I'd had the most aggravating of all rounds of golf. It was our family reunion, a few years ago, and I abruptly announced that I was going to the driving range. "Cliff, mind if I go with you?" "That's fine", I said to my nephew. He was only seven years my junior, and an incredibly good golfer. We went to the range and in the first five minutes we were there, changed the way I golf forever. He took 8 strokes off of my game that have stayed off since that day. Funny thing is I kind of forced him into helping me. I'm sure he didn't think it was his place to give advice to an uncle. You see he is a very humble, very successful, very likeable man. Best of all a great father. He, along with his siblings, and for that matter, all of his cousins are good solid people with great senses of humor. He and his family have helped many less fortunate in his church and community . I know this, but not from anyone in his family. They've been taught to just do it and keep quiet. His company and his employees have spent many days working to help the poor recover from hurricanes. Any parent would be proud to call him 'son'. He is Marty's older brother.
He was killed in a one car wreck thursday night. He leaves a lovely family, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and countless personal friends, feeling a deep personal loss.
I hesitated to blog this. I know Marty will have such a hard time, and will be absent for a time from his blog. But I wanted everyone to know that I thought the world of his brother. I'll talk of him often. His whole family will. That's the way the Morrow's do it. Storytelling in our family, always includes the living and those gone before. I guess it's a good way of letting people know we haven't forgotten. We won't forget. Even if you've left us, you're still going to make a difference.
I've had some trouble making sense of all of this. Until last night. The seven year old grandson who lives here on this same farm said, "God just needed another good angel".
I'm going with that.
Farewell Nephew. See you on the other side. I'll bring my clubs.