Silly Old Bear

It’s hard to believe it has been eight years: November 24, 2001. Sometimes it seems as though it was only yesterday that you left us, Ashley. Then there are moments when it seems that a lifetime has passed since that awful day.

I still miss you like crazy. We’re doing OK, though. You taught us to cherish every day. Most days we remember to do that. You taught us to live life to the fullest, to squeeze every drop of adventure out of every day that God gives us. You showed us that the real beauty of life is living with a complete trust in God. It’s funny how I’ve been a minister most of my adult life, but you figured that out so much better and lived it so much more completely than I ever have.

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I grew up in the small South Texas town of Alice, the “Hub City of Texas”. In the Fall of 1976, I was attending William Adams Junior High School as a 9th grader. One of my favorite classes was Mr. Howell’s Speech class. I remember Mr. Howell as being somewhat eccentric. He envisioned his Speech class as something of an adventure in self-discovery for his students.

One of our assignments was to keep an “Everything Log”, where we would write down our “feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, ideas, etc.” on a daily basis. I ran back across that Everything Log recently, and started reading it. What follows is my entry for October 12, 1976. I was fourteen years old when I wrote this.

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Some of you may have already heard of this, but I just discovered it, so I thought I’d share it with you.

I was on FaceBook, accepting a couple of new “Friend Requests” (one from Becky Woods, a high school friend I haven’t seen in almost 20 years!), and then just looking around at a few other people’s profiles. One of my FaceBook Friends had updated his profile to say, “Matt Burnett is in love with the JCB Song”. I thought to myself, “Huh? What in the world is the JCB Song?” So I did what I normally do when such a question arises. I Googled “JCB Song”.

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Horace Bratcher is a dear friend. He has been around nearly twice as long as I have, and he likes to say that he has spent his life “collecting experiences”. He is quite the philosopher, and has spent untold hours at the local Public Library reading voraciously, expanding his knowledge, always looking for tidbits of wisdom that he can incorporate into his already vast storehouse, and can then share with others.

Horace comes by my office nearly every day to visit. He almost always has one of those tidbits of philosophical wisdom to offer, usually accompanied by a story. Horace has lots of stories. I have learned much from Horace Bratcher, from his homespun philosophy, and from his stories. Now, it is time to tell Horace’s story.

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Earlier this evening I found myself wandering around Lions Park, the four-field baseball/softball complex where Justin played Little League ball for a couple of years back in his younger days. Susan and I both spent some time on those fields as well, participating at various times on several church-league softball teams.

A few years ago, the City of Waxahachie built a new Sports Complex out on Highway 287 with much nicer, more modern fields and facilities. As a result, Lions Park has become almost forgotten. The fields are in poor shape, some of the fences and backstops have weeds and vines almost covering them, the bleachers have been removed, and the concession stand building is no longer there. I was overcome with a palpable sense of sadness as I stood there taking it all in and reminiscing.

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Someone once said, “In the race to be better or best, don’t miss the joy of being.”

When I was a boy growing up in South Texas, my family would take off for about two weeks every summer and go camping. The first camping trips I remember were to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

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Today is Friday, April 27, 2007.

Today, she would be 20.

Ashley Jean O’Rear was born on April 27, 1987, in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was 25 years old, Susan was 22, and Ashley was our first child. We were young, and we were so excited to have been blessed by God with such a beautiful child. Ashley was the classic “bundle of joy”. Her presence in our lives would cause us to experience life, and love, and joy from a whole new perspective and at a much deeper level than we had ever imagined before becoming parents. In the words of a song that I wrote in Ashley’s memory shortly after her death, “The day you came into my life, my world began anew. I didn’t know that love could run as deep as I love you.”

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