Testify

The memoir opens by explaining that these stories are meant to testify, preserving the moments that shaped the author, the lessons he learned, and the ways he has seen God at work in an ordinary life. He writes because memory fades and because he believes even a regular person can offer something useful if he is honest about where grace found him. Testimony, in his view, is not about perfection but about telling the truth: what he struggled with, what he learned, and how God met him there. That honesty is rooted in his understanding of grace, which he describes as saving grace, sanctifying grace, sustaining grace, and serving grace. Saving grace rescues from sin, sanctifying grace changes a person, sustaining grace strengthens through pain, and serving grace equips a person to help others. He also frames the whole book as an invitation for readers to remember their own lives differently, because ordinary experiences can carry extraordinary meaning when seen through faith, memory, and reflection.

He then situates the memoir as a journey through small, formative moments rather than headline events. Growing up in Charlotte, he lived in a family where love and hardship shared the same space. His mother’s mental illness, his father’s long work hours, and the steady presence of grandparents all shaped the person he became. He stresses that memory is not a camera; it returns feelings and fragments, not complete records. What he has tried to preserve are the meanings of those moments. The book is also about faith that does not avoid questions. He names the deaths and illness that forced him to wrestle with God, and he says he saw faith embodied again and again in ordinary acts: washing feet, repairing roofs, sending cards, mowing grass, or simply showing up for one another. Service, he insists, is not grandiosity but doing the next faithful thing with humility.

That point is illustrated immediately in the memory of the scar on his right hand, the thin line beneath his pinky that brought back his earliest recollections. He remembers first the scar itself, then the bicycle accident that caused it, and then, even earlier, the hidden cellar beneath the kitchen floor of his first home on Crater Street. His father used that dug-out space as a photography darkroom, lit by a red bulb that made the cellar mysterious and frightening to a small child. The scar takes him back to the apartment where the family lived while the house was being built. There, he broke his mother’s strict rule not to ride his bicycle in the parking lot. Wanting to join other children, he turned off the sidewalk, collided with another bicycle, flew over his handlebars, and landed face-first on the pavement. His right hand struck broken glass, and a long shard drove into his palm. His mother pulled it out while blood ran down his wrist, and a doctor later removed another fragment and stitched the wound. The event taught him that parents sometimes see dangers children cannot imagine, and that rules often exist because love sees farther than desire.

The chapter about losing his mother at twelve deepens that lesson in a far more painful register. His mother, once loving and involved, began changing in his late childhood. She became irritable, withdrew from people, wrote strange prayers and stories, and grew increasingly hostile. By age twelve, she suffered a severe mental health crisis that the author experienced as a kind of death, because the mother he knew was no longer accessible to him. In the terrifying weekend that followed, she kept the boys in darkness, lit candles, recited Bible passages, screamed at him, and called him the devil. Later she ran naked down the street on a bicycle, lost control, and overturned, an image seared into his memory as a mix of horror and humiliation. A neighbor calmed her, helped get her into a car, and called his father, who arranged for hospitalization. After that, she remained under care and on strong medication, and many friends and relatives drifted away. The author felt shame, anger, guilt, and grief all at once, especially because he could not explain her illness or bear the public embarrassment it caused. Looking back, he sees two overwhelmed parents and two boys caught inside an illness nobody understood. He says that losing her at twelve left a wound he has spent years learning how to love around.

The whistle in the woods offers a gentler childhood memory built around friendship. When his close friends the Coopers moved away, the emptiness was partly filled by the Haiglers, who moved in behind them near the pond. Mike Haigler became his new companion, and for years the two boys explored their neighborhood together, riding bikes, climbing trees, fishing, building tree houses, and even trading a first kiss from a girl named Kim. Because their houses were separated by woods, they developed their own calling system: a whistle or high screech sent from one yard to the other, answered in kind if the other boy was free. As they grew older, the friendship cooled under teenage pressures and drifted apart, though they later repaired some of the distance. Years later, while mowing at his parents’ house with his own children riding on his lap, he stood at the edge of the yard and tried the old whistle again. The sound came back almost perfectly, but there was no answer. The silence made him grateful and sad at once, because the friendship lived on in memory even if the call did not return.

