My brother Tim was an angry kid. He had good reason to be. His Leukemia was in remission at the time of this story but the memories of chemotherapy where still heavy on his thirteen year old mind.

A friend of Grandpa’s, Vergil, had a couple of acres of land down by the Cowlitz river. This was before Mt. St. Helens erupted so you could still run boats in it. Vergil allowed Grandpa to plant a garden on his property and raise cows for many years. Grandpa’s daily routine started early. He would drive over to Vergil’s, water the garden, take care of the cow, and stop by “the office”.

The Office was a little tavern on South Main. He had a drinking problem when he was younger but I had only seen him drink a beer rarely. He just liked going to have coffee with the old men.

Tim was spending a week at our house during the summer. He usually lived with my mom, and sometimes with my dad. Sometimes he lived at the boys ranch or juvenile hall.

I was about eight at the time. I was excited to have him there. I didn’t get to see my brothers very much. They usually lived in other places.

Grandpa was going to take us to the garden to help him pull weeds. We got up early and Grandma made us a big country breakfast. It was quickly devoured. She handed us packed lunches on our way out the door.

We piled into the front seat of Grandpa’s 72 Chevy pickup. It rumbled to life energizing the AM radio. The speakers crackled out some old country song and we were off to work.

We drove down the gravel road along the barbed wire fence where our steer was. Tim looked over at me and said, “You know they cut their balls off.”

Grandpa slid to a stop suddenly. “You don’t say that word,” he spoke in a deep voice.

“What word, Balls?” Tim asked.

Now Grandpa and Grandma were very conservative. You don’t drink, (at least not around Grandma) you don’t talk about sex, and you don’t use vulgar language. In fact I think that was my introduction to this use of the word. “Yes, That word,” Grandpa said in his thick North Carolina accent.

“What’s wrong with Balls?”

“That’s a bad way to talk around your little brother.”

Tim grabbed the door handle and shouted, “Balls, Balls, Balls!!” He stormed out of the truck and slammed the door. Tim had a short fuse. We eventually got him calmed down but that was him, angry.

Tim died when he was fifteen. Doesn’t seem fair. Now why would God put a child through so much and not give them the chance to really live? Maybe God doesn’t see it like we do. To God all souls are eternal so nothing really dies, it just changes. We are always with God.

One thing that has helped me understand is a belief that we have a hand in the planning of our lives. We live, die, and make a plan to come back in another form. I think normally humans become new humans. But with God you can’t rule anything out.

After Tim died Grandma thought of him a lot. It kept her up some nights. She tossed and turned late one evening until at three in the morning she gave up and went to the kitchen. She sat down on the living room couch with a fresh cup of coffee she had just made. She sat and missed Tim.

A brass music box in the shape of a wishing well sat in the window sill of the front room. Tim had given it to Grandma as a Christmas present. She sat in silence sipping her coffee when the tune of Country Roads started to play. The brass music box played the hole tune as if it had just been wound. She knew it was Tim letting her know that he was okay.

Don’t let grief rule your life. There is a time to grieve but it must end in due time. You have work to do on this Earth, and the light is with you always.

I really don’t like talking about myself but, it’s a recommended practice so, I’ll tell you the things about me that I feel are important.

My parents divorced when I was two years old. Not an uncommon story today but in my small town in the mid seventies I was an oddity. A theme that has repeated many times in my life.

I grew up with my grandparents in a little two story house. The bright yellow residence lit up the corner of Chestnut Street and South 10th. We never had a lot, but we never went without. My grandparents taught me old fashioned values. How to work hard, be honest, respect women, and love God. Being an INFJ personality type, which we will speak on later, I took this to heart. It became a part of who I was. Keep in mind I am human and like everyone else I fall short of my own values at times.

Some bad stuff has happened in my life as is true for a large portion of the population. I guess it was the reason I gave up on faith. It didn’t seem right to me that God would continuously treat me like Jobe. After all of the worry and devotion I thought I had proven myself to be a good Christian who didn’t deserve to be punished.

I have traveled a bit, never for recreation but work. I’ve been a carpenter most of my life in the end working on motor yachts. People from all over the world worked in the yacht industry. I loved the diversity in those places. I learned so much from them as one does when we open ourselves to different points of view.

For a time I lived in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. I cut stone at a small rock hard just off the highway in a remote mountain town. It was cold in the winter. The water from my saw would regularly form into icicles all over my rain gear and freeze my gloves to my hands. That job was so hard but I came to understand how much physical abuse I could take as a man. Something that had been instilled in me of course by my grandfather but pushed more by my grandmother.

I’ve dealt with a lot of death in my family. I lost two brothers, my grandparents, and recently my father. I have however found ways of dealing with death. Better ways than my earlier attempts that equated to shutting down emotionally. Which by the way only works for a short time and will damage you in the end.

My grandmother was a huge influence on me. As strange as it sounds we loved arguing with each other. When I broke away from the church we gained fuel for our arguments by the gallons. We never meant to hurt each other it’s just how we communicated. Before she died I asked her to find a way to contact me when she did pass as a way of possibly winning a thousand old arguments in the end. I wanted her to tell me what the after life was like. She was doubtful that she could but gave me her word she would try. I knew if Grandma promised something she would do all she could to make it happen.

Two weeks after she died I had a very vivid dream. I was in a big city at night. I walked by a phone booth and it started ringing. I picked up the phone and heard my grandmother on the other end. We spoke for a moment and then I asked, “So what’s it like there?”

She paused, “It’s not what I expected.”

I was a little confused and worried at first. Grandma was the most stern, loving, charitable person I have ever known. If anyone deserved some form of paradise she certainly did. “Are you happy?” I asked her nervously.

“Oh, I am very happy,” she replied to my relief. “It’s just not what I expected.”

So I guess the lesson is when searching for God don’t look in a small box. Conform to God’s truth and not make God conform to ours.