This is Chapter 25 from my soon-coming book, “Parkinson’s & Recreation 3 - The No Parkinson’s Zone”
“In a universe that's an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.”—Wayne Dye
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/waynedyer718096.html
Paul. Paul. Paul. I have to laugh when I think about it. While reading Dad’s last will and testament as my brothers and I became more aware that Dad was not going to make it, I chuckle at the very first words Dad wrote:
LAST WILL & TESTAMENT
OF SAMUEL ROBERT JERNIGAN
Of sound mind (I wonder sometimes) and sound body (wearing out)
Funeral Arrangements
DO NOT (I repeat DO NOT) put a suit and tie on me!!! If you do I’ll come back and haunt ye…
What made me laugh the most was that near the end of Dad’s life and while in and out of consciousness in ICU, Paul leaned down close to Dad’s ear and whispered, “You know I’m dressing your butt in a suit and tie.” I love my family for being able to laugh in the face of such life-altering moments. Paul told me on several occasions during Dad’s ICU stay how he and Dad had talked about his imminent death…and that Dad was ready to go.
Several things come to mind when thinking about my brother, Paul. Second-born of the four Jernigan boys, he was arguably the most accident-prone (Time has allowed me to threaten for that title on more than one occasion!). As monumental moments come in life, Paul has had more than his fair share, like the time when he was eighteen months old and Mom ran over him with the tractor.
Although I was only eighteen months older than Paul, I still remember that day quite vividly. There is something incredibly powerful that takes place when trauma occurs—something that sears a memory indelibly into the mind at a seemingly impossible young age. We were out on the farm that day with the intention of building a bridge across the small creek (we boys called it “the ditch”) just to the north of the stand of persimmon trees and the two front ponds.
This “bridge” was nothing more than Dad placing a tin-horn in the ditch and using the box-blade to cover the tin-horn with dirt. Once the dirt was filled in around and over the tin-horn, one could drive over the ditch, allowing access from one side of the ditch to the other. This eased access from the front pasture to the back pasture.
While Dad did the bulk of heavy work with the tractor, Mom would help with the shovel, throwing shovelfuls of dirt between the tin-horn and other side of the ditch. While she and Dad worked away, Paul and I played happily in the pasture, running freely and pretending, as little boys do, hiding from one another in the tall grass.
As Dad came to a place of completing all he could do with the tractor, he hopped to the ground and took a shovel and began helping Mom fill in the small gaps missed by the box-blade. Shoveling away, they left Paul and I to our play. After a short while, Mom took notice of the quiet. I remember her frantically asking me, “Where is Paul?! Where is your brother?!” I simply pointed to the pasture where I had last seen him. In a frenzy of mama-bear-searching-for-her-cub panic, Mom ran quickly around the pasture calling out for Paul and hearing nothing. Had he fallen into a hole? Had he somehow made it the quarter-mile back to the house? Had he been trampled by a cow? All she knew is that she had to find my brother.
Leaping onto the tractor to gain a higher vantage point, Mom could still not locate Paul. As she continued to call out his name, she yelled to me, “Dennis, go to your daddy and stay there!” While I ran toward Dad in obedience due to fear and the panic I heard in her voice, I heard the tractor crank to life as she started the engine. Turning around just in time to see her head out to the open pasture, I heard Mom scream as she quickly leapt from the tractor. My immediate thought in that moment? “Wow! Mom is really glad she found Paul!” No sooner had we heard the scream than my Dad took off toward Mom, leaving me frozen on top of the freshly buried tin-horn.
Mom had not seen Paul crouching in the grass, but she felt the moment the front tire ran over him. Not seeing him until it was too late, she had run over his head! My memories after that moment fade into watching Mom with Paul’s body dangling from her arms as she held him tightly while running to the pickup. I remember my Dad sweeping me up and running toward the truck as well, feeling like I could fly (Weird what one recalls of childhood memories, right?). I can still feel the exhilaration of fear that swept through me as we raced toward the ER. Memory fades even further as all I can recall beyond that point was hearing grown-up talk about his skull being cracked, and nothing more. I remember feeling very relieved when Mom told me Paul would be just fine. This was simply more proof to me that Paul was truly hard-headed!