The lake memories carry that same mingling of joy, embarrassment, and kindness. Visiting Lake Tillery with his aunts, uncles, and cousins meant excitement, boats, and the wide water, but also a deep private shame: he wet the bed and feared discovery. Aunt Vivian and his cousins never mentioned it, and that silence became an unrecognized kindness. By day, Uncle Tilden gently encouraged him to overcome fear of the water. Eventually he learned to ski, then to tube on a crude tire with no handles, and finally to jump from the boathouse, first with his eyes shut and then again with growing confidence. The lake became a place where courage was built through patience, family, and reassurance. As an adult with children of his own, he bought a boat so he could share those same waters, hoping they would learn fear does not need to dictate possibility.

Part One: Asking Why?

I remember January 16, 1984, with a clarity that has never faded. I was sixteen years old and in high school, and a winter storm was moving toward the city. I worked as a bagger at a local grocery store, and the store called to ask if I could come in on my day off. Shoppers were stocking up before the storm, and they needed extra help.

The weather was not bad yet. I could use the money, and unlike many people, I had always enjoyed being out in the snow. I put on my jacket and headed to work.

As soon as I arrived, I realized I might be there for a while. Customers were coming in faster than usual, hurrying to get what they needed before the storm arrived. The store was hectic, and I do not remember taking a break. Sleet and snow came and went through the evening, although the worst of the storm was not expected until after midnight.

Our manager announced that we would close an hour early because of the weather. We normally closed at 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, but that night we would close at 9:00. I decided to stay and help until then.

Around 8:30, the store finally began to clear. I started sweeping the aisles before they were mopped while the other baggers went outside to gather the shopping carts. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Everyone was in a good mood, and I was excited by the thought that the snow might close school the next day.

Then, as I started down the frozen food aisle, I began thinking about my grandfather. He had been in the hospital for six weeks. He had gone in with a heart problem complicated by emphysema. For a while, he seemed to be recovering, but then he developed a staph infection and, eventually, pneumonia. The prognosis was not good.

My father and I had been taking turns visiting him in the evenings and sitting beside him. The nurses came in every hour and tried to clear his lungs. He drifted in and out of consciousness and was never fully coherent. The hardest part was watching him struggle to breathe. Something that came so naturally to me had become a painful, exhausting battle for him.

I was supposed to visit him that evening. In my excitement over the weather and the unexpected call from work, I completely forgot. My father knew it was my night to go, so he came straight home from work. When he realized that neither of us had gone to the hospital, he considered going himself. Instead, he called the nurses' station to ask whether anything had changed. They told him there had been no change, so he stayed home rather than drive in the worsening weather.

At about five minutes before 9:00, while I was thinking about my grandfather, a sick feeling came over me. I grew hot and sweaty and felt as though I were on the edge of a panic attack. Then I was seized by an overwhelming need to go home. I dropped the broom, ran out of the store, and drove home as fast as I could.

The first room I entered was the kitchen dining room. My father was hanging up the telephone. When he turned and saw me, he began to cry. In that instant, I knew.

We got into his car and headed for the hospital, overcome with guilt that neither of us had visited Grandpa that evening. As we drove, the snow finally began to fall. Only a short time earlier, I had been excited by the possibility of snow. Now I did not care about it at all.

The drive seemed endless, and the walk down the long hospital hallway felt even longer. It was after 10:00 p.m., and only the patients and hospital staff remained. A nurse met us outside Grandpa's door and walked in with us.

He was lying there just as he had been for weeks, except that the struggle to breathe was gone. The machines no longer hummed. He looked as though he were asleep, and his hands were still warm. I held them and cried so hard I could barely see. Then I leaned over and kissed his forehead one last time.

My next vivid memory is of standing by the window in his room and watching the snow fall while my grandmother and father sobbed behind me. My father asked the nurse when Grandpa had died. Her answer fixed that moment in my memory: he had stopped breathing at 8:55 that evening.

That was the same time I had been overwhelmed by the need to leave the store. I could not explain the timing, and I could not understand why someone so special to me was gone. Anger began to rise inside me, and before long I was asking God the question so many people ask in grief: Why? Why did this have to happen? Why my grandfather? Why me?

