Friendship

A TRIBUTE TO TIM…A YEAR LATER

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A TRIBUTE TO TIM…A YEAR LATER
One year ago after attending former player Tim Bright’s funeral I found myself writing about the pain that I was feeling and my way of dealing with it. In the book “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” I wrote, “During a depressing early morning walk after my last visit with Tim. I came to a reality of sorts and found a bit of peace and comfort in a strange, cold and unlikely place…science. There is a scientific law that states “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Energy can only be changed.” I have taught Conservation of Energy thousands of times, but that morning it became more of an anodyne than just a cold scientific law.

Tim possesses a tremendous positive energy that seems to grow stronger and inspire as his illness has grown stronger. I have no doubt that his energy will continue to live on as his physical existence dims. How can it grow if energy cannot be created? It grows from the love and care displayed by his wife, his family and his friends. It grows from everything that is good and just, and it grows despite his willingness to share it with everyone. I know that he shares it because I can feel it growing in me.

I believe that the trials that Tim is going through are a test. A test that he has to pass to prepare him for something bigger and more important that he must accomplish. I believe he has passed the test with flying colors. I know that I will find comfort every time I walk out and view the heavens in the night sky. I will look for the brightest star in the sky and know that Tim is present. Whether it is in body or in soul, Tim will be with us in our darkest hours “to show us how to live, to teach us how to give and to guide us with the light of love.” (Respects to Alabama)”

It would be less than a week later that my nurse-daughter would call and tearfully let me know that Tim had left us. There has not been a clear star lit evening since that night that I haven’t thought about Tim when I have looked toward the night sky and seen bright stars twinkling. It won’t be long before Orion the Hunter dominates the sky. I remember so many early morning runs during the fall and winter days where I always felt safe as I chased Orion through the still dark skies. I felt protected from the horrors hidden in the dark knowing that Orion was above me. I feel the same now that Tim has joined him.

Tim’s death made me analyze my own beliefs. He made me inspect my religion, not my Christianity, because often Christianity and religion are not same. I had joked about my religion, after all my God is a humorous God, although over the last year it has not been much of a joke. Despite my “dunking” into the Baptist Church, I have tried to apply my beliefs to what I have called the Evolutionary, New Testament Church of Christ, membership of one…me. I am adding “loving” to the title because of Tim and his loving wife Jenny. “The Evolutionary, New Testament, LOVING Church of Christ. During his short life on Earth Jesus Christ both taught and lived his love and this has become a major tenet of my religious beliefs with help from Tim. Tim truly loved his fellow man…and was loved back in kind. Tim lived a life that was too short but it was a life filled with love, both given and received. That love is evident when anyone talks about him including me, his family, community and his friends. I can think of no better epitaph then that he “Loved His Fellow Man.” I pray I can live up to his ideal.

Inevitably when I think of Tim I think of others that have been lost. Two others have joined Tim from the same team, Jeff Gully and Heath Benedict, and recently former Landrum player Brian Kuykendall left us. It is impossible to forget my championship cut-up Michael Douty. There is also the quiet one from Mauldin, Tim Wilder. I know there are others and I don’t want to know who they are. It’s easier just to pretend that they are still out there, just out of touch, just out of reach. It is easy to feel sorrow losing them and I can only imagine the grief their families have gone and are going through. I hope they understand when I say, “I was lucky to have had them as a part of my life even if it was for a short time. I may, at times, cry for them but more than likely their memory will bring a smile to my face and a laugh to my heart as I look into the evening sky and see the brightest, twinkling stars.”

SMALL TOWN FUNERALS

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SMALL TOWN FUNERALS
I grew up in a small community, not even a town, went to a small town college and have taught at a couple of small town schools, one being Landrum. Like the home of my birth Landrum has grown some in the last twenty years but it still has small town looks, small town feel and most importantly small town ideals. This past Friday I sat inside of the First Baptist Church and contemplated what all of that meant. I was attending Brian Kuykendall’s “going home” memorial. Part revival, part musical, it was all love and a wonderful tribute to Brian, his family and his legacy.

