“Death Shall be No More”

My brothers were born on August 17^th, a year apart the same date. My mother once mentioned that she could have been induced and I would may have also been born on August 17^th…..one birthday party for all three boys. Even after many years, she almost fainted at the thought.  So I was born 6 days later on August 23^rd. (6 years later) 

Six days ago was August 17^th ….my brother’s birthdays. For my brother Tommy, this is the first time in his life that he didn’t celebrate his birthday with his older brother Neal (Brown). Brown died 5 month’s ago on St. Patrick’s day. I told Tommy that he finally caught up with Brown… they are now both 83. He retorted that not until next March 17^th will he have lived as long as Brown ….. hmmmmmm, we were always a family of analysts when it comes to trivia. So today is my birthday. Brown lived 83 years and 7 months. I will need to live 7 more years & 7 months to catch up with Brown….until ~March 23, 2031…. if my math is correct. 

I guess the real question that I’m sure you’re beginning to ponder is,  “Dave, what’s the point of this BLOG”?  I have to honestly say, “I don’t know… I’m not sure if there is a point.  On the other hand, maybe there is a point hiding in the grass under a stick…. so stay with me on this.” 

I guess the point of the BLOG is that my brother Tommy really misses Brown. For almost 83 years they were together… “Irish Twins”. They were very different, yet maybe that’s why they got along so well. Despite a few disputes over the years, they really loved each other. In their later years they spoke frequently on the phone. They had both come to know the Lord. Now Brown is no longer a phone call away. Now Tommy, who lost his wife 5 years ago, has lost his best friend. Life can be hard.

Birthdays have a way of bringing up past memories, especially the good ones. I also miss Brown a lot. I now look forward to my more frequent phone conversations with Tommy, where we lament the current state of the “Cardinals and the Country”, and bring up the same stories we’ve been telling for the last 77 years. You may even remember some of them by now…. “ the time I was interviewed on the radio and said I was going to buy Busch Stadium…. or the time I flung the scrambled eggs on the ceiling after a transformer blew up in our back alley…. or the ongoing dispute over which of us is taller….”. (I am). I suspect that all of this is not very funny to the normal person listening in…. but to us it somehow is a shared memory that still gets us to laugh.

So the older I get, the more I’m really happy that Jesus conquered death. In Christ, we can look forward to one day seeing our dear loved ones again. I’m not sure we will be sharing the old memories, laughing at the old stories, but I do know that it’s really going to be great. There will be no more sadness from separation. 

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”(Rev. 21:4) And that is really good news.