The background on this page is a photograph that my brother took of a kudzu forest. You will see many of his photos on this page as well as some of his poetry and pictures. I will also include some of my memories of him and some pictures of him.
My brother passed away on November 30, 2008 after a six month battle with squamous cell cancer. He had actually been battling cancer since about 1985, when he was only 35, but had some long remissions in between. This last time was just too much for him though and it was time for him to go, as he was just in too much pain to stay with us. His whole family was here with him for almost two weeks when we knew it was close to the end, and we all shared in his care(which was our honor), and helped try to keep his spirits up. As it sometimes is though, he was the one that kept our spirits up most of the time. Coming from a large family it was wonderful to have everyone's support during a very difficult time for all of us.
My brother left his mark on the world. He has two beautiful daughters, 6 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren and of course his lovely wife who he loved very much. Shortly before he passed he got to hold his newest great granddaughter for the very first time. She was only a few days old.
He was an honorable man, and family meant more to him than anything. On the morning before he transitioned he called my brother Roy in to pray with him. Roy prayed for a bit and then Jim said he wanted to pray. He prayed for every member of his family, not for relief of pain, or for anything for himself, only that we would all be ok. That God would take care of us.
In my brothers last months I watched his heart open up like a beautiful flower. It was the most amazing thing to see. Where once we had difficulty finding things to talk about, now we just knew that the most important thing was that we loved eachother and had no problem expressing that to eachother. I know that in that time my heart opened too, thanks to him. Those last months that we spent just visiting with eachother are most precious to me, and I will never forget those last days, just sitting beside his bed holding his hand and speaking to him in my mind, and hopefully his. He was asleep because he was taking so many pain medications but I believe he knew we were all there because every once in awhile he would react to something that was said in his room or the giggle of one of the children. Occassionally he would have lucid moments and we would use that time to tell him we loved him and he would say "I love you". Those were the last words he said to me. I could ask for no more than that.
Jim took this photo of a dove in his backyard. I am sure he did not know at the time how prophetic these words of Martin Luther King, Jr's would be.
My Baby Brother? He was actually 10 months older than me, but this is a baby picture of him. Cute little stinker, wasn't he?
This is another photo of Jim's along with a bit of his poetry.
I remember being shocked when my brother wrote poetry because he had always said he didn't understand poetry. But as I said earlier, in the later part of his life his heart just opened up. He began to write poetry, he learned photography and he learned to flyfish and tie his own flies.
This is a picture of him with his baby(camera)
Then there was the silly side of my brother that loved Photoshopping(smile).
These are some of his favorite photo's that he took:
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