The start of deer season in November 1975 brought crisp temperatures, amazingly brilliant fall foliage, and the brightest blue sky you could have imagined. Early Saturday morning I picked up the phone to hear my sister-in-law’s parents hesitatingly and emotionally tell me that my big brother Jack had been killed the night before while hunting. I remember looking at the clock – 7:30 a.m. – that’s when time stopped.
I later learned that Jack had been with his boss and several clients on a hunting trip. The jeep in which he was riding hit an embankment and Jack was thrown out of the back seat as the jeep rolled on top of him killing him instantly. Everyone in the jeep suffered injuries. The person seated next to him in the back seat had a crushed pelvis, but managed to drag himself half a mile to get help.
I was asked to find my mother and grandmother and inform them. How do you tell someone the apple of their eye, their most precious son and grandson would no longer share their life? We wouldn’t see him at Thanksgiving or Christmas, share in his jokes, or receive the benefit of his wisdom. But the task that I had been given I set out to do.
I picked both my mom and Bom-Bom (our beloved nickname for my grandmother) from the hair salon. They thought it was such a treat for me to surprise them. Bringing them home, sitting beside them, I slowly told them what had happened. They wouldn’t believe me at first. “Why, I just spoke to him on Thursday, there must be a mistake,” Bom-Bom said. My mother, however, knew it was true. She didn’t cry openly, but lowered her eyes and said, “We have work to do to prepare for the funeral.” I didn’t see her cry until the funeral. To this day, telling them about Jack was one of the most difficult tasks I’ve had to do.
Time was a blur filled with sleepless nights and nightmares. I dreamed of Jack; I prayed to God to tell him I loved him because I hadn’t told him the last we spoke. Many years later I would dream that it was all a mistake and that Jack was still alive because of the closed casket funeral.
The funeral was standing room only which was a testament to Jack and the number of friends he had. He left a wife and young daughter. He was loved by everyone who met him, a larger than life figure (I always say a cross between Ricky Nelson and Elvis Presley), whose faith had solidified and deepened in the immediate preceding years. He was president of the congregation at his church, active in Bible study, and would open each meeting in a word of prayer. We sang his favorite hymn, “How Great Thou Art,” the one he loved best since high school.
Going through my own personal storms at the time I would often ask God why Jack was taken and why I wasn’t. Then, over the years, I received the answers to my prayers while looking back to those earlier years, better understanding God’s wonderful plan. “Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
After so many years I guess I’m missing my big brother because I’ve known so many young men and not-so-young men pass away recently. I miss Jack’s wit, his tender heart, his love of life, and just hanging around. If you have a brother or sister, call them right now and tell them you love them. Do it for me, because I didn’t tell Jack the last time we spoke.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 “There is a season for everything, and a time for every event under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;”
Tagged: grief and loss, prayer
