“How many times can summer turn into fall in one life?”1
For every single one of us, those changes of season are numbered and this week I lost two very special gentlemen who will never again watch summer turn into fall1.
A Cousin
My cousin’s son is a minister and last week he and his sweet wife marked their 25th wedding anniversary. In order that they might get away for an intimate celebration, my cousin and his wife travelled to the island to house-sit and take care of their grands. My cousin also offered to replace his son behind the pulpit that week. Whilst delivering his sermon last Sunday, he keeled over, was airlifted to a big mainland hospital but succumbed to the ravages of a brain aneurysm.
My cousin leaned into the legacy of faith and ministry in our family in a very rich, beautiful way and found his life to be a deeply rewarding one as a result. Even as a very young lad at his father’s knee, he learned to think the way people of an ingrained, abiding faith think. There was no doubt in his mind, even back then, that he’d enter the ministry. Following the ecclesiastic path is never easy yet my cousin was a constant ray of sunshine who endlessly and generously gave his love and prayers to everyone who crossed his path.
A Friend
After a long battle with cancer, we lost a very dear friend. He was thoughtful, kind, soft-spoken and endlessly delightful. His heart was solid gold. He always seemed to know the perfect thing to say whenever it really mattered.
Over the years we’ve shared countless meals, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations and birthday parties. Even though the pandemic kept us apart, he was one of those friends who we knew with certainty, was always within easy reach, had we ever needed him. It really is wonderful to have folks like that in our life.
I will miss these two gents enormously!
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”2
Having at one time been associated with a certain colonial social status, the word gentleman fell out of favour and is seldom used these days. Indeed, listening to my friends’ kiddos, it is not even a title or descriptor they want applied to their male children believing it to be synonymous with weakness.
My word association with gentleman is quality. A gentleman embodies all of and only the finest qualities: Patience, kindness, integrity, civility, courtesy, generosity and grace.
A man who is endlessly sensitive to the needs of others, has pretty manners and treats others (all others) with acceptance and respect is a gentleman. Living these virtues amounts to a life of quality and does not, in my mind, make a man effete. Both my cousin and my friend were gentlemen of the first order, role models to everyone with whom they crossed paths. Quality was not an act, it was a habit2 for both gents.
Living a life of quality is hard work but the benefit is a legacy of grace, integrity, wisdom and kindness. Real Kindness — patiently attending to the hopes and dreams, pain and fears of others with an open mind and heart — was the hallmark of the two gentlemen I lost. Their legacy of outstanding quality will live in my heart forever.
’Til next time, y’all…
1Charles Wright, American poet.
2Aristotle
Summer At the Shores, a Presqu'ile Experience 