Through the years, we became quite accustomed to Paul’s little, and multiple, mishaps. Now that I am older and wiser, I think Paul simply had an adventurous spirit, and maybe a bit of Type-A personality about him. Soon after the tractor incident, we were sitting in the family room of our little farmhouse when Paul suddenly began to convulse, turn red, and lose consciousness! Once again, I remember heading toward the hospital with my parents, my younger brother, third-born Bob, and me in the back seat while Dad drove and Mom trying to resuscitate Paul in the front seat. I can still hear the fearful concern in Mom’s voice as she cried out to my Dad, “Robert! I think he swallowed his tongue!”
While Paul’s lips and cheeks began to turn blue from a lack of oxygen, Dad yelled to Mom, “Use your fingers and reach down his throat and try to pull his tongue up!” After a few seconds of my mom frantically digging into my brother’s mouth, she was able to clear his airway. I knew everything was all right when I heard Paul begin to sob. Mom began to comfort him while Dad turned the car around and headed back home. Once again, my main memory is that of feeling relieved because my brother was going to be OK, and mostly because I could sense the relief of my parents. One would think one would get used to such moments, but thanks to the misfortune of my brother, I never quite got there!
In addition to the aforementioned moments of calamity, there were the “other” moments. Like the day I dared him to throw a rock at the wasp nest. I can still see Paul’s swollen and unrecognizable face after the yellow jackets were done with him.
And, of course, who could forget the time I created a simple fulcrum using a board and a brick? I discovered that I could place one end of the board on the ground and then place a rock on that same end, that I could stomp on the raised end of the board and launch the rock high into the stratosphere. My little brother watched in awe as I successfully made several launches. With great excitement, Paul cried out, “My turn! Let me try!” No sooner had he placed the stone on the lowered end of the board, he stomped on the raised end of the board with all his might sending the rock flying perfectly toward his face and directly into his front teeth! For several years, the fake silver tooth he sported reminded him, and our entire family, to be very careful when launching stones into the air!
Even as I commit these memories to written word, I see a sort of theme involving me! In other words, I cannot always blame Paul for being accident-prone, especially in light of the “Great Crawdad-Fishing-Incident”. By the time Paul was four and I was five and Bob was three, Dad and Mom had already schooled us on the finer techniques of and adventures to be found in crawdad fishing (For any city-slickers reading, by crawdad, I mean crayfish).
Our parents would allow us to go down to the little creek (the ditch) running through our property during lazy summer days and fish for the small crustaceans. We were taught early on how to wrap a pic of bacon around a hook, dip that hook and bait into the murky water and wait for that tell-tale sign of movement. Whenever any slight movement was detected, we merely raised the hook to find a crawdad, or several, clinging to the bacon with their powerful pincers. Like a crane on a construction site, we would turn the pole and direct the dangling creature into the bucket of water we kept ready nearby. Shaking the crawdad from the pole, we would repeat again and again.
On one such fishing expedition, I felt the need to demonstrate the latest casting technique I had witnessed my Dad demonstrate while on a fishing trip to the pond with him. Without checking my surroundings (as I learned to do from this day on), I slung the pole behind me with great flare. Casting the line forward with similar flare and great force, I sent the hook and bait flying toward the ditch, only to snag it on something like a branch, a fence post or a cow! Only when I heard my brother, Paul, cry out in pain, did I turn to discover where my hook had snagged.
Half-walking and half-running awkwardly toward the house with my pole in one hand and trying to slow my shrieking brother with the other, I tried to keep the pressure off the hook which had caught him squarely in the mouth, and now protruded prominently from his outer jaw! Dad came to the rescue with his trusty pliers, cutting away the barbed end of the hook and sliding it easily into and out of his mouth. Sorry, Paul!
