“Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ Jesus.” Galatians 4:7
April 19, 2021 - I woke up early this morning to a fact that I never realized about my Dad. In all the years of growing up around him, I never remember his calling me anything but “Son.” I know he called me “Henry” or “Hen Doug” when he talked to others about me, but when he addressed me, it was always “Son.” When he took me on my first squirrel hunt on Mill Creek near Center, Texas, we completed the four-mile walk just before day light. “I hope the wind lays down soon,” he said. “It’s hard to see squirrels when its windy.”
When he shot a fox squirrel in a Magnolia tree, I raced to grab the wounded squirrel. Daddy hollered out, “Son, don’t pick that squirrel up—he’ll eat you up.” While I was a second grader, I told Daddy that James Hughes kept shoving me at the water fountain. Daddy replied, “Son, don’t you ever start a fight, but when you have to fight, be sure to get the first lick in---hit’im as hard as you can.” I came home from college one day to visit my parents and noticed Daddy wasn’t smoking his pipe as he always did. When he told me he had quit, I said, “Oh, Daddy, I am so proud of you quitting after all these years ... I know it’s been hard.” “Son, it wasn’t hard—I never inhaled nothing.”
When Daddy’s truck backed over him near Snow Hill it was two days before we found him half-conscious with mattered eyes and covered with blood and ants. As I stood weeping over him, he weakly raised his hand to my shoulder and whispered, “Son, I’m alright.” I grabbed a tin can and got him a drink from a nearby spring.
I remember talking to him on the phone only once. (Actually, we never had a phone until after I left for The Seminary in 1951). But he called me at college one day, and I remember his exact words: “Son, come home. Mickey’s gone.” Mickey, Mother’s younger brother, my favorite uncle, had crossed the Jordan at 28 years of age.
Daddy was not one to say, “I love you” and never said he loved me. But there was never a day that I doubted he loved all his ten children. When he said “Son” to me, there was a tone of love and endearment that was unmistakable.
And how wonderful it is to be called “Son” by my Heavenly Father.
