When my late uncle Wylie’s daughter, Karen, born, raised and lives in England, posted a wedding picture of him with her mother on her mother’s Facebook’s page as a tribute to her mother on her birthday, not only did it bring back to my remembrance of how he looked some sixty years ago when he suddenly left to join the military, after becoming the man of the house after my grandfather died when I was around the age of eight, it made me to remember how my relationship with my uncle Wylie had been more like a friend who was closer than a brother than one of a father, because he was only a teenager when he became the man of the house.
But Karen’s post made me to see a similarity of the relationship I had with my uncle to the one that I have today with Jesus, as a Friend who is closer than a brother. And I cannot help but wonder whether this similarity was a coincidence or the hand of God that had worked to create the similarity. I believe this exert from the story “About” that is on my website demonstrates that God had a hand in it:
“On the spiritual side of this equation, with the similarity to God the Father, the living God and Jesus, my late grandfather would be as if God the Father, my late dad would be as if the living God, and my late uncle Wylie, the only son born from that union of my grandparents, would be as if Jesus. For just as Jesus and the living God had the same Father as Their Creator, our heavenly Father, my dad and uncle Wylie had the same father as their creator, my grandfather – Mr. Porter.”
Just as Jesus is a Savior, you can say in a way that my uncle Wyle took on the role of saving me from not having a father figure in the house. He even did some of the things a father would do. He gave me my own rifle when I was around ten or eleven, tried to teach me to hunt rabbits, but once I got that fury little critter in my gun-sight, I couldn’t pull the trigger. I felt less than a man. But my uncle never said a word, he never ridiculed me, he just treated it like it never happened. Uncle Wyle taught me how to drive before the legal age to drive, and he was just a joy to be around.
My late brother Charles and I, two years older than myself, were raised by my grandparents. After my grandfather died, I suspect uncle Wylie felt obligated to stay as long as he could to help my grandmother. While both the Vietnam war and the draft were going strong, uncle Wyle had been spared for awhile after breaking his leg while sliding into home-plate while playing baseball right out of high school. But when his number came around again to be drafted into the Army, when he went for his physical, to avoid being drafted into the Army, which would have almost guaranteed going to Vietnam, he joined the Air Force. He literally went for his physical and never came back.
We became pen pals for awhile, but over time, the communication would stop. I already had practice in a way to become a pen pal. When uncle Wylie broke his leg, which forced him to stay home from his job at the local rock quarry, he got hooked on the Soaps. When he went back to work, I had to watch the Soaps to keep him informed of the latest happenings. And my keeping him informed while we were pen pals for awhile after he joined the military was the same as verbally informing him.
I have nothing but fond memories of my uncle Wylie. And I would like to say to you, Karen, after having to have had the pleasure of meeting you, his flesh and blood, I think you are wonderful, and I just love you to pieces. So thank you for posting that picture of my late uncle Wylie and your mom. For it really brought back those fond memories that I had long forgotten. And now I can see the role God used him to play in this whole thing of my being called as God’s servant to come called Elijah. But I’m just grateful for the time I had with your dad, Mr. Wylie Porter, whom I will always remember as… “Uncle Wylie.”
Elijah Has Come 