My brother Jim is 65!

Jim and Mom in 1970, in the front yard at Fort Custer, Battle Creek, Michigan.

He wasn’t supposed to live to retirement age. He has no job from which to retire. He’s never held one. Never went to school. Never spoken a sentence of English.

They said not to expect him to live much past early childhood. If he hit the toddler years, he would never toddle.  If he did make it to the school-age years, there would be no kindergarten for him.

He would never set out on his own. Or make any plans. Or dream about the future.

His doctor said that he had no future.

And now my oldest brother, Jim, has turned sixty-five years old.  And, I’ll be, but he has enjoyed a good, rich life.

I wrote about Jim a few years ago, so I won’t go over the details as to why his prognosis was so dim after he was wrongly medicated for whooping cough and encephalitis. You may read the first piece here:
https://eilerspizza.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/my-brother-and-my-son/

Picking up where I left off in the first writing, not only would Jim make it out of infancy, he grew strong. With no ability to walk, he didn’t grow tall as he surely otherwise would have—Dad was 6’3″, Tom too, and I got to 6’2″—but lifelong physical therapy would build firm muscles. Indeed, Jim became so strong that it made him a handful.

My folks involved Jim in family events as much as possible. Some Christmases, we brought him home from nearby Muskegon, where he was finally placed in the mid-70s after nearly twenty years in institutional places in Coldwater and Battle Creek. Jim was able to use a toilet but, since he could not make his way on his own, two of us had to walk him. Was that ever a challenge!

Jim at age 23, Christmas Day 1975, in our family’s living room.

He. Was. Strong. And since he was not able to control his arms and legs, to successfully make it with this muscular man from the living room, through the hall, and into the bathroom, we were happy to finally set him onto the stool without having bashed in a wall or pulling the bathroom door off its hinges.

Having worked up a sweat, I should have been pleased about calories burned ahead of the feast Mom was soon to set before us.

Oh, Mom! How Jim loved Mom! Sure, he would smile at us siblings as we greeted and hugged him, and made a bit of small talk, but when Mom appeared Jim beamed! And when Mom died all too young, Dad received the evidence of Jim’s joy.

Jim’s voice is expressed in his smiles and much more. Lacking the ability to form words has never kept him from communicating what pleases or angers or bothers him. At his place, the group home in North Muskegon, if the living room TV is turned from his show, he whoops about it—he’s been a fan of ESPN since its inception. When his favorite meals are set before him, you know it just as surely as from any person. And when he doesn’t want to do something, he can be the very picture of obstinance.

After Jim, only several months old, was so adversely affected in the wake of being wrongly medicated for his whooping cough and encephalitis, he suffered terrible seizures. After these finally no longer struck him, I do not recall his experiencing any serious health issues. In his fifties, he fractured a leg. It required surgery and the placement of a pin. This was the first and only time I ever wondered if his health might be deteriorating, with his death in sight.

He came through that admirably. We were able to have him with us at Dad’s funeral in 2010. That was the first time all of us siblings were together in I don’t know how long. Because I had moved away, it surely had been more than twenty years.

Jim fronts his siblings, from left: Mark (youngest), me (fourth), Sue (third), Dave (fifth), and Tom (second)

Update 2022: I am itching for the pandemic to be over, as I want to have an in-person visit, one where I can hug my brother.

I long to be with him at least one more time before either of us finishes our earthly pilgrimage. More than wanting to be with him, I long to share our common hope, that the terrible, physical suffering of our lives will be healed by our Lord Jesus Christ in the resurrection, when we will be made whole—and, finally, Jim’s eyes won’t be crossed, and he will be able to walk and run, and he can really tell us what’s on his mind.

As with all of us kids, Jim was baptized in infancy—indeed, he was baptized before he got sick and when he appeared to have a typical future. Because of his situation, he was not able to receive instruction in the faith and be confirmed or communed. Who knows if he’s ever formed a prayer. How can such a person be saved?

Jim in his late 60s.

My brother Jim is the very picture of the direction of salvation—from God to us—and who does the work.

• John 1:12-13: “Yet to all who did receive him [Jesus Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
• Ephesians 2:1, 4-5, 8-9: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins . . . But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. . . . For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
• Titus 3:5-7: “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”

There it is. As we receive physical life from our parents solely by their work as a gift, so we receive eternal life from our Father solely by Christ’s work as a gift of the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 15, we are promised new bodies when we are resurrected from the dead. No longer will we be able to be injured, or grow ill or weary, or die. Isaiah 35:6 tells us, “Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.”

On that day, Jim will leap like a deer and shout for joy, dancing a jig of praise to Christ and glorifying Him for the eternal gift which he will enjoy in Paradise with his Lord Jesus and with all the saints.

Which includes me. I ache for the eternal, joyous reunion.

With Job (19:25-27), my ongoing refrain is “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

A blessed 70 years to you, dear brother Jim. An eternity of joy awaits.

Update: February 9, 2024: Jim has turned 72!

Jim and I, August 2023. He was 71, and I was 66.