Uncle Joe

Yesterday was a monstrously sad day for our family. My mother's brother Joe passed away suddenly at age 60. He was a pilot, and was down in Monterrey, Mexico, inspecting the private jet he was getting ready to fly to New York, when he simply collapsed and could not be resuscitated. Today my aunt Wanda flew down to bring him home.

Of course on these occasions the memories come rushing forth. I just want to share a few now.

Probably my first concrete memory of him is at Christmas when I was about 7 years old. He gave me an electric race track where you press a trigger and the cars go around in a figure 8. As far as I was concerned at 7 years old this was the coolest present I had ever received. Of course we kept pushing the trigger too hard and the cars would go too fast and spin off the track, but it didn't really matter.

I remember when he and Wanda got married in May 1981 which I think was the first wedding I ever attended, at least the first I ever cared about. To this day I'm not sure Wanda knew what she was getting into when she married into this family, but we're all sure glad she went ahead with it.

It was on this visit to Tennessee where I noticed he had the Billy Joel record "Glass Houses" (yes, an actual LP record) that I listened to on his stereo with those big earmuff headphones. Those of you who know me well know I later became a huge fan of the Piano Man, so it could be said that the seeds were planted due to Joe's record collection.

The summer before I enrolled at ACU I flew down to go to early orientation. Joe had a car and an apartment in Dallas since he was based there when he flew for American Airlines, so he let me pick up his car (a speedy white Jetta, speedy at least compared to my family's diesel VW Rabbit) and drive it to Abilene from DFW. For an 18-year-old kid on the brink of freedom, that was WAY cool.

About 10 years later my father was a keynote speaker at the ACU lectures. Elisa & I flew from DC to Nashville and then Joe flew us, the Cunninghams and Wanda down to Abilene in a plane he co-owned, and we surprised my dad. Also, VERY cool to have our own private plane take us into the Big Country.

In 1999 I was fortunate enough to join Dad and Joe & Wanda on a two week tour of Israel and Egypt. We had a good time overall, although I'm afraid Wanda still occasionally feels the effects of the broken foot she sustained on that trip.

About five years ago Mom & Dad and Joe & Wanda came to DC to visit us during the 4th of July weekend. We had grand plans to go down to watch the fireworks on the National Mall, but it was about 98 degrees and 98% humidity that day, so we ended up going to a friend's 9th floor apartment whose huge window directly overlooked all the festivities. We enjoyed a great show together in wonderful air conditioning.

Almost four years ago Joe was the one that called me to let us know that Grandma had passed away. He was strong but obviously sad.

This past summer on our trek cross country moving from DC to LA, we stopped in Nashville for a few days. One of the highlights was visiting his Caney Fork property and having him take Sara Sue and us for a short boat ride on the river along the property. During the ride he showed us the best spots for fishing and shared some ideas he had for building a new cabin. I can't quite remember, but that may have been the last day we saw him. If so, that would be alright - he loved that place. Wish we could have shared more times with him there.

His interests were varied; in true Luttrell fashion, he always had to be doing something (somehow I did not inherit this gene - I could sit on the couch for days). He was a stakeholder in the Nashville Jet Center for private planes. For a while he had partial ownership of a bank. More recently he was involved in a venture to sell Czech-manufactured engines for small jets. There are probably many other ventures he had that I'm not even aware of or can't remember. For recreation he loved to hunt and fish and go to his friend Brad Paisley's concerts.

Of course he loved his family, in particular paying a great deal of attention to the care of Grandma & Grandpa over the last 10 years or so. His last email to me was congratulating me on my new job and our new house, wishing us a happy Thanksgiving and expressing his excitement about getting the whole family together for Christmas. And he loved his wife - in many ways Elisa & I have looked to them as a model for our marriage.

Bruce Springsteen recently lost his friend and personal assistant Terry Magovern. On his website, Bruce wrote these words about Terry: "Out of all of Terry's unusual qualities, the one that was least noticed but most deeply felt was his permanence. Everything about Terry spoke of permanence. This is why his death is so difficult to fathom." It strikes me that the same words could be written about Joe. Here is a portion of the lyrics to a new song by The Boss called "Terry's Song." The words also could easily apply to Joe:
"Now your death is upon us and we'll return your ashes to the earth
And I know you'll take comfort in knowing you've been roundly blessed and cursed
But love is a power greater than death, just like the songs and stories told
And when they built you, brother, they broke the mold"

Joe was my only blood uncle. I really relished the way our relationship developed over the years - it seemed like the older I got, the closer we got. He was always there for a word of encouragement or advice. But what I'll remember about him for the rest of my life is his smile and his laughter; our family loves to laugh, and Joe was always right there in the middle of it, often the instigator of it. His love of life was infectious. Needless to say, our family times from now on will never be the same, but the happy memories will always be there.

We'll miss you, Joe.