My Dad

 It’s that time of year again.  i just happened to be watching a highlight piece of Murdough’s trial today in which forensic experts including crime scene cleanup testified.  It just brought back so many memories from 2001.  It was (and I fervently hope that it remains)  one of my worst experiences.  Nothing can prepare you for walking into a house and finding the five day old corpse of your Father.  It was beyond bad.  The house had to be cleaned by Crime Scene Cleanup of Charlotte.  I’m very thankful that my Mom and family were there to help me on the journey of all that would follow.

The smell is terrible.  I can still bring it to my olfactory when the memories invade my life.  I broke my hand trying to knock down the door.  While in the ambulance I wailed and cried so hard.  I wouldn’t let them take me to the hospital, I just couldn’t bare to not be there when he left my childhood home one last time.  It would be two weeks before a doctor treated me for it.  It required surgery too, but I wouldn’t allow that for several years.

He had been gone for five days.  Yes - I checked on him frequently but not daily.  

As I ponder the year - 2023 - I realize that I will become the age that he was when he passed.   I’ve always done my best and that’s all anyone can ask.

I had to ‘fake’ a casket for my Grandfather.  I didn’t want him to know the true condition of the body - which defies description by me.   I’m not really clear on how we did the ‘graveside’ but maybe my Aunt took him back to the retirement home before that.  I do, however, have very clear memories of the funeral and the closed casket placed at the front of the chapel.

There are 7 of us kids.  The oldest died shortly after birth - RAB.  I often imagine how life might have unfolded differently had he lived.  I feel his presence often as do my Dad’s.

My Dad, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried at Independence Hill Baptist Church not too far from my Bradley family and close to my high school.  It was where the first declaration of independence was drafted.  Somehow it’s fitting for my family.  I got permission to place my Dad’s ashes in the casket with my Grandfather and a footstone on my Grandmother’s grave to mark his life.

My Dad loved to cook.  He loved his Grandchildren. He loved creating.  He loved traveling.  He loved being a truck driver and loved even more being a tour bus driver.  He loved music.

He played the trumpet and so do I.  He tried to teach my daughter to play and she did at least get some sound out of my trumpet.  When he was in his 20’s he formed the ‘Mack Bradley Review’ which included Maurice Williams.  He found me when all of this happened and expressed his deepest condolences.  My Mom had met my Dad at the booking agency she worked at.

He took me on my first trip to Mexico.  It was epic.  But we all got very sick.  When he found out that I loved science he got me a chemistry kit.  He was so proud of my skating career.  When I asked him to pick up Chrissy at school for weeks and take her to my Mom’s house 45” away - he never - not once asked me why.  He trusted that I wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t really, really important and if you know me very well you know why.

He taught me the trick of soaking new boots in water then wearing them all day from sunrise to bedtime to break them in.

He always dressed properly - by that I mean no jeans and no shorts and no cover-alls.  For the record neither did my grandfathers, or uncles.

He was an ambulance driver when my oldest surviving brother was to be born.  Mom says that he came and got her, but put her suitcase in the back and her in the front with him.  LOL.  I can definitely imagine this.

He always gave directions - like how to get from one place to another.  Several years after his death he imprinted on my mind saying “This is the last time I can give you directions”.

He also was creative.  He had a business where he used sand etching to personalize glassware.  He made a plaque for me when (actually I don’t remember when) but he had misspelled our last name and was embarrassed - to me it was endearing.  I love it.

When I arrived at the Charlotte Coliseum for my undergraduate graduation I was terrified.  We did not know whether we would be graduating or not because we had to check our final grades.  I remember walking in and hearing him VERY LOUDLY yelling T I N A.  There he was beaming from ear to ear.

My surviving oldest brother bears his name.  When he finally came back East and I took him to the grave he got quite and misty eye.  I hugged him and asked if he needed time alone.  He said ‘no - it’s just wierd seeing my name on a grave marker’.   

My youngest sister helped me with everything that had to be done.  I couldn’t have done it without her.  When I called her she was on her way to the airport to catch a flight for her work.  I asked her to pull over - after some convincing she did.  She didn’t go on her trip, instead she came to Charlotte to help me.

One of my fondest memories is when he sent my older brother and I ‘cowboy’ sets from Texas where he was in his third marriage.  Mine was pink.  

He had a scar on his forehead - the story goes that he was running through the woods and he got a limb imbedded into his face.  My grandmother told me that he came home with it still in there.  Can you imagine that conversation?

The song that I had played for my Dad was “I Did It My Way” because that typified him.  Perhaps I got my courage to live the way I please from my family.  Thank you Dad.  You are remembered.  The hole in my heart is still there and I know I’ll see you, maw-maw, paw-paw, Grumpas, Cleo and Rab again.  Thanks for being you.