Another incident worth mentioning in the on-going saga of Paul involved a horse. Though I do not recall this horse’s name, I can remember the gelding being a very beautiful paint with reddish-brown splotches on a coat of white. As we did on almost a daily basis for many years, Paul, our brothers, cousins and I rode around the property playing chase on horseback. As Paul raced through the yard in pursuit of a sibling or cousin, I decided I could lose him if I rode under the clothesline, knowing to follow me on such an unexpected path would surely slow him down enough to hasten my escape…
My plan worked perfectly. As I ducked under the clothes line and encouraged my horse to fly, I turned around to see if my plan had succeeded just in time to see Paul rein his horse toward and under the long, thick wires. Before I could say a word, Paul stopped in midair and was pulled violently from his horse’s back! Falling backwards onto the ground and writhing there in pain, my mind was drawn to reminiscences of Wile E. Coyote in pursuit of the Roadrunner. Although I must admit my first thoughts led me to chuckle at Paul’s “Wile E. Coyote” moment, his agony pulled me into reality. For the next few days, Paul walked around sporting quite a raised whelp that ran across his neck in a swollen and very visible red line. Once again, I was involved in a Paul-mishap and, once again, I thought to myself ‘it’s a wonder he didn’t break his neck’. But that day would come soon enough.
Speaking of a broken neck. Have I told you about the time when I was sixteen and Paul was fifteen when he actually did break his neck? I will never forget that day as long as I live. As was often the case in the summertime, our family could be found camping at Horseshoe Bend on the Illinois River, just above Lake Tenkiller in northeastern Oklahoma. On this particular trip, we had invited our friends Glen and Marie Myers and their daughter, Lory. One of our favorite things to do was to have someone take a bunch of us upstream along with our inner tubes and drop us off to then float all the way back to camp. On this day, my Dad took us boys, my Mom and Lory about 4 miles up river from the boat landing at Horseshoe Bend. The reason we even stopped at this particular place was because we had spotted a rope swing hanging out over the river. Just below this area were some excellent rapids for floating, so we decided this was as good a place as any to embark on our journey.
I remember we floated the rapids several times, floating down for the thrill of the rough ride and then walking back up to the head of the rapids to do it all over again and again! After we tired of this, Paul, Lory and I decided we would try out the rope swing. The swing was simply a long section of very thick rope which hung from a cottonwood tree that extended out over the river. By climbing up the fifteen-foot rock cliffs and launching from the top, we could swing out to the very center of the river and drop into the cool, clear water. After we had each taken several turns, we felt it was time to try something more daring.
Our plan was simple. We would all three swing to the center of the river while hanging from the same rope! Since we knew we could not all three begin from the edge of the cliff (the rope wouldn’t reach far enough), we decided Lory would swing out first then swing back in since the weight of the person on the swing would carry the rope closer to the next “swinger”. Then Paul would grab the rope and swing out with Lory and they would both swing back up to get me!
Lory was the first to swing. We were so excited! Here came Lory, closer and closer to the rim of the cliff. Paul readied himself at the edge of the cliff to grab the rope. Only Lory’s weight didn’t carry her as close to the edge as we thought it would. By this time, Paul had already leaned out over the edge in anticipation of grabbing the rope. Since Lory didn’t come quite close enough, Paul reached out to grab the swing just as the swing carried Lory out of his reach! Paul began to fall and he knew he could not get his balance so he attempted to make a dive out of his fall. And he dove, head first into the river’s shallow edge.
I remember feeling sick because I knew the water was only 3 feet deep at the most! My worst fears were realized, though, when Paul didn’t surface immediately. Lory, too, saw what had happened and jumped in to swim to Paul’s aid. Mama and Daddy saw it all from across the river where the boat was moored. Mom began to swim frantically towards Paul while still in her inner tube and I jumped as quickly as I could down the path from the cliff. I reached Paul first.
