Some of my most favorite foods are the most perishable ones. Why?!?! (said in my Jim Carrey crying voice.) Strawberries? I’ll give ’em a week, tops. Bananas? Eat it fast or it’ll turn itself into pudding; gross. Cantelope? Don’t even bother cutting into that mushy thing. And of course, Bread! How many times have I formed a baby tear because I found mold in my loaf? 🙁
As it turns out, life is pretty stinking perishable too. God wasn’t kidding when His message says that life is like a morning mist that vanishes in a short time. It’s amazing how God designed the human body, but unfortunately it’s built more like a loaf of bread than a can of peas. The human heart beats somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 million beats a year. My brother Lee racked up somewhere around 1.4 billion heart beats, which may sound like a lot, but he should have reached about 4 billion if you ask me. This post is dedicated to my brother, Michael Lee Barnett, who was killed in a car wreck on April 2, 2012.
Lee was made of a soft heart and a hard fist. He cared for his family and friends in such a way that would blow you away. We were fairly close in age (he was one year and ten days older) so we had lots of arguments and fights growing up as kids, but grew closer and closer as the years went by. The past couple of years were actually pretty amazing. It’s like we became best friends, but with a stronger connection because we were brothers. Right now, it’s story time…
My folks say that when Lee was a baby, after his first time to visit my dad’s father in Fort Worth, he would hum as he exhaled all the way home (a 2-hour drive). Our granddad liked to hum and sing and whistle while he worked, and I have a sneaking suspicion that if it’s not genetic, that’s exactly where Lee picked up those habits. Growing up, he quickly became fascinated with motor vehicles. He helped my dad rebuild our Jeep Grand Wagoneer’s engine while he was in elementary school, and went on to rebuild his first engine by himself at the age of 14. The man was like a database of vehicular knowledge. Wikipedia had nothing on him when it came to the internal combustion engine. I could give him a call anytime and describe what kinds of noises my car was making and he would hit the nail on the head every time. I’m pretty sure he had memorized how much torque to apply to each head bolt, rocker arm, and main bearing bolt of a small block Chevy and in what order. He could pull the engine out of his Chevelle, swap the camshaft, and replace the engine in one afternoon. I don’t know how he did it.
He also looked after me. Once when we were in middle school, I got into a skirmish with some kid on the outdoor basketball courts. I slung the boy to the ground and he whopped me on the side of my head, then we both walked away. Well, my brother Lee wasn’t going to have anybody picking on me, no sir. He marched into that school the next day and cornered that kid up against the wall and punched him square in the face so hard, that pop was heard all the way down the hall. From then on everyone decided not to mess with Lee’s kid brother.
Once he got out of school, he pursued a career as a professional appraiser working for local government. He reached RPA status in the minimum amount of time, quickly became friends with all the big-shots in the industry, and was destined to be the youngest chief appraiser in the state of Texas. He took everything seriously, and excelled at everything he did.
He had no shortage of skills either. He bought the house we grew up in and began restoring it a few years ago. He was able to gut each of the bathrooms down to the dirt beneath the house and start over from scratch, turning one of the closets into a shower, and tiling the main bathroom practically overnight.
If I grow up to be even half the man that my 29 year old brother Lee was, then God will tell me “Well done, my good & faithful servant.” I imagine everyone in Heaven is overwhelmingly happy to have him up there, as I will be when I am greeted by his spirit once again. Please continue to pray for me and my family. There is no measure to the amount of pain felt by his death.
Thank you, brother Lee.
