On Monday night, May 18, 2015, the Lord swept Marcell “John” Moore, the dearly loved patriarch of our family, to Heaven, after he’d overcome enormous health challenges for years, valiantly cheating death again and again. We are blessed beyond words that he fought courageously to live against all odds and we count dear every moment we had with him. After a number of hospitalizations over the previous year, we are deeply grateful to God that John was home, surrounded by family in the days and hours leading to his passing and at the time he took his last breath. A man has never been more loved by his family than John Moore and due, in such large part, because he taught us well and loved us well. The great affection he fostered among us kept us all close, living life together and laughing, particularly at him. He was the star of the family and could hold the floor like no one else. We were audience to continual stories and anecdotes retold with tremendous color, flair, and no little exaggeration. None of us has to wonder how he felt about us. We were told often how much he loved us.

His is a household name in Houston, Texas. Down any freeway in this city, you can still see the words “Call John and Get Moore” on plumbing trucks and most Houston residents could sing the jingle from the commercial in a heartbeat. He started John Moore Plumbing Company in 1965 with one set of tools in the back of a black van on Vogue Lane and, in his tenure, the company serviced 750,000 homes. The company was sold in 2004 but not until he’d managed to mark the plumbing industry in Houston with a gentleman’s handsome face and winsome way. His hospital room and home were graced continually by countless friends and business associates.

Born in Houston on January 8, 1934 to Marcell John Moore “Red” and Mary Moore, John loved this city and never lived a moment of his life outside the area. He leaves behind his wife of 62 years, Mary “Sue” Pereira Moore, whom he adored and constantly called “my bride.” Perhaps nothing conveys how lovely she was to him like the fact that he did not feel nearly so called to become a Catholic priest once he set his sights on her. Needless to say, his change in vocation from future priest to future king of plumbing is one to which we – his children – owe considerable thanks.

Alongside his wife, John was a devoted Catholic and his faith in Jesus Christ grew dearer and dearer to him. They were members of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Houston for many years then, after moving to the country beside their son and daughter-in-law, they became members of Saint Anne Catholic Church in Tomball, Texas. He was preceded in death by his brothers Ronnie Moore and Pat Moore and leaves behind one sister, Etta Heemer. John and Mary’s two beloved children, Marcell John Moore III (“Duke”) and Nalda Jean Moore Presnell each preceded him in death. Our consolation in the loss of a family man we can never replace is that he holds the two of them in his arms this very moment.

Left to recount endless stories about him are his son, Keith Moore and his daughter-in-law Beth Moore of Tomball, Texas, his daughter Tina Moore Carroll and his son-in-law John Carroll of the Woodlands, Texas, and his daughter Mary Moore Meadows and his son-in-law Mike Meadows of Waco, Texas. If it sounds like from our locations that leaving Texas would have been an almost unpardonable sin, we say with a grin that perhaps, then, you understand our family. We stick close. And we are so glad he insisted on it. John had no greater joy in his life than his six grandchildren, all of whom adored him. Tearful farewells were said to him by Amanda Moore Jones and her husband, Rev. Curtis Jones, Melissa Moore, Ben Meadows, Joe Meadows and his wife, Chauntell, John Taylor Carroll, and Hannah Carroll. Their tremendous attentiveness and help to their grandfather and grandmother enabled Hospice to oversee his care but primarily and confidently leave John in the hands of his family until the Lord took him home. John also had the privilege to love and be active in the lives of his two great-grandchildren, Jackson (9) and Annabeth Jones (6). He ended his life here having the joy and satisfaction of knowing that two more great grandchildren would be born into our family this year. We have smiled saying that God knew it would take the addition of two people to comfort us in the loss of the one big personality we will miss deeply.

We are grateful for the doctors and the nurses at Tomball Regional Hospital who knew him well from his many visits and loved him. We are also inexpressibly grateful for the last four years of his life spent in the fresh air of the country where he sat atop every conceivable John Deere on wheels and ruled the roost. These woods and neighbors will never forget him. We don’t plan to let them.

Here are a few random pictures of our branch of the Moore family with our beloved Big Pops:

This is one of my favorites because it captures both Keith and his dad’s expressions when Keith shows him a document that proves their ancestors were in Texas while it was still a Republic.