It Already Is His

Tonight I’m reading in Luke 4 which is where Jesus was tempted of the devil.  In verse 9 Satan invited Jesus to worship him with the reward being the gift of all that could be seen.  Verse 10 Jesus strikes the home-run of the eons by putting Satan in his place.  

What exists that wasn’t created by him?  

There is a providential story that goes something like this - a person finds a watch out in a field miles and miles from any civilization.  Taking it in her hands she wonders at this thing.  She weighs it and notices the numbers, the little hand moving ever so slightly and looks around to see if the owner is perhaps hiding somewhere.  Once convinced that the owner isn’t there and probably didn’t even know that he had lost the watch she purposes to take it with her.  A couple of minutes more into her journey she comes to an abrupt spot.  She pulls the watch out of her bag and unwrapped it from the folds of her extra shirt so as to keep it as safe as possible.  She knew that, even though it wasn’t hers, it had fallen to her to care for it.  She sat down hard and began to really examine every detail.  It was exquisite.  She pondered the how of it all.  She got up and continued her journey with a steadfast goal of finding the owner.  Not once did she realize that the owner had left it for her to find.  That the owner had made it just for her.  That the owner had wanted it to draw her closer to him.  One day, when she had lived her life to her very best ability, then it was his deepest wish that she would leave it for someone else to find perhaps even watching to make sure it was found.

Isn’t that just like humans?  We question everything.  Of course that innate privilege was given to us by our Heavenly Parents without which we would not have a guidepost.  We wouldn’t have a solid reminder imploring us to choose what is right much more often than choosing what is not right.  We would think that everything we created received it’s genesis from within ourselves thereby discounting the need of God.  

Once, many years ago, my daughter took me out west and it was a trip of a lifetime for me.  Easter sunrise sitting alone in the desert because she needed more sleep than I did that particular day left the image branded into my being that we are created by God, for God, through God and we are to create by, for and through him so that when we arrive back home we can give a complete accounting of what we did with our time and talents.  I’m imagining sitting at a banquet table with all of my other siblings excitedly telling one another of all they discovered while our heavenly parents look on with pride and a knowing that goes beyond the human mind’s ability to fully fathom.

There is another story that I often think of.  There was a war raging and when has there not been one doing so?  In this small village everyone worked in all daylight hours for the common good.  One day an elderly man labored beside his grandson who was asking deep and probing questions not the least of which was the “why” of their efforts.  The grandfather explained that folks must work in order to live, and must live in order to experience, and to experience in order to teach, and to teach so that they could go back home to be with our heavenly parents.  The boy was distracted and cut his leg very badly.  Blood gushed and the grandfather tied his sash around the boy’s wound and scooped him up to take him home.  Others quickly came and offered to help which the grandfather declined with gratitude.  They said “this is awful” the grandfather said “maybe yes, maybe no”.  When he took the boy to his Mother’s house she flew out and quickly surmising the situation asked her Father “did you let him cut the grain even after you had promised me you wouldn’t?”. The old man said “Maybe yes, maybe no”.  The Mother angrily pulled both him into the house and over to the only bed in the meager home.  The mother was so upset all that she could do is fuss at her Father and then she commanded him to leave her sight asking “haven’t you done enough harm for one day?” to which he replied “maybe yes, maybe no”.  With that the woman threw a clod at him and he left.  Not too long after soldiers came into the field destroying all they could along the way and when they saw the old man looking up at them they hit him and told him that he better work or he would get hurt.  They asked if he understood to which he replied “maybe yes, maybe no”.  Then the soldiers kicked him so hard that he fell into the mud as the soldiers laughed.  When he dared look up again they asked him “We have all the young men waiting over there, but they say that your Grandson is missing.  Do you know where he is?”. The man said “maybe yes, maybe no”.  The soldier kicked the old man over and over again until the commander came within sight who yelled for him to stop asking “if you kill them who will do the work? You?”. Then the commander reached out his hand and helped the man up out of the mud and asked if he would be alright to which the man replied “maybe yes, maybe no”.  The commander apologized again and told the soldiers to prepare to leave with the boys that they did have and as they stormed off into the next battle the grandfather knew then why the grandson had been injured.  Because of the injury he was not in the field and so was spared going off to war.

Asking “why?” seems to be a favorite thing amongst us humans as though knowing why we are about to be injured really matters and surpasses the abject need to be loved.  This, if there is one, the secret to life - love today because you were loved yesterday so that those you love today can love others tommorow.