Brick's Clock

September 15, 2017

More than forty years ago, we each received black powder rifle kits from our wives for Christmas. William Roland James III (or was it IV?), Brick, nicknamed for his brick-red hair, incise carved his stock, while I relief-carved mine. We hunted together for a couple years, unsuccessfully, if you measure success by deer down and meat on the table. Those times in the woods, the early morning breakfasts with steaming coffee, eggs and bacon, the conversations that knit our hearts together were a success of a totally different sort. We talked of life and faith, and the marvelous grace of our Lord. Shortly after finishing our rifles, Brick presented me with a beautiful carved wall clock, a slab of Black Walnut with a scene of ducks rising from a marsh, the work of his own two hands.

Four short years later, I was appointed to a new congregation where I served for the rest of my working life. A year after I left that little church in Alabama, Brick heard God’s call and moved to Texas where he went back to school and into ministry. We drove to Texas in the summer of ‘83, but until a few years ago, our only connection was Christmas letters. The clock however, has been a constant reminder of our friendship for the past forty years. A few years ago I got a call from Brick. He was coming up our way to pay a last visit to the cabin his parents had owned on the Raquette River in the Adirondacks. He explained that he had a brain tumor and wanted to see the place one last time.

He stopped by, and we talked like old times for a couple hours before he had to head on to his destination. It was the last time I would ever see him. He wrote me one last Christmas letter; his handwriting was shaky, drifting in crazy patterns all over the paper. I cried as I read it.

A few months ago, his wife Dorothy posted on Facebook that she had a new grandson. Her daughter named him Brick. No nickname. Just Brick. Tonight, I packed up that treasured clock to send to Texas. I’ve enjoyed it long enough; it belongs back in the family, with the people Brick loved, and who loved him most. He never got to meet his grandson, but I hope someday that clock will hang on little Brick’s wall, testimony to a good friend and a great man, who would have been a wonderful grandfather.