I was young. I am sure I believed I understood far more than I actually did, but the anger was overwhelming. I shut down for several days. I remember the visitation, the preparations, and the funeral. For more than a week, I went to the gravesite several times a day and cried.

This was my first real experience with the death of someone close to me, and I did not know how to process it. In my grief, I lost sight of my beliefs and religious convictions. I kept returning to the questions I had asked in the hospital room - questions that people before me had asked and that others after me would continue to ask.

That night did not answer my questions. It began them. For the next twelve years, I would keep asking why.

Many years had passed since I lost my grandfather, yet the question I asked on the night he died had never left me. Over time, "Why?" became something larger. I was no longer asking only why my grandfather had died. I was asking whether heaven and an afterlife were truly real.

The answer came on a warm spring evening after a fresh rain, when a phone call led to one of the most memorable experiences of my life. To understand that evening, however, I need to step back about a year.

My church had started a program called Stephen Ministry. It trained lay members to offer spiritual support to people facing grief, illness, divorce, or another difficult season. Our purpose was not to fix anyone's problems. We were there to listen, pray, and walk beside people through their struggles.

Ten of us volunteered for the first year of the program. We spent that year training in prayer, Scripture, listening, and spiritual care. At twenty-nine, I was the youngest person in the group.

After the training, each Stephen Minister was to be matched with someone who had asked for support. The pastor considered age, gender, and circumstances before making an assignment. Because I was only twenty-nine, several months passed before an appropriate match was found.

Then our minister, Peggy, called me at work. She told me about Bill, an elderly man and a charter member of our church. After Bill suffered a stroke, he and his wife had moved into an assisted living facility in town. More recently, they had been separated because his wife's health needs required her to live at another facility a few miles away.

Bill had two daughters and a son. One daughter lived out of town, and the other was busy running her business. His son lived nearby but, for reasons I did not fully understand, was not very involved. I told Peggy I would meet Bill and see whether the arrangement might work.

Privately, I wondered what I could possibly say to a man so much older than I was. What would we have in common? What could I offer him at my age? I was nervous, but I agreed to go.

That evening, I checked in at the facility's front desk. A nurse told me to take the elevator down one floor and walk along the hall to Bill's small apartment. She called ahead to let him know I was coming. With plenty of anxiety, I stepped into the elevator.

When the doors opened, a very frail man was standing in front of me. He wore thick glasses and was extremely thin. He looked weak and ill, but one thing stood out immediately: his smile. Bill reached out to shake my hand, and the warmth of that smile eased my anxiety.

We walked to his apartment and sat down. The television was on, and I was not sure what to say, so I told him about my wife, my life, and what was happening at church. I did not stay long. That first visit was simply a chance for us to meet and discover whether we could share fellowship.

Before leaving, I asked whether he would like me to pray with him. He welcomed the idea, and I could tell prayer meant a great deal to him. I did the best I could, prayed with him, and drove home still wondering what Bill could possibly gain from me. Peggy encouraged me when I called her, so I scheduled another visit.

Over time, something meaningful grew between Bill and me. Church and the youth group gave us plenty to talk about. I eventually met the daughter who lived in town, and she helped me understand more about Bill, his family, and his wife.

The stroke had left Bill with difficulty eating and controlling his lower jaw. Sometimes I gently wiped the drool from his chin. When I visited during dinner, I occasionally helped him at the table. Bill had spent much of his life doing things for himself, so I tried to help without taking away his dignity or crossing his boundaries.

For years, Bill had run a successful upscale clothing store in the South End of town. After he retired, his son took over the business. I never learned the full story, but the store eventually closed, leaving a deep wedge between father and son. During the six months I visited Bill, I do not remember seeing his son at all.

Just before a family vacation, Peggy called to say that Bill's health had taken another turn for the worse. I tried to visit before we left town, but my schedule would not allow it. I called Bill instead and promised to see him after we returned. I worried that something might happen while I was away, but nothing did.

We came home on a Sunday afternoon, and I called Bill to arrange a visit later that week. He sounded fairly upbeat. A couple of days later, however, I came home from work and immediately received another call. This time it was the nursing home.

Bill was doing very poorly. Both ministers from my church were unavailable, so the nursing home called me. I did not know what I could do. I only knew the situation was serious and that Bill was dying.

