ROBERT CLEMENTS
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll too often I hear friends sigh and wish father, uncle, sister or brother would leave them a fortune, some property or maybe just a Mercedes!
“Imagine postman bringing a letter saying my brother gifted me a car!” they sigh and look wistfully in the direction of their rich relative’s house.
Here’s an incident related by Dan Clark and sent by my mother which touched me and I’m sure will do the same for you:
A friend of mine named Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it.
“Is this your car, Mister?” he asked.
Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn’t cost you nothing? Boy, I wish . . .” he hesitated.
Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.
“I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that!”
Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively asked, “Would you like a ride in my automobile?”
“Oh yes, I’d love that.”
After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes glowing, said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?”
Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again.
“Will you stop where those two steps are?” the boy asked.
He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him, pointed to the car and said, “There she is Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn’t cost him a cent. And some day I’m gonna give you one just like it . . . then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the shop windows that I’ve been trying to tell you about!”
Paul got out with tears in his eyes and lifted the little lad to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable ride.
In my mind’s eye I can see that car go by; I see two brothers smiling, one sitting in the car, giving his little sibling a joy ride and a few moments of happiness, and the other not in the car; the brother who gave Paul the car as a gift.
“Oh Brother!” they say, “what fun to see your joy!”
Oh Brother! It’s time we experienced such joy!
