Last year was kind of a rough year. I failed the bar a couple more times, got laid off from my job, none of the jobs I applied for panned out, relationships didn’t go anywhere, and I lost a couple uncles to cancer. I was hopeful that this year would be better, in fact let me rephrase that, I know that this year will be a better year. However I have already hit a little bump in the road. Tonight, after a long day at work, I came home and my mom told me my Uncle Terry had passed away.
Uncle Terry had been battling with cancer for a very very long time. But before I go on, I feel like I need to share his story…his testimony. Uncle Terry was my wild uncle, not wild like the crazy uncle who everyone was afraid of, he was the wild uncle who liked to party that everyone was just drawn to. He had a lot of charisma.
His wildness, was eventually a stumbling block for him. He liked to drink, and because he liked to drink, he liked to do drugs to counteract the booze so he could drink even more. It was a strange cycle, not one that I fully understand, but as he explained it to me, it was his demon. He could walk away from drugs but he couldn’t walk away from the booze. Eventually the booze cost him his wife and his daughter.
As he would freely admit, the booze caused him to make a lot of mistakes. He knows that he wasn’t there for his daughter, my cousin Amanda, when she was growing up. I know that this is one of his greatest regrets, however he loved his daughter but, at the time, he loved his drink even more.
Things had gotten so bad that he really wasn’t a part of my cousin’s life. Every once in a while he would pop back in to her life, but every time he would pop back out and it was heartbreaking for her. The hard part was he only popped back into her life when he got in trouble, when he needed to be bailed out of jail.
The last time he needed to be bailed out, he came to live with us on the family farm in Waiahole. This time though he came with a little extra baggage, he came with a new baby daughter. He doted on this little girl and it looked like he had changed. He humbled himself to live in an office on our farm. He woke up early and worked hard on the farm until the sun went down. You could tell he was frustrated but he seemed so determined to make it work.
He was even acting like a mentor to me. He taught me a lot, things that I still do to this day. One of the things I always remembered was how at the end of the day he would clean up. He told me, before you go home at the end of the day, always make sure you clean up your desk. To this day I try and always end my day by cleaning up my desk.
The wild life he lived was too strong of a call for him. One day he was gone. He was no longer in our lives anymore. Quick jump in time and I am in law school, and while learning about how to research cases I randomly decided to look up Terry’s name, as I know he had a criminal past. I was shocked to find out he had gotten arrested again, appealed his case to the intermediate court of appeal, and was a citable case.
I felt like I needed to get in contact with him. I found him in a prison in Oklahoma and sent a letter. It was good to be talking with him, about how he had helped me grow and to hear about the good things going on his life. I know that sounds weird, good things in prison, but it is true. In Oklahoma he had gotten the help he needed to deal with the alcohol. More than that he found God. At first, I was a little skeptical. Being in law school, you hear a lot about how people find God in prison, but as soon as they are out, they fall right back into their old life. But something seemed different.
The first thing I noticed was that he no longer was proud of his old life or the bad things he did. When we used to sit around the farm and talk about life, he was proud of his gambling, his drinking, how he got away with things, the women he had been with, but this time it was different. He realized those things were wrong and he was apologetic for them. I was floored, I couldn’t believe that this was the same guy.
I asked him how or why things had changed. He told me, as he was in OCCC, he had caught one of Pastor Ralph’s messages on tv. In that message Ralph had talked about and had a video testimony of my Aunty Laura, who is a missionary in Cambodia. It touched his heart, he felt God speaking to him. When he got to Oklahoma he was blessed even more. At the prison in Oklahoma, they had organized the prisoners into groups or “pods”. He started in the drug and alcohol pod, but as he conquered those demons, he was able to move into the pod of Christians. This is where he started to grow in Christ. He grew and grew and grew, and not even some bad news could knock him down, because now he had Jesus in his heart. The bad news was he had cancer.
This is where he really saw Jesus and truly found out that Jesus is love. He was cared for by his fellow pod mates, they showed him the true love of Jesus, evidenced in the heart of a servant. They fed him, helped him when he was weak, and showed him the heart of a servant. They did all of this not for any personal glory but because it was what Jesus would have done.
The next bit of news was bittersweet. Because of his cancer, they were going to let him out of prison, but first he would have to come back to OCCC. He was worried about coming back, in Oklahoma he got the care he needed and he was fed spiritually. I was happy he was coming home though. His return was shortly after mine from law school.
It was good to see him continue to grow. He came to church with me and was doing really well. He couldn’t always make it but he tried. Sometimes the cancer was just too much for him, but he persevered. The truly amazing thing was how he was able to resist the temptations of his old life. It would have been so easy for him to fall back into that old life and live it up, but instead he stayed focused on God and continued to grow, even though it was tough.
If anyone would have had a reason to fall back into his old life it was him. My cousin, for the most part rejected him. Instead of taking that as a bad thing, he admitted he was wrong and knew it would take time to fix things and make things right. He knew he had to prove that this time really was different and he was willing to wait for her to come around, as long as it takes. He was told he only had a few months to live and the cancer kept growing. His other daughter had a new dad. Things seemed like they were worse than before, but it wasn’t going to get him down. Instead he kept reading his Bible and trying to make amends for all that he had done wrong.
Over the next year and a half or so we kind of lost touch. We would talk every few months or so, but not quite as much. He understood! Then this past Christmas I gave him a call and I found out he had moved to California to be with his sisters. Things weren’t going well and he needed more care. I was bummed but he was positive and chipper even though it was obvious he was in a lot of pain.
This past Saturday, he lost his battle with cancer, but now he is in a better place. While I am sad I lost another uncle, I am stoked because I know he is in a better place now, he is Home with God!
Thoughts from the couch 