I drove there with my stomach in knots. Memories of sitting in my grandfather's hospital room twelve years earlier came flooding back, and I felt close to panic. When I reached the parking lot, I sat in the car for several minutes, afraid of what I would find and unsure what I could possibly offer. Then I did the only thing I knew to do: I prayed for guidance and strength.

The sun was going down when I entered the building. Most of the residents were already in their rooms, and the hallway looked unusually dark. When I opened Bill's door, I found him lying on the bed, struggling to breathe. A man sat beside him, and a nurse waited quietly in a corner. Only one small lamp was on. The room felt cold and empty.

I introduced myself to the man beside the bed and learned that he was Bill's son. I was taken aback. I explained who I was and how I knew his father, then pulled a chair near the bed. This was a moment between a father and son, and I wanted to respect their space.

For several minutes, we sat in silence. Every so often, Bill's son told him I was there, but he kept calling me Brad. My name is Bruce, yet I did not correct him. This was not the time to point out a mistake.

As I watched, it seemed that Bill's son wanted to connect with his father but did not know how. He kept his distance and did not touch him. I closed my eyes for a moment and silently asked God to help me.

Then Bill's son told him once more that Brad was there. Bill looked at him and, in a soft but firm voice, said, "His name is Bruce." He turned toward me and smiled. In that moment, I sensed that an opportunity had opened for this wounded father and son to move toward each other.

I told Bill we were going to move closer beside him. With one hand, I held Bill's hand; with the other, I gently guided his son's hand into his father's. Then I moved to the other side of the bed with his son and began speaking with them about the love they shared. I do not remember the exact words. I only remember that the distance between them seemed to soften.

About thirty minutes passed, and Bill's breathing grew worse. He seemed to be holding on for his daughters, who were still hours away. I told him he did not need to worry about them and that they were with him in spirit.

It was clear that Bill did not have much time. I offered to pray with him and his son, and they agreed. I cannot recall the words of that prayer, but I believed God was helping me speak. When it ended, Bill looked at me, and I could see the struggle in his eyes.

Still holding hands, I leaned closer and said, "It's okay, Bill. You can go now. Your suffering is over. God is waiting."

Bill looked at his son and then back at me. A peaceful expression settled across his face. He took one long breath, then looked upward over our shoulders for what felt like minutes. A soft, gentle exhale followed.

Then the most glorious expression came over his face. It seemed as though he was glowing from within. His eyes opened wide, like those of a newborn child seeing the world for the first time. Wonder filled his face, and he smiled softly at whatever he was seeing. In that brief and sacred moment, his life slipped away.

The room felt empty. I continued holding Bill's hand, just as I had held my grandfather's hand twelve years earlier. Then I took his son's hand and prayed for Bill and his family. I prayed for what felt like an hour. I ended with the Lord's Prayer, and his son joined me.

I could never have imagined being part of such a moment. I had come into the room carrying years of questions, yet I found myself helping a father and son draw close and accompanying Bill as he left this life.

My minister arrived soon afterward, followed by Bill's two daughters. I shared the news with them one at a time. We hugged and cried, but we also rejoiced.

That night, I believed God gave me the answer I had been seeking. I saw heaven through Bill's eyes. What I witnessed did not explain every mystery of suffering or death, but it gave me a certainty I had not known before: heaven was real to me, and it was more than I could imagine.

We like to believe that we should be able to understand everything, but we cannot. We are not the Maker; He is. Because of Bill, I no longer fear what waits beyond this life. When my own time comes, I look forward to standing in awe before my Lord.

Bill also taught me how brief this life is. I think about the hurt between him and his son and how close they came to losing the chance to reach for each other. We often assume we will have tomorrow to mend a relationship, speak the truth, offer forgiveness, or say, "I love you." We do not know what tomorrow will hold.

I was honored to be with Bill that night and to share in a Christian's final walk home. After more than twelve years of asking, I finally knew what I had been searching for.

For many years, I asked whether heaven was real. That night, through Bill's eyes, I received my answer.

