Got a Minute? The Call No One Wants

Hi, friends in exile, got a minute?

Day before yesterday, we got the call no one ever wants. Our niece called to say that my brother had been killed in a freak accident while tending to his cattle business. He was almost three years my senior.  There is a void in the waking world right now. Growing up, Clyde was always a head taller than me. I have always looked up to my big brother, even after I grew taller than he was. As I have told you before, He was a senior in high school when I was a freshman. When the senior football players were “initiating” the freshmen at the end of the season, I was in the gym shooting baskets after football practice, and a band of seniors came out of the locker room. I was trapped in a locked gym. One of the guys said, “Hey, Clyde, isn’t that your little brother? Should we get him?” [Dramatic pause] He replied, “No, I don’t think his mother would understand that.” They left me alone, and my brother grew even taller in my esteem. “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). What could possibly fill this void that you have now left?

Smiley Mudd