While not a huge church, it is the biggest one on Main Street even if it is the only one on Main Street, an oddity in area that sports more churches than “you can shake a stick at.” It was bursting at the seams when I got there and was filled to standing room only by the time the service began. With the fire department in attendance I don’t think there were any worries about the fire marshal closing it down. For a moment I contemplated how a burglar might find this to be a beneficial day to be working with the number of townspeople and policemen attending. Fire trucks were parked outside while the Landrum firemen dressed in uniform served as pall bearers and the rain that fell only added to the sense of gloom. Even inside, what little talk could be heard seemed to be muted. All of that changed once the memorial began.

As one of the ministers talked about Brian’s competitiveness I succumbed to a bad habit, daydreaming. While I should have been concentrating on the minister it was too easy to drift back twenty years. On the football field in my mind I found myself standing on an opponent’s field wondering if it was a requirement for small town football for one of the goal posts to be crooked. When I mentioned this to head coach Jimmy Cox, he cracked, “The way we are scoring on offense it probably won’t be a problem.” Only Eighteen to twenty football players had welcome me to my first meeting with the team and I could not help but wonder about our size, numbers not weight and height. One of those players was Brian.

Brian was competitive, a good thing because he wasn’t the biggest kid in the world…or the most athletically gifted. I think that Brian tasted victory six times in the two years that I was there. For Brian it wasn’t about winning, although it hurt him to lose. Brian was truly all about being the best that he could be and I am not being trite or mocking when I say that. As the memorial continued it was apparent that he had passed philosophy on to his sons and many of the kids that he coached. It was a tenet that was repeated several times during the service Brian proves that being on a poor football team does not define you in life. Brian’s life would have been portrayed as an undefeated season as could many of the lives of kids who played the game. Brian truly had become the best he could be.

It was a ceremony dedicated to love. Not the love for him, which was ample, but the love that was apparent for his wife, his family and his community. Love begets love and it was clear that even for a small town, there were buckets of love and his memorial was a fitting tribute. Brian left behind a lasting legacy that will continue to live through his family, Tammy, Kaleb, Dalton and CJ. It is also a legacy that will continue through his church, the community and the youth athletic association.

As the funeral procession slowly moved toward Brian’s final resting place I was again struck by small town ideals. A police car lead the procession followed by fire trucks. Another police officer held and directed traffic at the main traffic light. You just don’t see that anymore anywhere other than small towns. “Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond?” I think Brian answered that question. I know Landrum is happy Brian stayed in his home town even if his stay was much too short.

A STORY FOR BRIAN

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As the first decade of the new millennium drew to an end I found myself being forced into retirement due to our state’s TERI program and the economics in play during that particular slowdown. I was comfortable with this retirement especially when a new charter school opened and wanted me to continue my teaching and I once again became unretired. My coaching career was coming to an end but at least I would be able to teach without the distraction of practices, games, long bus rides and the cold that always began the baseball season and seemed to get colder as I got older. That was what I thought at least…about the cold and the fact that my coaching career was over. As my wife and I walked one morning late in the summer of 2009 I informed her that long time Landrum coach, Travis Henson, had accepted a collegiate position at North Greenville University. With typical Linda Gail insight her comment was, “You better not answer your phone because John Cann (Landrum’s athletic director) will be calling.” I didn’t listen and ended up as their interim coach for a year. It was a good year, not a great one, but it allowed me to reconnect with Brian Kuykendall.
Brian was a former football player and student from my first stint at Landrum back in the mid 1980’s. He was also a baseball player but during my first stint I had been banished to coaching track and I didn’t get to coach him in that sport. I did get to watch, and he was a player that was light on ability but heavy enough in grit and was a great competitor, a coach’s dream. Short and stocky with dark good looks, he really hadn’t changed it seemed when I met him and his son Kaleb at the first parent and team meeting. You are kidding right? Are you old enough to have a fourteen year old and does this make me a “grand coach” of some type? I guess there was a little gray in his hair and goatee but not much. Brian had taken his love for people and kids and had coached or officiated most of the kids that I was getting ready to coach. He was a true sport’s father except one with brains who cared about all of the kids, not just his own. That is not a statement about Landrum specifically just sports in general.
I visited with Brian a few days ago. It wasn’t a good visit and I dreaded it as I drove the twenty miles to the Hospice House in Landrum. Brian is dying from lung cancer and there is nothing I can do about it. He was unconscious from drugs and I just could not get him to wake up to go out and play catch with me. I was struck by how strong Brian looked and fear that his battle will be long and hard on his family. I would rather he go “gently into the night.” His battle with his illness has taken me back to other players who are no longer with me. It has been a year since Tim Bright died of the same terrible disease and I again am struck with the unfairness of life. Children and former players should outlive me not the other way around. I have hopes that the list will grow no longer and that I will live forever but fear that is not going to happen.
As I walked this morning I thought about Brian along with Tim Bright, Heath Benedict and Jeff Gully. I know there are others who have left us, all too soon, but for some reason it Brian and these three, who force their way into my thoughts. I stopped at the cross located on the lake across from Lookup Lodge and asked for answers. There were none forthcoming, just the sounds of water, birds and the young people that populated the area this beautiful Sunday morning. These were the sounds of life when I was thinking about death and the hereafter.
I don’t know what happens after death, I have my faith and I truly believe that death is just another door to step through and there is something more. I joked with a friend about the laws of physics and Conservation of Energy and the possibility of “mingling molecules” or maybe “flashing photons.” This Sunday morning my concept of heaven includes a freshly manicured baseball field with sharp white lines gleaming in bright sunlight. Brian, when you step through that door and smell the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, look for a big blond guy with an even bigger grin, an even bigger, goofy guy with his hat a little off to the side and red headed smart-alecky outfielder who is looking for his next laugh even though he is now laughing. Introduce yourself to Tim, Heath and Jeff and tell them to play a little catch. I’ll be along in a bit and we can get the game started.

