DEATH AND LIFE ON NEW YEARS DAY

     The first day of January 1962 dawned bright with the promise of excitement and joy for the day and for the year ahead.  A fifteen year old boy in a small town in north central Ohio, for reasons now unknown, decided to remain home alone while his parents went to visit relatives and his older brother went hunting with friends.  On many days since then that older brother has thought:  "if only I had asked him to go with me that day". 
     Hawks and owls belong to a class of birds known as raptors.  Ironically, that word comes from the same word used in the Latin Vulgate text of I Thessalonians 4:17 and reads in English "caught up . . . to meet the Lord in the air".   This is the origin of the word rapture.  The hunting laws of the day clearly said that "hawks and owls are protected unless doing damage" but hardly anyone paid attention.  During the Great Depression, less than three decades earlier, raptors were viewed as competitors for scarce food like the chickens that were on nearly every farm.  Thus they were referred to as "chicken hawks".  A boy grew up in those days hearing: "there's a hawk (or owl); shoot it".   Just a couple weeks earlier this fifteen year old boy had been encouraged by his older brother to shoot a hawk along a rural road.  Regret number two for the older brother.
     Right after lunch on this New Years day, this boy saw a hawk in a tree back of the house but too far away for a shotgun.  So he picked up his .22 rifle and carefully fired about six times at the hawk without success.  Every box of .22 cartridges, even then, had on it the words "Dangerous within one mile -- be careful!"  But like the law protecting hawks and owls, few paid any attention.  This fifteen year old had watched his older brother and many others shoot at birds in trees with a .22 rifle.  No one seemed to give much thought to the question:  "where will this bullet come down?"  Regret number three. 
     Hunter safety courses would not be required in Ohio until 1978 and the older brother in this incident was one of the first trained instructors when that law went into effect.  He taught firearm safety to dozens of young people for twenty years and continues to do so informally.  He was always conscious of how indifferent to this rule of firearm safety he had been in the days before New Years Day 1962.  Regret number four.
     One half mile beyond where that boy stood to fire those six fateful shots, an eight year old boy was playing in the yard with a cousin.  They heard a sound of something hitting the small trees and brush near them and walked over to investigate.  Soon the sound of sirens was heard in that small town and not long after that a police officer came to the door where the fifteen year old lived.  "Did anyone here fire a rifle in that direction?"  Some boys in the U.S. may have answered that question with a "no" to protect themselves.  This boy frankly answered "yes" and surrendered his rifle to the officer.
    Later, his older brother got a call at the home of friends:  "Can you come home; there's been an accident".  The eight year old had been struck in the forehead by one of those 40 grain lead bullets fired from that .22 rifle.  The mathematical odds against that accident ever happening the way it did were nearly astronomical.  But it happened.  The boy was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic and died the next day.  The fifteen year old was brought home from school in the middle of the day to be given the tragic news.  He sobbed uncontrollably. 
     The funeral was conducted by a minister with a theologically liberal background and his remarks had little, if any, of eternity's values.  In the years since, the older brother has stood at that grave site more than once.  Regret number five.
     Within a week, the parents of the fifteen year old felt pressured to send an attorney to the family of the eight year old to offer to pay all expenses,  though they did not know how they could possible afford it.  By summer, the parents of the deceased boy had filed a lawsuit for an amount that would seem relatively small today but in 1962 seemed like a terrifying amount.  The parents of the fifteen year old were frugal folks and they had what was then called "fire insurance" on their house.   They did not feel they could afford what is today called a "homeowner's policy" which would have covered lawsuits.  They were looking at the very real possibility of loosing their home.
     The fifteen year old began to show signs of mental stress.  His stuttering problem became much more acute.  But his walk with the Lord deepened significantly.  Some friends of the family belonged to what can only be described as a secretive, fraternal organization and it appears that they somehow brought pressure to bear on the attorneys involved who were also members of that organization.  By November the lawsuit was settled for one tenth of the original amount.  The family sold one half of their ten acres of land to cover it.
     Eight years, seven months and twenty days after January 1, 1962, the fifteen year old boy, now nearly twenty-four, drowned while trying to save a boy from drowning.  There were now two graves for the older brother to visit while thinking deeply about all that he might have done differently.  Regret number six.
     More than thirty years after January 1, 1962 special meetings were being held at the church beside the cemetery where the eight year old was buried.  The speaker had never personally know the fifteen year old but was telling the audience the significant impact for Christ that this young man's life had been before his death at age 23.   In the audience sat the mother of the eight year old.  She was now a widow.  She went home after the service, picked up the phone, and called the parents of the fifteen year old.   That conversation brought the most profound healing to both families. 
     No argument for the truth of the Gospel and the claims of Christ could be more powerful than what happened at that church and during that telephone conversation.   The only person still living of all those involved in the tragedy of January 1, 1962 is the older brother of the fifteen year old.  In Jesus' parable of the Lost Son the term "older brother" does not have a good meaning.  Perhaps in this instance the term will have a somewhat better meaning.  But the regrets will never be completely gone.
     The name of the fifteen year old boy was Donald Eugene Enzor.