Several years ago I had compassion for my little brother at a funeral. It was my little brother’s best
friend who had a heart attack at age forty-seven. All of us were together back in May for a
wedding of my nephew, my little brother’s son.
It is sobering remembering that in May we were having a great time
singing with the aid of a Deejay with a karaoke machine and in September my
brother and I were solemnly singing How
Great Thou Are at his best friend’s funeral.
At the funeral I thought about watching my little brother
and his friend when they were small.
Sometimes that is how you picture people regardless of their age. My little brother is six feet four inches
tall and weighs @ 250. He looks like
Steve Austin, the professional wrestler.
In fact he has stopped trying to convince people he is not Steve Austin
and started signing autographs. He said
it was not worth the trouble.
One of my fondest memories is around the start of school and
fall of the year. My little brother was
not old enough to be in school and one day when we got off the school bus he
ran to meet us. We could not wait to get
home and pull off our shoes. Don’t
laugh. We did not wear shoes during the
summer so after a long day of new school shoes it was a wonderful to free
cramped feet.
We were playing outside and we heard a loud scream. Momma’s first inclination was kids fighting,
but we were all with her except little brother.
Momma ran to find him. He
appeared to be all right so she asked him what was wrong. He told her that he was okay, but momma told
him that he screamed for some reason.
Now, you have to understand our upbringing. If you got hurt you also got a whuppin’ which is Chiltonian for
whipping. That was life in the hills and
hollers of Chilton
County
Momma looked my little brother in the eyes and made a
frightening discovery. His eye was
bleeding from four, that’s right, 4 holes in his eyeball. Blood and other gooey substance were coming
from his eye. Knowing he would get a
whuppin’, he refused to say what happened.
After threatening to kill him if he didn’t tell, my little brother
“spilled the beans.”
It seems that the day had been cool and momma made him wear
some work boots. When we got home and
pulled off our shoes, he wanted to pull off his. The laces had a knot and somewhere along the
way he had learned you could use a fork to pry loose a knot in shoe laces. Using pressure in an effort to untie the
knot, he poked the fork in his eye. Afraid
momma would “whup” him, he pulled it out.
Momma went ballistic.
She called daddy who worked evening shift. He rushed home and took him to our family
doctor, the famous Dr. Joe, my cousin Stevie’s best friend. Dr. Joe sent daddy to the Eye Foundation
Hospital Birmingham
This was back before Interstate 65 was complete. Daddy swung back by the house to tell momma
he was headed to Birmingham
When the officer asked daddy what was the hurry, daddy told
my brother to look the policeman in the eye.
The officer told daddy to follow him and escorted our old 1958 Chevrolet
Biscayne right to downtown Birmingham
My little brother’s pupil is oblong and looks like a cat’s
eye, but he has perfect vision. I think
often of that fork in his eye. I noticed
him at the funeral as he took a handkerchief and wiped tears. Once again I saw hurt in my brother’s eye.
And why beholdest thou
the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in
thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to
thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is
in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first
cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast
out the mote out of thy brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5 KJV).
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