Life is Like a Golf Match

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My wife and I attended a funeral this past Sunday. It seems to be our most recent form of social activity. I guess we have reached that age. This service was for a man that I had never met and if the ministers who held this wonderful memorial are to be believed, and I do, Mike Hawkins’s father was someone I wish I had met. Past his ninety-first birthday, Frank Hawkins had gone to the same church his entire life, had been married to the same woman for longer than I have been alive and earned a Bronze Star during World War Two. He also took it upon himself to carve out a playing field across the road from his house so that his sons and their neighborhood friends could play baseball…Yes he coached the team to. Mr. Hawkins certainly “walked the Christian walk.”

Linda and I attended the service to show our support and love for Mike, who was Frank’s second son, my best friend and a former classmate of Linda’s. I first met Mike some forty years ago on opposite sides of some forgotten athletic field but remember that it did not go well. I would get to know him better when I coached with him for twelve years. That period of time went much better as long as you avoid speaking of won-loss record. As the two ministers, close friends of Mike’s father, told stories about Frank I could not help but think how different Mike and his father were…except they weren’t. Frank was gregarious, enjoyed people and was a fishing maniac according to his preacher friends while Mike would rather undergo a root canal than get caught in a group of people, can be moody and cannot be still long enough to sit in a boat for longer than five minutes…except to take his dad fishing. It became apparent however, as the stories went on, that they shared the same passions. Mr. Hawkins was passionate for his religion, his family and kids. So is Mike. There is no more loyal friend than Mike Hawkins and despite his gruffness, no one cares more deeply for kids.

There were many coaches, former players and parents and even a retired sports writer showing their respect for Mike and his father. It was good to catch up with old friends and I thought of another former player and coaching chum, Bucky Trotter. I had seen him just a few weeks ago at a reunion of football players and coaches at Mauldin High from 1980 and remembered a time when we stood on a tee box at a local golf course. It was our annual golf outing and for some of us it was the only time that we played golf during the course of a year…and we played accordingly. Bucky became a bit of a philosopher after hooking a shot into the woods when he said, “You know? Golf is a lot like life. We start out together going to school or working together just like on this tee and then we hit our shots and go off on our separate ways just like in life. Sometimes, if we are lucky and don’t hit our shot too deeply in the woods, we manage to find our way back to each other just like getting back to the green.” I was glad to have made it back to the green to see the old Mauldin staff and players two weeks ago and it was good to catch up with people I had not seen for a while at the funeral. I feel for Mike and his loss but I think Mr. Hawkins would have approved.