I was seventeen years old, energetic, certain I would live forever, and convinced I already knew most of what I needed to know. Then a man from our church named Buddy invited the youth group into the rural mountains of North Carolina for a week of service at Hinton Rural Life Center. That trip became one of my first truly life-changing experiences.

The center was in Hayesville, near Murphy and Franklin, in one of the poorest areas of the state. I had never traveled to that part of North Carolina and had little idea what we would find. We raised the money, packed our things, and finally gathered for the long ride west.

Before we left, Buddy led us in prayer. He reminded us that we were going to serve people in need and expected us to put ourselves last for the week. We represented our church and community, he said, and our conduct needed to reflect that responsibility. I listened, although I did not yet understand how much the lesson would ask of me.

The deeper we drove into the Blue Ridge Mountains, the more beautiful the land became. At the center, we met two other groups that would work with us: a small group from Danville, Virginia, and a group of six from Mt. Sterling, Illinois. We divided into teams and spent the first day in activities designed to prepare us for the work ahead.

Each morning began at 6:00. We ate breakfast, packed lunches and supplies, and left for the work sites by 8:00. On the first day, I felt as if I had entered another world. It was 1984, and I had not realized that families in my own state were still living in homes without running water or electricity.

My team worked on the home of a gentleman whose house had no insulation. We hung drywall and installed insulation to help prepare it for winter. By the standards I knew, he possessed very little. Yet he carried deep faith, compassion, and hope, and throughout the week he seemed more concerned about the needs of the young people helping him than about his own.

Another team replaced the roof of a nearby woman named Violet, a cousin of country singer Ronnie Milsap. The stories that team brought back made all of us eager to meet her. She had little in material terms, but she possessed an abundance of wisdom, warmth, and life. We invited her to the closing cookout at the center.

The final evening was nearly perfect. We sat outdoors with home-cooked food, pleasant weather, and the fellowship that had grown among us during the week. We sang, read Scripture, and prayed together. Then, just as we thought the evening had ended, Violet stood and said she wanted to do something for us.

My first thought exposed how much I still had to learn: What could she possibly do for us that we did not already have?

Violet reached into her picnic basket and lifted out a washcloth and a pan of water. She asked us to come forward one at a time, in silence, with our shoes removed and our pant legs rolled up. She intended to wash our feet, just as Jesus had washed the feet of His disciples.

One by one, we went to her. Violet thanked each of us, prayed for us, and washed our feet. No one walked away with dry eyes. In a few quiet moments, she gave us something no work project or group activity could have taught: humility made

The story of Eulalia, the author’s grandmother, returns through the papers she saved and the words he had once written for her. After she died at one hundred in 2001, he tried to find a childhood poem she had kept on her refrigerator, but instead discovered a sixth-grade English assignment that said he wanted to be his grandmother’s Valentine because she had always taught that every person is special and that love should be shared all year long. The rediscovered piece becomes a window into what she meant to him: a woman whose faith, affection, and steady presence had shaped an entire family. He reflects on her name, learning that eulalia is a strong kind of grass that bends without breaking, and sees in that image the whole arc of her life. She lived through change for a century, carried her family through it, and never lost her faith or her tenderness. He imagines the young father who once held her as a baby and could not have known the long life, the many descendants, and the wide circle of love that would grow from that little girl. The remembrance turns intimate and thankful, ending with the sense that if someone could simply close their eyes, breathe, and smile for a moment, they would feel something of what it was like to have been loved by her.

The next memory begins with his father under hospice care after years of lung disease. While the family was visiting him and grief was already pressing in, the author and his wife stopped at Lowe’s, where he became fixated on a pressure washer and convinced himself that buying it would solve the smoke stains on the outside trim of their house. The purchase becomes a comic but revealing failure. His wife doubts that the box will fit in their Civic trunk, and she is right. At home, he assembles the machine, sprays the trim, and finds that it does little to remove the smoke. His father-in-law arrives with a simple cleaner and sprayer that work better than the expensive washer. Then, while trying to fix a leak, he places a finger over a pressurized hose and cuts himself badly, learning the hard way that the water is not harmless at all. The real point of the episode is not the foolish purchase but the emotional pressure underneath it. He breaks down because the pressure washer was a distraction from the deeper fear he was carrying about his dying father. The machine becomes a symbol of how people reach for busy work, projects, or possessions when they cannot yet face sorrow directly. The lesson is plain: the visible problem is not always the real one, and sometimes what seems like stubbornness or nonsense is really grief looking for somewhere to go.