This one doesn’t show what a lovely woman Keith’s mother is but I had to include it because this is Big Pops taking completely over when we built our two houses out in woods so thick with vines and brush that we had to hack our way into it. He was in his absolute element overseeing the development of the houses and yards and water wells. Here with his blueprints.

Here he is with our Jackson not long after we moved in. We four generations were so blessed to do a tremendous amount of life together. Not many kids get to know their great grandparents as well as Jackson and Annabeth did. We consider it a gift beyond price.

Here with Annabeth the first year we lived in the woods:

With me on the gator. He took a gator ride seriously. The first two years we lived in the woods were dream years for us with him. His health stayed pretty stable and, as he had a natural God-given inclination to do, he ran the place. And we let him. He never got off the saddle of some kind of John Deere.

I love this one so much because it shows him a bit younger. This is Amanda with both her grandparents at her wedding. You can see what a beautiful woman Keith’s mom is in this picture. Not to mention that first grandchild in that wedding dress.

These next two are very recent. Big Pops with Melissa. Good grief, he was crazy about her. He loved his six grandkids to no end. Amanda and Melissa were his first two.

This last one is not the greatest picture but it is a classic. Amanda, the eldest grandchild, had the foresight to plan an evening for the grandkids to come over to his house and celebrate him. Lover of Ireland that he was, she chose St. Patrick’s Day, his all-time favorite. We knew he wouldn’t be with us for long. He was nearly on his deathbed even then. The grandkids told him their favorite memories with him and he reciprocated with stories of his own. It was the greatest night. We laughed our heads off and partied to high heaven. The only sad part is that two of the grandkids were missing with the flu. I hate that they weren’t part of this night. We will remember it forever. Ben (top) and Joe (left) Meadows, the young guys in this picture, are two of the finest young men I have ever known. The tender care these two gave their grandfather in his last days and hours and countless previous times was just astounding. They spent night after night in the hospital and at his home, holding his hand and tending to every conceivable need. Joe is a paramedic and he single-handedly enabled us to take care of our loved one with a minimum amount of oversight from Hospice over the last forty-eight hours. It was just family. A tremendously sacred time.

Thank you so much for indulging us. People process grief different ways. I mostly write. Well, and of late, play hymns on my new antique piano. I’ve never been more grief stricken over losing someone of such advanced years, even knowing it was coming. He was just such a force in our family. Such a wonderful handful of a man. He could be the biggest mess. So much fun. And he was good and ornery. Just one of those kinds of people who can never be replaced. I feel like a gigantic meteor hurled straight through these woods and left a huge, gaping hole. I had the privilege to be loved like a blood daughter to my father-in-law. Thirty-six years is some substantial bonding and, what it doesn’t provide, living right next door does. He told me continually how much he loved me. I would not have traded this exact father-in-law for all the stellar dads in the world. I will miss him every single day.

Saturday morning I sat on my front porch steps in my pajamas drinking a cup of coffee, Queen Esther, as usual, close to my side. I stared all around me with a measure of awe at these humble woods. Humble, not because I’m being modest. Humble, because they really are. We think they’re beautiful but they’re simple. God got us good and ready to appreciate this place by not letting a single tree flourish in our in-town yard of 27 years. We transplanted a young oak from Keith’s grandmother’s woods into our front yard early on and it had grown a whopping six inches by the time we moved. We finally had the greatest-ever river birch in our backyard, birdhouses and feeders hanging from its gorgeous branches, and Hurricane Ike kindly relieved us of it.

So these woods out here are not wasted on Keith and me. Still, we are well aware that the beauty that surrounds us is in the eye of two grateful beholders. The view in the picture you see below is tidy because it’s closest to our front door but the rest of these woods are pretty wild and viney and, when it rains, our low land is a good deal swampy. Mosquitos eat us alive if it’s wet and hot and, more often than we wish, it’s both. We can’t take a walk without snake boots since these gracious acres are prime habitat for breeding water moccasins, coral snakes, and copperheads. Each of our dogs have been snakebitten, one of them twice. That’s just life in the country. But you couldn’t budge us from these woods with a heavy bevy of bulldozers.

