Lessons Learned

My Pop was a great teacher. He was patient, much more patient than his pupil. On beautiful afternoons, or early evenings, he would come knock on the door. Since he lived next door, there was no need to call. He would say..."Let's go." I would rise from the couch, or from a book, and walk through his yard to the boat dock. My job was to reach down and untie the boat. He would hold the boat steady while I stepped inside, and we would take off. The feeling of the breeze, as he opened up the engine was sooooooo exhilarating. To my knowledge, I only lost one hat in the water due to a flip-off from the wind, and I always imagined a huge catfish wearing a Clemson hat, as it scavenged the bottom of Lyman Lake...searching for food, and running from my Pop, as he sought to catch him. We would find our spot, about 30 feet offshore, and we would cast around brush piles, seeking bream, bass, and crappie. He taught me to cast, be still, and how to respect God's creation. My Pop was the subject of my first published work, a poem in a publication honoring aspiring writers in high school. Thinking of him, during my seventh grade English class, inspired the following:

My grandfather,
lays on the cold, wet ground
working at his trade.
His grimy, greasy hands are bleeding.
Life's toils are a struggle to endure.

Grandfather and I fish together.
This makes life a breeze.
Even though I sometimes cast into a tree,
he still enjoys my company.

Grandfather knows,
how I feel when the wind,
stirs through the trees and
causes the boat to rock.

This seventh grader grew older, and graduated from high school, and college, and was pursuing a Masters degree in 1998. Pop began to fall more often, became less stable, and had difficulty doing usually simple tasks. The hands that once held greasy wrenches, now did not seem to work as he wanted. Several visits with his primary MD gave him no answers, and he was sent to a specialist. He was given terrible news. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease," a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually lead to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed. Yet, through it all, for the vast majority of people, their minds remain unaffected.

He eventually was unable to walk, go to the restroom, and make decisions that his body would follow. During one of my last visits, he said..."Richard, I waited too long. If I knew how bad I would become, I would have rolled myself and this wheelchair off the dock, and ended it right then."

Eventually, he could not swallow food, and the slow process of starvation began. Two years prior, we had moved to Lyman, about 15 minutes away, and I used this, and my school obligations, as an excuse not to be there at the time he needed me most. I was noticeably absent, as it was difficult for me to see him as he slowly died. His brain was still working, but he was enslaved inside a tomblike, unresponsive body.

I preached his funeral, a day filled with memories, emotion, and guilt. This guilt has stayed close and reminds me often of my failure to the one who never failed me.

Last week I received a phone call concerning the health of a dear elderly friend. MaMa Hammett has been riddled with crippling arthritis for years, and had battled lung and breathing issues, as well. Her granddaughter explained that she had lost a lot of weight, slept often, refused to eat, and seemed to be non-responsive a great deal of her waking hours.

I was able to line up time for a short trip to the upstate for a visit. After a conversation with MaMa's daughter and granddaughter, I entered the room. She turned with a little help, and I knelt beside her bed. Seventy pounds of bone and ache was lying before me, and I reached out for her hand. "I traveled all this way, just to see you, and it was worth every mile", remembering the miles that I did not travel for my Pop. Her eyes were not clear, her breathing was erratic, and the smell of impending death surrounded the steel grey hospital bed. She said, "I am so glad that you came".

She wanted to sit up for a little while, and I cupped my arm under her legs, and secured the other behind her back. With little effort, she was in the chair. Fatigue and gravity set in quickly, as she began to slip and slouch, almost molding into the creases of the lift chair. Her daughter came in and wedged her up, so that she could come face to face with her enemy. The bottle of Ensure was now thrust upon her, with the straw extended. She tried to drink, and did quite well, as half the bottle was gone in about 10 minutes. She wanted to lie down, but needed to wait at least ten minutes after finishing the chalky substance. She looked at me, and said..."Please pray to Jesus that I will not have to finish this stuff." A cry for help, a flag of surrender being flown from the tired body of a saint, and a time for ministry was present. As her daughter left the room, I found a straw, and drank from the bottle until only a half a sip remained. After use, the straw slid up my shirt sleeve, preventing detection. Placing the ensure back into MaMa's hand, I winked at eyes that were still heavy with pain, but were now more perky with excitement. Her daughter re-entered, and MaMa finished off the bottle with little effort. She took a deep breath, reached for my hand, and looked into my eyes. Sighing, she said words that will forever remain in the soul of the Naked Preacher. Squeezing my hand, she smiled, and said...."Thank you, Jesus."


Leaving her that day, I was sure that we would never see each other again on this Earth. As I reached to turn off the light, I felt the breeze from Lyman Lake rush through my hair. On my back, I felt the hand of a master mechanic, a fisherman extraordinare, and a lover of God. As MaMa whispered, I heard my Pop instead say the following words..."Thanks for coming Son, I love You."

Seventh grade has long past and I am now forced to revisit the poem of my grandfather. As life has moved like a bream caught by a hook, tossing and turning, and putting up a great fight...I now write again about him. Our lives are poems with rhythm and rhyme, and they are filled with dashes of intense colors and dark blacks. It is interesting that by embracing death, I was truly able to embrace life. Through intense failure, I have experienced joyful success, and have become reconnected with my ability to minister. May I learn that to express the Divinity of Christ, I must embrace the frailty of my humanity, and somehow learn to love without fear....one sip at a time.