertha, a blue-ribbon-winner, carried an egg aloft and brought it safely back several years before, by the way.)

I could hardly contain myself. I sprinted through the den, out the door, and over the patio fence, like an untamed stallion, racing toward this little boy. All the while I could hear mom in the background saying, "Don't hurt them, George, please don't hurt them!"

Off popped another fin, as I arrived out of breath. Then, I stopped abruptly, bridled short as a master bridles his horse. I can't explain how, but, suddenly, I saw myself as that little boy. Three feet from him I dropped to one knee, and with a shaky voice, I asked, "Hey, buddy, what're you doing?"  

The wild-eyed, smiling face of a mesmerized little boy looked at me.  Still spinning my prized rocket at speeds that would destroy even the space shuttle, he said, "I'm, I'm flyyyinggg!

I mustered up control from somewhere, slowed him down to warp speed, gently took the rocket from his careless fingers, and asked him, "Don't you know that this thing can really fly?"

I don't think eyes could get any wider than when I asked if he wanted to fly it with me.

"OH, WOW!" he exclaimed, "SURE!"

Off we went to fly the rocket. 

...
 

About ten years passed. My dream of becoming an astronaut faded away when a naval flight surgeon discovered a heart murmur fluttering in my chest. The last step prior to enlisting in the Navy's Aviation Reserve Officer Candidate program, the flight surgeon pulled down his stethoscope and said, "The Navy won't take you. You might as well just accept that and move on." So, instead, I completed college and entered the ranks of oil tycoons.

...
 

Living a thousand miles away in Florida then, I once again came home to visit the folks. I went outside. As I stood by the side of the house, a young man obviously of high school age, but nobody I recognized, walked up to me.

Tentatively, he said, "Hi. I don't know if you remember me or not. But, when I was eight years old, I was in your yard playing with rockets. You took me to fly one of them."

I had only a vague recollection of the incident.

"Anyway," he said, "I have been interested in rockets ever since. In fact, I studied everything I could learn about them. I'm about to graduate from high school, and, making pretty good grades, I got an appointment to Annapolis. You see, I am going to be an astronaut. Well, I just wanted to come by to thank you for getting me started."

The young man turned and walked away, never having told me his name. But, that didn't seem to matter to me. I realized that I had just received a blessing I would remember for the rest of my life, a firsthand confirmation of the influence I had on a person. I walked away in a daze saying a thank-you prayer that I hadn't backhanded the little kid for destroying my rockets.

Today, as I think back and re-tell this story to my students, I add to it the knowledge that I would not have had the pleasure of this experience if my brother had not introduced me to rockets. My dream of flying into space lives on in this young man.

...
 

The little boys scampered, almost uncontrollably; chasing after the rocket that had just streaked into the sky. "I see it," one said. "I'm going to try to catch it," said another.

I looked heavenward. Tears streaked my cheek as I said a silent prayer, "Louis, I love you and miss you and I know you're on your knee before Jesus' cross. Thank you for sharing your rockets with me. I have always been interested in them since then. I thought you might like to keep your eye out for an astronaut circling the Earth now and then, and ask the Lord to watch over him. He enjoyed the rockets you showed me so much that he decided to ride one personally."

IF by Rudyard Kipling

There is no better way to start a blog about fathers and sons than starting with "IF," by Rudyard Kipling.

I was in sixth grade when I was introduced to the poem by my Reading teacher, Mr. Lewis.  I didn't really get the meaning because Mr. Lewis' primary objective was for all of his students to merely copy it from the board without any erasure marks or even so much as a scratch-out on our papers.

"This will be a snap," I thought, "All I have to do is copy it."  Those were my famous last thoughts as I finally completed one copy without any mistakes.  It took me eight re-writes.  In retrospect, that was one valuable lesson in perseverance.  It was a few years later that I read and began to understand the poem's meanings.

Fathers play a special role in their sons' lives.  Somehow over time, be it by modeling, leading, teaching or sometimes just outright demanding force, fathers help their son be a man.  Rudyard Kipling sums up the description fairly well.

Sons frequently put their father on such a pedestal that they often are puzzled when their father's nose starts to bleed from the height of the pedestal they have placed him on.  It hits sons hard to realize that their father is not the biggest, the best, the most or any other "est" suffix word you want to put in there, in the world.

I believe the poem leaves one thing out that all fathers should incorporate in their sons' tutelage.  Humility.  I'm not talking about the humility of winning or losing or of the humble nobility of privilege.  Those notions are in the poem if you examine it closely.  I am talking about the humility of not being God.  Fathers should show their sons their willingness to be the first to bow before our Lord Jesus Christ.

My suggestion to all fathers is to start doing this as soon in your sons' lives as possible.  You will be amazed at how everything else falls into place.

Here are two video renditions of the poem that both struck me viscerally with hope and dreams of what it means to be a man.  (If you do not see the YouTube videos, click here IF-Rudyard Kipling-Six Elements and here IF-Anthony Clohesy-Pachelbel's Canon)

Lend A Hand / Take A Hand

This blog that is dedicated to building father and son relationships will be a challenge for me. You see, I am neither a father nor do I have a son. Of course, I was fathered. But, my father died in a car accident when I was three. Though my mother remarried and remained married to my step-father for about 40 years, and he really tried hard and remained committed to the family until he died in his 80’s, as is sometimes the case, I did not feel fathered as his son.

Don’t get me wrong, though. This blog is not a pity party about that. Quite the contrary, I have been raised by the Greatest Father there is, Jesus Christ, and He continues to guide me. That spiritual connection transcends circumstances and exposes each of us to the miracles of His creation. Many, many fathers do not ever get that across to their sons.

So, I took my cues from the Lord and fathers and sons around me. I isolated the types of fatherly traits I felt were meaningful to me and vowed to avoid traits I deemed less than conducive to the fabulous relationship a father should have with a son. I explored and used those modeled fatherly traits as a son, brother, uncle, teacher, and friend. I used those traits in my own schooling, in my practices in business, as a volunteer baseball coach, mentor, Bible study teacher, brother, brother-in-law, nephew, cousin, grand uncle, deacon, mathematics teacher, and now a retiree.

I have often wondered how I would do as a father, I don’t know if I will ever find out. But, if and when I do, I know I won’t be perfect. It has been my observation that trying to be perfect is one of the major things men get wrong about being a father.

The father-son relationship is more about committed and consistent love, honor, trust, friendship, promoter, learning how to learn and how to teach outside-of-school requirements of life, respect, responsibility, noble obligation (noblese oblige), and duty. It is a relationship of shared learning of all of those things for both father and son. It seems to me that the most successful fathers have this teacher-student relationship as they experience these things in their lives. Fathers and sons mutually share opportunities to proverbially lend and take each other’s hand.

Indeed, this teacher-student relationship is something in which I have a great deal of experience. This blog, then, is a sharing of experiences that have molded my life and may help build father-son relationships. I want to share experiences about growing up, fishing, hunting, learning, worshiping, designing cars and rockets and coming up with all kinds of McGyver-type solutions to problems one may encounter.