Beech Tree News Network

My brother, Carl, is six years younger than I am.  He was the first son, after five girls.  My father expected a lot from him.  When Carl was in high school, he developed ulcers.  The doctor told my stepmom it was from worry.  He still worries, but these days, he has reason to.

Carl is one of those “salt of the earth” guys that you don’t believe really exist anymore, until you come across one, and you’re startled by their goodness.  He never curses.  He says things like “Golly” and “Oh brother” and “Well, what do you think about that?”  If he runs across a not-so-scrupulous person, he will call him “that bird” or “that sumbuck.”  He is very honest and trustworthy, and he never takes advantage of anyone, always giving way more than he ever gets back.

Six days a week, Carl gets up at sunrise and goes to work at the sawmill that was once my dad’s or out into the woods, where he cuts trees.  His wife, Susan, works along side him, doing office work, running a loader when Carl is in the woods cutting trees or feeding boards into a finishing mill when Carl is sawing.

Two years ago, Susan was badly injured while feeding boards into the finishing mill.  One came back on her and knocked her into a concrete wall.  She was unconscious and spent several days in the hospital.  She recovered, but still occasionally has tremors, boarding on seizures.  

Carl’s and Susan’s youngest daughter was planning a wedding for later in the spring that Susan was injured.  She married a guy both her parents loved, so they were shocked when, less than a year later, the couple divorced.  It was a “he said/she said” situation, which really saddened Carl and Susan.  Their daughter continued to live in the area and go to nursing school at a local university.  One weekend, she called from North Carolina to tell them she was married and planned on living there.  They were shocked.

“What did I do wrong?” my brother asked me.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him.

He didn’t.  They didn’t.  Carl and Susan raised both their daughters up on a farm.  They bottle fed calves, hauled in hay and the youngest rode a barrel horse that Carl spent much of his time hauling from one event to another.  They all attended church together every Sunday and ate dinner together every evening at promptly five-thirty.   

This winter, their daughter became pregnant with twins.  Carl and Susan embraced their new son-in-law and were truly excited for their daughter.  One day, Susan called me to tell me about the upcoming baby shower she was planning.  A few days later, her daughter lost the babies.  Susan flew to North Carolina to be with her daughter while she underwent the medical procedure to remove the twins.  It was devastating for their whole family.

Susan returned to discover her mother’s cancer had returned, and her father had broken his leg, so she spent most of her time running back and forth to the hospital—when she wasn’t working at the sawmill.  Her body became very rundown and she contracted every infection that came down the pike until she got in such bad shape that her doctor told her if she didn’t go to bed, he was going to put her in the hospital.

My brother called me last Wednesday to tell me he and Susan wouldn’t be hosting the Mother’s Day gathering they have every year for our family. 

“We just can’t do it, Cheryl,” he said.

“You don’t need to do it, Carl,” I said.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m being sued,” he said.

It turns out, a guy who bought a piece of equipment from my brother said Carl sabotaged it, and he’s suing Carl for fraud.

“I’m sorry for everything you’re going through,” I told my brother, “But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I just don’t know.”

That’s what happens when everything falls down around you.  It makes you question yourself, and what’s more, it makes everybody around you worry.  We worry, not just for the people suffering, but because we know if it can happen to people like Carl and Susan, it can happen to us.  There’s only one thing I’m sure of in this circumstance, I will not be like Job’s friends.  I will not imply that the suffering is their fault.  I have read many times, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”  When it’s my turn to visit Job’s shoes, I want mercy.