Birthdays, Rice Krispy Bars & and Missing A Brother

from my corner table in Botanic Gardens Cafe

Hey Gordon, I’m sitting here at the Garden Cafe, eating a Rice Krispy bar in your honor. I am sure you’d say it’s not as good as Carol’s and you’d probably be right. I can still picture you sitting at your counter in your kitchen out in Billlings, enjoying every bite of one of her bars. She is a great cook. It’ just one of the many pictures I treasure.

You also loved potato soup, Sand Tarts and Blueberry muffins – without the blueberries! They say you picked them out and enjoyed the muffin.

I miss you and your wacky sense of humor, your quick wit that always had the right word/joke for the moment. You had such a way with words. People think I talk a lot – well, if they could only meet you, they would know why they called you “Gordon Longtalker!”

You loved your God and your friends. Keith told us how you shared your faith and says you are why he is a Christ-follower today. He said you didn’t preach sermons, you just asked penetrating questions and they you’d be gone, leaving him with things to ponder.

You simply loved people and wanted to help them, and you did, going out of your way to do it.

You loved your wife and your kids, your mom and dad and me!

And I love you and miss you.

Nov. 6, 2005, when you didn’t meet Paul at the end of the road as you had planned, marked my world into a”Before & After.”

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say what happened and all I learned in the “After” was worth the pain of losing you. But in losing you, I have learned a lot about myself and about God – what it means to trust and still love God. And I am grateful that in all the pain, God brought healing. I have seen the gifts that come with grief. I won’t go into those things now. Those things are in other posts here on this blog and there will be more.

So, enjoy heaven little brother. Carol and the kids are doing GREAT. These words from Matthew West’s song always makes me cry, but they fit what I want to say now. “So save a place for me. It must feel good to have the weight of the world off your shoulders.”

Enjoy Ronnie, Brenda, mom and all the others already there.
Be watching for me.
Be sure to meet me when I arrive and bring the others.
Then take me to see Jesus
whose death and ressurection
kept death from having the final say. .

2 Replies to “Birthdays, Rice Krispy Bars & and Missing A Brother”

  1. Monique, thank you. One of the things i determined to do at the beginning of this journey was to let others in on the journey, so maybe others would have more to go on than i did. Carol has been the same way. what a blessing she has been to so many people.

  2. Oh my, Carol…. this made me really teary. Written so well, and it made me think of my own brother, Marc. I love him so much and could not even imagine losing him. I wish you had not had to walk this road, but thank you for your transparency and for your thoughts along this often stormy road. {{HUGS}}

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