Eulogy for My Brother

 

by Joe A. Sumners

 

My brother, Ronald Clyde Sumners, was born on August 20, 1949, and lived just over 67 years, passing away on December 29, 2016.  My brother was almost eight years older, and I adored him from my earliest memory, which is of Ron laying on the floor of our den, me walking to his head and him flipping me over onto his chest.  Over and over and over.  For me, this was pure joy.  

 

Ron was a great brother and I loved him very much.  He was always there when I needed him.  When I had problems, or faced big decisions about career, romance, or anything else, I always wanted to hear what he had to say.  He was someone that I knew cared about me and in whom I had absolute trust. 

 

I was looking through family pictures while working on this website and came across many pictures of just Ron and me at different stages of our lives.  In almost every picture Ron has his arm around me with his hand on my shoulder.  Always my big brother.

 

Ron possessed many of the qualities I admired in our grandfather, Charles Earnest Sumners, and in our father, Clyde Sumners.  Granddaddy was humble, kind, and gentle and loved to tell stories and jokes.  Our dad was less of a storyteller but was also good and kind and had a witty sense of humor.  Both had a core character of humility and integrity that earned respect from all who knew them.  Ron was the same.  He was a good man.  

 

He was honest, kind, and made friends easily.  He  inherited granddaddy’s ability to tell stories and jokes, which greatly enhanced his ability to communicate and made him such a great preacher.  No one who heard him preach could deny his talent to teach, challenge, and inspire those who listened to him.   

 

We grew up in rural Shelby County, Alabama in a tiny unincorporated community called Creswell - about a half-mile off of U.S. Highway 280 on County Road 85 about three miles from Childersburg, four miles from Harpersville, and five miles from Vincent.  Looking from our front yard, we saw the rolling acres Mr. R.J. Green’s cotton field. A barbed-wire fence usually kept the cows from wandering into our back yard. 

 

On one side of the house, across a big open lot, lived our Uncle Paul and Aunt Estelle and our cousins Jimmy, Billy, and Wayne – who were like brothers to us.  Back then, Ron was “Ronnie” and I was “Joey.”  Ronnie was two years younger than Jimmy, one year older than Billy, and five years older than Wayne.  I was the youngest of Creswell’s Sumners clan.  We were always together and times were good. It was a rare day that some type of ball wasn’t being thrown, shot, or hit. 

 

Granddaddy and grandmother, Ernest and Evie Sumners, lived on the other side of Uncle Paul.  Our Uncle Roy, Aunt Ruth, and cousins, Glenn and Mary Francis, lived just up the hill from us.  So, Ron and I grew up in a place that was surrounded by a big loving family.

 

Our dad had a sister and five brothers. Our mother, Virginia McGhee Sumners, had three sisters and three brothers. We had 34 first cousins. For both Ron and me, some of our happiest memories were from family get-togethers – playing with our cousins and watching our uncles play Rook and listening to their wonderful stories about growing up together – about farming, fishing, fighting, dating, pulling pranks, and the wonders of country life. 

 

In high school, Ron was a good student, very popular, an athlete, and a student leader. As a senior, he continued a family legacy that began with our Uncle Bob, who was the first ever Vincent High School Student Council President.  From that time, every Creswell Sumners boy was elected Student Council president – Glenn, Jimmy, Ronnie, Billy, Wayne, and me. 

 

While Ron played basketball and baseball in high school, he was a better football player – a tough fullback and linebacker. He probably saw hot, August football practices as a respite from summer jobs working at a sweltering chicken house ringing the necks of chickens or working over vats of boiling zinc at the local bolt factory.  

 

In 1967, when he left home to go to Samford University, I was ten years old.  It was a sad time for me because I would not get to be with him every day.  I really missed him and loved it when he would come home to spend time away from college. 

 

Ron made three key choices in his youth and young adulthood that would give him purpose and shape his destiny.  

 

The first choice was made as a nine-year old boy when he accepted Jesus Christ as his savior.  He walked the aisle at little Klein Baptist Church and was later baptized in a cold creek not far from the church. 

 

The second choice was during his senior year of high school when he felt the call to the ministry, dedicating his life in full-time service to God.

 

Ron’s third consequential decision was to ask Karen “Prissy” Elliott, his high school sweetheart, to be his wife.  Once Ron graduated from Samford University, he and Prissy married and began an adventure together than would last over 45 years.  Prissy was the perfect “preacher’s wife” and Ron adored her and depended on her. They would raise two children, Mary Katherine “Katie” and Samuel Elliott “Sam.”  Ron’s life was devoted to his family and he was enormously proud of Katie and Sam, who gave him great joy.  Ron viewed being a father as his most important role in life.  As evidence, “fatherhood” would be one of the most frequent topics for his Sunday sermons. 

 

Soon after their wedding, Ron and Prissy left for Louisville, Kentucky where Ron studied at Southern Theological Seminary.  He also pastored his first small church in Waddy, Kentucky while attending seminary.

 

After their time in Kentucky, Ron and Prissy returned to Vincent, where Ron spent one year as a high school teacher and football coach.  During his career in the ministry, he would pastor Baptist churches in Montgomery, Alabama; Landrum, South Carolina; and Whiteville, North Carolina.  He also served as campus minister for the Baptist Student Union at Auburn University. Along the way, he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Southwestern Theological Seminary.  He spent the final 19 years of his ministry as pastor of Meadow Brook Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. 

