Remembering My Cousin Brothers
“I thank my God every time I remember you.”
James Arnold Woods (1948-2020)
Michael Morgan Stewart (1952-2013)
Both my cousin brothers had October birthdays, Michael on the 9th, Jim on the 15th. Jim was on my mother’s side of the family; Michael, my dad’s.
Early on, Jim enjoyed reminding me that he was two months and four days older than me, which was a bigger deal as kids, than as adults.
As little boys, most everything was a contest. Who could run the fastest, count the highest, spit watermelon seeds the farthest. Me: running. Jim: counting. Probably a drippy chin tie on the spitting.
Spats occurred. On occasion, we would wind up a writhing red-faced knot of arms, elbows, legs and knees. Both trying hard not to cry, it was pretty much a tie, by the time our grandmother would disentangle us.
She was the potential caller of our dads (who wore belts and knew how to use them), the dispenser of ice cream, apples, and RC Colas. So, we reluctantly followed her instructions to say we were sorry, cringing when “urged” to hug and say we loved each other.
She knew what she was doing. In a weird cousinly rivalry way, right from the beginning, we did love each other, and enjoyed each other’s company growing up.
We spent a lot of nights at each other’s houses, though probably more at his. There were more “woods” to explore, kids to romp with, and grandparents’ house nearby for aforementioned treats. I am not sure we ever made it through the nights camping out in the backyard pitched tent.
There were summer days to Holiday Beach, I think it was near Bessemer. His mom, my Aunt Arlyn, took us, with Jim’s three sisters, my cousins, too. Picnic lunches with bologna sandwiches, Golden Flake potato chips, grape Kool-Aid, and maybe Tip Top Chocolate Sandwich Lucky Cakes.
I guess one reason Jim and I bonded was that we were better at reading books than catching balls. Both had short-lived Little League stints in the field and on the bench. Separate elementary schools, together at Ensley High School, we were a term I have only recently learned – NARPs – “non-athletic regular person.”
We both made pretty good grades, though Jim a bit better. Right-handed Jim could write faster and better, than left-handed me. He was Student Body President and gave me the Sportsmanship (ha) position on his Cabinet.
Upon graduation, Jim headed to the University and me to Birmingham-Southern. We still hung out a bit, always easy to get into long conversations, often about movies, books, religion, and stuff that happened growing up.
Not too long into adulthood, as I began making the rounds as a Methodist minister in the North Alabama Conference, Jim went west to California where he was an accomplished administrator in the medical schools of the University of California system. Any chance he got, he was a world traveler.
Across adulthood, contact was not often. We had occasional long phone conversations and at, sigh, family funerals. So much of my first twenty plus years were inextricably interwoven with Jim that I am brothely, gratefully connected to him.
…
Michael, being four years younger than me, took some time to catch up for our hanging out together. I don’t think it ever bothered me that he edged me out from being Mimi and Pawpaw’s only grandchild. They had plenty of love for us and the other nine grandkid-cousin brood that accumulated – eleven in all.
In time, there were overnights at Mimi and Pawpaw’s house, each other’s house, most often with Mimi and Pawpaw. Mimi’s mantra was “to stop picking at each other.”
At some point there, we watched an “I Love Lucy” episode in which Ethel and Lucy were in a situation they pretended to be harem girls for an ersatz maharajah.
Their greeting call to each other was “mah-hah!” to which the other responded “ah-hah!”. For the next 50 years, most of our many phone-calls began with the caller’s “ma-hah” and the callee’s echoing “ah-hah”.
Both Michael and I adored our redheaded young minister Uncle Bobby. I think along the way, he tried to help us learn to ride our bikes, throw and catch balls. Neither very good at that (remember NARP?); he found we were better at remembering Bible verses, the names of the Gospels, and such.
From the time Michael was 8 or so, me 12 or so, we enjoyed spending summer weeks with Uncle Bobby and Aunt Martha in Huntsville, where he was pastor of Epworth Methodist Church. Good food and fun galore.
Subtly, unconsciously, we observed Uncle Bobby’s near palpable joy at being a Methodist minister, his intelligent sermons that could even draw in kids, his natural warmth with people, and his and Aunt Martha’s delight in one another.
Each of us had other elements playing into our calls to ministry – Sumatanga experiences; both had great many-peopled faith formation in our home churches, Huffman for Michael, Ensley 1st for me; and God knows, I mean really, whatever else got into us – yet all was pretty much through the prism of Uncle Bobby.
I was a quadrennium ahead of Michael at Birmingham-Southern, (he made Phi Beta Kappa, I was a near miss), then at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We had a year or so overlap there as I stayed on to do some doctoral work. Michael did his doctoral work a few years later at CTS – Chicago Theological Seminary.
Here I am in my manner of saying too much and not enough. Suffice it to say as Michael and I matriculated into ministry, serving churches, and Conference jobs, the years between us melted and we were devoted colleagues as well as cousin brothers.
In the years we were in a MELS (Ministerial Educational Leave Society) group, we bunked together in various national and international sites, only rarely picking at each other.
When a demonic stroke unexpectedly took Michael at 60, it was the first time I said “suck” from the pulpit. At his service at Hazel Green UMC, it slipped out… “God is great and God is good. And in the fulness of time God’s love wins… but in the meantime, death sucks!”
That “suckness” goes for Jim, Michael, Uncle Bobby, and a Communion of Saints host of family and friends.
And yet, the final word for all that was, is, and to come is
Doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Among them on my heart today are my cousin brothers.