By this time he had managed to stand up. But I could tell he was badly hurt. There was blood everywhere. Since the water was so shallow, his head had landed on solid bedrock. His front teeth were cracked as blood flowed from his mouth. On the top of his head was a deep gash in the shape of a horseshoe, the flesh laid back like a flap, bleeding profusely. But most serious was the obvious damage to his neck. While nothing seemed wrong as far as cuts or bruises on the outside of his neck, we could tell by the way he stood so stiffly up that he was badly hurt on the inside.
By this time, my Dad had gotten the boat over to Paul. Mom was attempting to hold Paul as still as she could. Since there were many rough rapids to go over to get back to camp, my Dad instructed my Mom to get into the boat so Paul could lie down across the seats of the small aluminum dinghy. In this manner, she could rest his head and neck between her legs to hold Paul as still as possible. Dad told us to find our own way back to camp, which should have spoken to me of the seriousness of Paul’s injuries. We watched in silence and fear, all whispering a prayer under our collectively-held breath, as they slowly traversed the first set of rapids then sped out of sight down the river and out of sight.
We knew we were several miles from camp and that we either had to float back or walk over the thickly wooded hills to get there. As my thoughts began to settle, I began to regret not insisting that I be allowed to go back to camp in the boat, but knew my parents were depending on me to find a way back to camp for my little brothers and Lory. Besides, there would have been no room for me in that tiny vessel.
After several minutes of discussion, we decided the quickest way back to camp was to go “as the crow flies”—straight over the hills through the brambles and brush. The trek seemed kind of exciting at first, but after a couple of hours of tediously wrestling our way through the underbrush, the trek became more of a trudge. Not only was there much brush and the subsequent scrapes and scratches, but the humidity and heat began to take their toll on us. Coupling this exhaustion with the unspoken fear and dread involving all of us, we began to grow exhausted, and exhaustion soon turned into desperation. I recall praying silently, asking God to protect Paul and to provide a quicker and easier way back to camp. As quickly as those thoughts were “uttered”, we came to a clearing and a road! Before we knew it, we were able to flag down a passing pickup truck and, after quickly explaining our predicament, we were gladly driven back back to the campground.
After leaping from the back of the truck and a quick nod of thanks to the Good Samaritan, I expected to find news of Paul’s condition. Expected someone to have some news, but the lack of information sent my mind whirling out of control with worst-case-scenario imaginations. Was he paralyzed? Was he conscious? Was he…alive!? Running to the first adult face I saw, I asked Glen, “How is Paul?!” His response—a slow shake of his head from side to side—spoke volumes and sent unfathomable dread through my being. The thought of Paul dying left me faint and dumbfounded.
When I finally came back to reality, Glen assured me that Paul was alive when they had come into camp. He told me that I needed to drive home as quickly as I could and get my parents some dry clothes, to find Dad’s checkbook and go find my parents and brother at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa. Serious news. Mind-searing news.
Driving the sixty or so miles gave me plenty of time to think about the myriad possibilities and to relive every conceivable outcome over and over in my mind, as a sixteen year old boy. Trying to quiet my mind and focus on what I knew to be true—that Paul was still alive—gave me a place to focus my thoughts—gave me something to put hope in. Driving and praying through those thoughts, eyes clouded with tears, I somehow made it home and retrieved all the items my parents had needed. Before heading for Tulsa, another fifty miles away, I regained enough of my senses to call my Aunt Patsy and fill her in on what had transpired. Since she lived nearby, she rode with me to the hospital, saying only a few words all the way there, both of us praying silently for Paul’s protection.
We found my parents and found out Paul had indeed broken his neck. Since the campground was near the small city of Talequah, they had taken him to that hospital first and were told his injuries were too severe to be dealt with at those facilities and that he might not survive, much less ever walk again. Paul was then transported by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa where we received much better news. Although he had cracked several upper vertebrae in his neck, my brother seemed to have complete use of his entire body below the break!