 

Ron loved mission work and took dozens of trips to places throughout the United States, preaching, teaching, building churches, and offering love and comfort to those in need.  He participated in many international mission trips – to Africa, China, Central America, and South America.  He lived a life of service to God and to others.  

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Ron struggled with poor health for the last two decades of his life.  He was a diabetic and had quintuple bypass heart surgery in 2002.  In 2007, on a mission trip to Bolivia, he became very ill and nearly died.  He first became sick in a small village and was transported to the larger city of Santa Cruz by ambulance.  Upon arrival his heart stopped and he had to be shocked with paddles to be revived. His kidneys failed, he was placed on dialysis, and his outlook was grim.  Upon learning of Ron’s condition, Prissy, his son, Sam, a friend from his church, and I traveled to Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  We were in the air for nine hours and did not know whether he would be alive when we arrived.  

 

We went directly from the airport in Santa Cruz to the tiny hospital.  When I went back to visit Ron, he was very sick, but conscious.  He told me that he loved me and was proud of me and to tell mom and dad that he loved them.  He did not believe that he was going to live, but he told me that whatever happened, he was OK.  He did not fear death.  He was at peace.  

 

With the loving care of the Bolivian doctors and nurses and the prayers of family and church members, Ron’s condition improved and he was able to return home about a month later.  Prissy stayed by his side the entire time and returned with him on the plane - along with the Duke-educated Bolivian doctor who owned the hospital where he had received care.

 

Unfortunately, this was not the end of Ron’s heath struggles.  He would later suffer a brain aneurism and stroke, a ruptured Achilles, a detached retina, and clogged sinus that caused him to lose consciousness while driving.  He was rushed to the hospital, where he began to have seizures.  Prissy, my wife Lynn, and I were in the hospital waiting room when a nurse rushed in to tell us the Ron was not breathing and that his heart had stopped.  We spent about 15 minutes thinking that he had died before we went to the ICU to find him alive.  

 

While he was in recovery, the doctors would not allow him to drink fluids, but Ron was begging everyone to give him something to drink.  Our cousin Shane came to visit and Ron asked for something to drink.  Shane gave him a Sprite with a straw and Ron greedily drank it.  The doctor came in a bit later and said that he was scheduling a “swallow test” to see if Ron could be allowed to drink.  Shane said, “Well I think he’s already passed that test.”

 

Over the last decade of his life Ron would spend many days and nights at Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham.  It seemed that as soon as he would recover from one problem, he would be back in the hospital with something else.  

 

What amazed me about Ron during this period was his resilience, faith, and positive attitude.  Every time he was knocked down, he got back up – grateful that he was alive, able to be with his family, able to preach and pastor his congregation, and happy to serve God.  He was not angry, bitter, or discouraged.  He was faithful.  He was hopeful.  He was tough.

 

I should not have been shocked when I received an early morning call from Prissy on December 29, 2016, telling me that Ron had passed.  But I was.  He had cheated death so many times before that I had come to see him as invincible.  He was not.  He was a man and he was mortal. But his 67 years of life meant so much to many people, including me.  A title of one of Ron’s sermons is “Will Our Lives Count for Much?”  Ron's answer to that question was a resounding, “Yes.”  Ron lived a life of integrity, purpose, and consequence.

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His influence lives on through all the lives that he has touched throughout his life and ministry.  He led many people to Christ and helped many strengthen their faith in God as well as their commitment to love and care for their neighbor.  He provided an example to those of us who remain of how to live a Christian life.  He taught us to chose love over hate, hope over despair, others over self, and service over complacency.  In one of his sermons, Ron quoted a poem that included a stanza that captured what he believed - "Only one life, soon it will pass; only what's done for Christ will last." 

 

Ron's church members knew him as pastor and preacher.  And he was certainly an outstanding preacher and caring pastor.  But Ron was also our “family” pastor.  At family gatherings, he would say grace before meals.  If there was a wedding or funeral, Ron was asked to officiate.  He was always there to listen, counsel, console, and care.  He was at his best when eulogizing members of our family who died – grandmother, uncles, aunts, cousins.  He had an uncanny ability to put the person’s life into perspective, telling their story and what they meant to our family.  

 

Often in family eulogies, Ron would describe heaven as a place where our family members were reunited in a loving celebration. I confess that I have always had a hard time conceptualizing what happens when we die.  It is THE great mystery.  But my belief, and hope, is that Ron had it right. When he passed from this world, Ron entered a place where he was reunited with grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends that had gone before.  And that reunion was, and remains, a joyous celebration.  I see him right now laughing at jokes with granddaddy and Uncle Gene and partnering with Jimmy to take on Uncle Paul and Uncle Ish in a game of Rook. 

 

Although Ron is no longer physically with us, he is still able to speak to us through the wonderful sermons that he wrote throughout his years in the ministry. To me, this is a precious gift.  I have treasured the time spent reading many of these sermons as I developed the site to honor his life and ministry.  As I read them, I hear his voice, I feel his passion, I see his smile, and sometimes I feel his hand on my shoulder.  

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