That insight leads into a meditation on selfishness, framed by a sermon the author heard after returning to church for a baptism. The pastor’s message made him think about a culture increasingly shaped by “it’s all about me.” He argues that healthy self-care is not the same as a life centered only on personal wants and immediate gratification. When service disappears, people become trapped inside their own anxieties, purchases, ambitions, and disappointments. A man who brags that losing his job has made him “free” seems to him deeply mistaken, because freedom without responsibility or concern for others becomes another kind of prison. Faith, by contrast, calls people outward: to ask whom they can encourage, what burden they can help carry, and how their own life can become useful to someone else. Service is not about status or dramatic sacrifice. It is about making room for someone else’s need and discovering that a life becomes larger when it is offered beyond itself.

The tenderness of ordinary help becomes personal again in the memory of the trolley man. On an anniversary getaway in downtown Charlotte, nearly everything goes wrong: the children make picture-taking difficult, the lunch line drags on, the truck inspection and parking plan unravel, the hotel room is wet, and the couple is forced to change rooms. When they board a trolley to dinner, rain begins, they get off too far from the restaurant, and after a good meal the storm returns harder. A wrong turn leads them to the bus station, and the author’s foot drops into a pothole nearly to his knee. By the time they finally board the trolley again, they are cold, soaked, and barely speaking. But the driver is cheerful, joking and greeting people with infectious energy. At first his cheerfulness irritates them; then, slowly, it changes the mood. They begin laughing at the disaster of the day, at each other, and even at the mistakes themselves. The ride becomes the turning point of the evening. The trolley man never fixes the rain or the problems, but his joy gives the couple enough lift to recover from their frustration. That simple presence, the author suggests, is its own kind of kindness: someone willing to smile first so others can remember that a bad moment does not have to become a ruined night.

The theme of being remembered returns more solemnly in the account of an undelivered book. While his wife’s uncle Larry Baker was dying of cancer, her thoughts turned to his love of Civil War history. Before she could ask the author to look for a book to bring him, a coworker unexpectedly handed him a Civil War title from a closet cleaning. The timing seemed uncanny, as if the book had arrived for Larry through a route neither of them could have planned. The author nearly took it to the hospital, but Larry died that evening before the delivery could happen. The gift never reached its intended hands, yet it still mattered because it turned their thoughts toward him on the day of his death. The disappointment remains, but so does the sense that some gifts have a purpose even when they do not arrive on time.

That idea of perspective shifts into a lesson learned from a boy flipping a quarter at a summer camp in Washington, D.C. during a heated debate. The boy asked what year was stamped on the quarter, then flipped it over and asked again. The answer never changed, because the coin was the same. What changed was the angle of vision. The author uses the story to argue that people too often treat their own perspective as if it were the whole truth. Wisdom requires looking at the flip side before deciding we understand a person, argument, or situation. It is a call to curiosity over certainty, especially when disagreement tempts people to ignore what they cannot see from where they stand.

The final stories in the section move from noticing to stopping. While driving home from Bojangles one Friday evening, the author and his family spot an elderly man at the bottom of a steep yard pushing a mower while holding a walker. They turn around and come back, unsure whether to offer help. The man refuses, saying his son usually handles the yard and that he is already finished. Still, as the author walks away, the man calls after him, “I knew you would stop by.” The words stay with him, not because he had actually helped with the mowing, but because he had at least been willing to turn around, notice, and ask. Compassion, he reflects, begins when we stop passing by people who may need us. The companion memory of his mother as the Card Lady extends that same idea across years and states. A simple thank-you from one woman encouraged her to keep sending cards, and what began as a few notes grew into a ministry reaching hundreds of people each month. Birthday cards, get-well cards, notes to grandchildren, and brief messages of encouragement became proof that no one had been forgotten. The lesson is that small acts can multiply in ways no one can predict. A card, a turn-around on a country road, a few minutes of attention, a smile on a trolley, a borrowed book, or a rediscovered grandmother’s love can quietly carry grace farther than anyone expects.