Everything I Have Is Yours
Well today is my birthday and we should celebrate all things me. I agree. Let us celebrate Louis M Cook. But that is not me. I am Louis M. Cook, Jr. That is a fact I made sure my teachers knew and acknowledged as a young and probably bothersome youngster. My Dad is Louis M. Cook. He can put a Senior behind his name or not. As the first one, he has that option.
I do not want to forget my Mom but she has told me that giving birth to me was not a tough ordeal. The next few decades were much more trying for her. I wanted to write this last night but I laid down with my wife and son and told them a few stories about my Dad. The sad fact is that my sons and soon daughter do not and will not know the Dad who raised me. His mind has been attacked by a heinous disease known as Primary Progressive Aphasia. I write this and other stories and tell tales to my kids so that through me they might know and remember him.
He made a living and a unique life through words. He was a sewing machine salesman, he sold ads for radio, he announced high school football and basketball games for both of my hometown schools, Hartsville and Butler High, and was an on-air personality too. He had a show called "Trading Post" that was a Craigslist for the air. People called to sell and ask for needed items. He had fun with those callers and kept the show lively. I am told that it was a hit in Hartsville for WHSC 1450-AM. He went to night school for years at a new school in the Pee Dee then known as Francis Marion College. From there he went to the University of South Carolina School of Law.
He worked as a lawyer for most of the second half of his life. Again he made his living with words and his mind. He had to defend a family member of a close friend in a murder case soon after graduating. He kept him from the electric chair, which he probably deserved, and for thanks he was later sued by the defendant. That was a trying time for him but the first case I remember was when he helped an older lady in Hartsville in a case versus the United States government. She was not a wealthy woman. Unable to pay him but she needed help. Her government assistance had been greatly reduced due to a small piece of property that she owned. It was a vacant lot with little value but it was hers and the government said that it disqualified her from what she had been receiving. That money was just enough to keep her lights on, her house warm or cool and food on the table.
When he told me about the case, I envisioned my Dad as a silver-tongued Perry Mason-type who would dazzle the judge and right all things. I was wrong. What he said he needed was the Lord. We prayed together that the Lord would speak through him and touch the heart and mind of the judge and that a just decision would be made. He prayed before he entered the courtroom too. The verdict was just. Now his client thought my Dad hung the moon. He was "her lawyer" from that day forward. Dad told me otherwise. He said it was the Lord's work and not his. He instilled in me the belief that every person deserves a fair and vigorous defense in court. Both the accused murderer and the poor old lady. He had a framed verse in his law office of Amos 5:24.
It reads: But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Amen!
As a boy and continuing into my adulthood my father always told me, "Son, everything that I have is yours." That is powerful and magical stuff for a little boy and a strong rock for a young man. I do not think I ever took my share and took off like the Prodigal Son but like that son I made a bushel full of my own mistakes. Afterwards my father, my Dad, Louis M. Cook was always there with outstretched arms to welcome me home. What he gave me can not rust nor be destroyed by the elements. He gave me his love, my name and what I am today reflects back to him.
I do my devotions because I saw him do them and we read Our Daily Bread together. I worship regularly and pray together as a family because he did that with me. I enjoy Charles Stanley's sermons not just because he is a fine preacher of the Word but because I first heard him with my Dad.
In less important matters I am a Gamecock and Dodger because he was. I love Boston Terriers because of him. I try to be patient with my boys because he was the same way with me. He was not perfect but he did not have to be. He showed me that there was one perfect man who paid our sin debt in full.
I have many tales to share about my Dad and will do so in the future but for today, my birthday, please say a prayer for my Dad. Thank the Lord for the love my Dad poured into me. Thank you for his example. Pray for my sister and her family who live close to Dad and see him daily. Pray that I will make my Dad proud that I carry his name. Thank you.
I do not want to forget my Mom but she has told me that giving birth to me was not a tough ordeal. The next few decades were much more trying for her. I wanted to write this last night but I laid down with my wife and son and told them a few stories about my Dad. The sad fact is that my sons and soon daughter do not and will not know the Dad who raised me. His mind has been attacked by a heinous disease known as Primary Progressive Aphasia. I write this and other stories and tell tales to my kids so that through me they might know and remember him.
He made a living and a unique life through words. He was a sewing machine salesman, he sold ads for radio, he announced high school football and basketball games for both of my hometown schools, Hartsville and Butler High, and was an on-air personality too. He had a show called "Trading Post" that was a Craigslist for the air. People called to sell and ask for needed items. He had fun with those callers and kept the show lively. I am told that it was a hit in Hartsville for WHSC 1450-AM. He went to night school for years at a new school in the Pee Dee then known as Francis Marion College. From there he went to the University of South Carolina School of Law.
He worked as a lawyer for most of the second half of his life. Again he made his living with words and his mind. He had to defend a family member of a close friend in a murder case soon after graduating. He kept him from the electric chair, which he probably deserved, and for thanks he was later sued by the defendant. That was a trying time for him but the first case I remember was when he helped an older lady in Hartsville in a case versus the United States government. She was not a wealthy woman. Unable to pay him but she needed help. Her government assistance had been greatly reduced due to a small piece of property that she owned. It was a vacant lot with little value but it was hers and the government said that it disqualified her from what she had been receiving. That money was just enough to keep her lights on, her house warm or cool and food on the table.
When he told me about the case, I envisioned my Dad as a silver-tongued Perry Mason-type who would dazzle the judge and right all things. I was wrong. What he said he needed was the Lord. We prayed together that the Lord would speak through him and touch the heart and mind of the judge and that a just decision would be made. He prayed before he entered the courtroom too. The verdict was just. Now his client thought my Dad hung the moon. He was "her lawyer" from that day forward. Dad told me otherwise. He said it was the Lord's work and not his. He instilled in me the belief that every person deserves a fair and vigorous defense in court. Both the accused murderer and the poor old lady. He had a framed verse in his law office of Amos 5:24.
It reads: But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Amen!
As a boy and continuing into my adulthood my father always told me, "Son, everything that I have is yours." That is powerful and magical stuff for a little boy and a strong rock for a young man. I do not think I ever took my share and took off like the Prodigal Son but like that son I made a bushel full of my own mistakes. Afterwards my father, my Dad, Louis M. Cook was always there with outstretched arms to welcome me home. What he gave me can not rust nor be destroyed by the elements. He gave me his love, my name and what I am today reflects back to him.
I do my devotions because I saw him do them and we read Our Daily Bread together. I worship regularly and pray together as a family because he did that with me. I enjoy Charles Stanley's sermons not just because he is a fine preacher of the Word but because I first heard him with my Dad.
In less important matters I am a Gamecock and Dodger because he was. I love Boston Terriers because of him. I try to be patient with my boys because he was the same way with me. He was not perfect but he did not have to be. He showed me that there was one perfect man who paid our sin debt in full.
I have many tales to share about my Dad and will do so in the future but for today, my birthday, please say a prayer for my Dad. Thank the Lord for the love my Dad poured into me. Thank you for his example. Pray for my sister and her family who live close to Dad and see him daily. Pray that I will make my Dad proud that I carry his name. Thank you.
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-Adam