Upon hearing this wonderful news, I asked to see Paul. I remember Mom leading me to Paul’s room and how we seemed to be walking in slow motion. The closer we drew to the room, the faster my heart raced, and then Mom began to prepare me for what I would face. “Dennis, Paul looks different—very different—from what you are used to seeing. Just don’t let him see you act shocked or anything…”
Her warning was an understatement. The gap between what I had expected to see and what reality proved to be sent me into an emotional stupor. Like trying to focus one’s eyes after seeing something precious morph into something unrecognizable right before one’s eyes, I had expected Paul to be in some sort of brace, lying peacefully in his tranquil hospital bed, nurses lovingly attending to his every need. What I saw was my brother’s body suspended in midair, sandwiched between two boards, tubes running in and out of his body at various points! But what blew my mind and sent me into a tailspin was the shaven head with a metal screw protruding from either side of his head, which meant they had drilled holes in his head. Like a laser, my thoughts began to focus as I traced the cable attached to those screws to the weights attached to the ends of those cables, holding his entire body deathly still, motionless, in traction.
As my mind fought to take all this in, I began to grow faint and excused myself to the hallway as quickly as I could. It was there in that hallway that the full weight of my brother’s wounds began to come into clear and full focus and all I could do was cry, and cry and cry. In those moments, I let go of the fear and dread I had carried since the moment we loaded Paul into that little boat and replaced them with the dread and fear of seeing my little brother lying there helpless and in pain. Suffering. From that day forward, I could not bring myself to visit Paul in the hospital, choosing to drown my anxiety in chores and work and whatever else I could fill my mind with, reasoning that since Mom and Dad would need to spend as much time with Paul as they could, that I would keep up with the farm chores. The garden needed tending and the cows would still need to be milked. If I am honest, I regret not going to see him again, but God wastes nothing, not even my regrets.
During the next six weeks that Paul spent in the hospital, he grew several inches. My little brother was now taller than me! Upon his release, he was instructed to wear a special neck brace in order to keep his neck supported at all times. My brother had perfect posture after that brace had done its work, which made him appear even taller. I guess I allowed the shame of my regret to keep me from expressing what I felt toward my brother. For many years after the accident, I found it almost impossible to watch Paul participate in any kind of physical activity. But, Paul being Paul (and I would have done the same), he kept right on playing basketball, riding horses and right on doing all the things a boy does in his teenage years, like jumping from the ninety-foot cliff at Lake Tenkiller called, appropriately, “Big Daddy”!
Through the years since that time, we have had the privilege of looking back with a new perspective—God’s point of view. One such recollection sums it all up. When I asked Mom what had happened when they had gotten to camp that day—how they had been able to get Paul into the truck—her reply? “Angels”. She explained that when they had arrived at the boat ramp at the campground there were several men standing there as if waiting specifically to help. Neither Mom or Dad recognized any of the men, and usually we had been casually acquainted with other campers occupying the small camp area. Even after asking around, no one knew of any such men ever having camped or fished in that area that day. Everything had happened so quickly, as if by design, as if we had been among angels that day…
Paul went on to build an amazing marriage with Sandy, raise three awesome children, and now being a granddad to his grandchildren. All of these memories and more filled my mind with gratitude and wonder at the workings of God as I listened to Paul eulogize at our father’s funeral. As he challenged those in attendance to live life in a holy way like our dad had, I could not help but see the challenge to others his own life was and is. In that moment, I wanted to be like my little brother. That thought was fleeting as another picture invaded my reverie. Chuckling quietly to my big-brother self, I recalled the most recent Paul episode, when he realized something was wrong with the electric wire powering the gas well on his property. Not having a tall enough ladder to reach said wire, he positioned the pickup truck beneath the wire and then placed the ladder he did have in the bed of the truck. As he climbed the ladder, sparks flew when he made contact, plummeting his body toward earth, striking the truck on his way toward the ground of his living to tell yet another story on another day.
"I'm the oldest, I make the rules. I'm in the middle, I'm the reason we have rules. I'm the youngest the rules don't apply to me.”—Unknown
Dennnis Jernigan
Photo courtesy of https://pixabay.com/images/download/huskyherz-to-bathe-384121_1920.jpg