What moved me Saturday morning was that all I could see was green. Every shade possible. Lime green, olive green, kelly green, emerald green, foam green, sea green, myrtle green, you-name- it green. Foliage of countless kinds and textures. Oak leaves that look like the soles of feet. Sweet gum leaves that look like the palms of hands stretched wide-open. Spiny pines, bristly red cedars, and lacy foliage of cypress trees, dreamy and ethereal, growing straight out of the waters of our tiny natural pond.

Nothing dead in sight.

I put on my boots (still wearing my pajamas, otherwise, what’s the good of living out in the country?) and I went for a walk. If you’re inclined to like the color green, I’ll take you with me. But take your Claritin. You’re going to need it.

I wish you could hear the chorus of frogs, come evening, that meet for choir practice in this straw-thin creek bed.

The white trunk you see below in the middle of the frame is a Sycamore. Not exactly the same kind Zacchaeus, a wee little man, climbed with all his might for the Lord he wanted to see. All the same, when I walk past it, I don’t mind thinking of Jesus saying, Zacchaeus, you come down from that tree, for I’m going to your house today and Zacchaeus countering, Well, it’s a long, long way to my house – I fear I’ve wandered far from home – but why don’t we just stop off at the Moores? That girlfriend can stir up a fine pot of chicken and dumplings. And they do.

You did take your Claritin like I told you to, didn’t you? Because one of us is really allergic to this right here but, still, there’s no saying it’s not pretty.

And these. Well, these make Texas Texas. We just had a few bluebonnets the first year we moved in but every Spring God adds a a handful more because He knows good and well we’re going to brag on Him like nobody’s business. And He loves that.

What burned in my lungs on Saturday was that, everywhere a soul could see, there was nothing but life.

Somebody might shrug and wonder what’s new about that. It’s Spring. That’s what Spring brings. But that’s not all of our story out here. Three years ago, Texas suffered the worst drought of its history. The ravages of it did not peak until a year or so later when century oaks and towering pines all over our beautiful State begged our forgiveness but they just couldn’t recover. I asked Keith this morning how many trees he estimates we lost in these few acres alone. He said the smaller trees were innumerable but the painful losses were the fine, stately trees, some of them absolutely enormous. We said a sad goodbye to somewhere around 100 of those.

We were sick at heart. We’d walk round and round them, studying them carefully, trying to decide if they’d died or gone temporarily dormant in an effort to survive. When all was said and done, we’d lost many of our very favorite ones. After both Old Moses and Isaiah gave up the ghost, Keith swore and declared (and swore again as he has a mind to do) that he’d never again name another tree. It’s too painful when you have to see them die. I never imagined wanting to cry over a tree before. I may have laid hands on Old Moses and prayed. It didn’t work but he didn’t mind. We stared at their deadness and mourned for awhile then Keith began the slow grueling process of cutting them down.

It’s taken all this time.

I thought that was all there was to it but I was wrong. Next came the process of piling them up, waiting for really wet weather, and starting to burn heaps and piles of deadness. Day after damp day, Keith and a few helpers watched over a dozen bonfires.

But, Saturday, I sat on my front porch and beheld the breathtaking sight, forgive the redundancy, of nothing but life. Because, here’s the thing:

We’d finally given up what was dead and not coming back.

I wish I were not just talking about trees. We Moores and Jones have had some hard things to let go of over the last several years. Droughts, dying, death, grief. Of course, embedded here in this soil where thorns and thistles prosper, we earthlings will always have those things nearby to remind us that this place in no permanent home. We long for a better country.

I could not help but think about the contrast of all that is happening in these woods in the wake of our recent Resurrection Sunday celebration. I love Easter so much. If I believe in anything at all, I believe in God’s shameless felicity in raising to life what is dead. We Moores and Jones have experienced His resurrection power in ways no blog post could adequately boast. But I thought of a second theological principle as I stared all around me, not a dead branch in sight. I thought how sometimes we have to accept what has died or refused to come to life or produce a whit of fruit…

…and we have to let it go.

Instead of staring at it for months on end as a monument to our loss, we sometimes need to cut it down, pile it up, move it out or let it burn.

While we cry.

Because often God chooses to resurrect something that has died.

But other times He wants us to call it what it is – dead – and let it go, knowing that He is good. He cannot fail to be good.

That’s what Jesus said He does with what, over the proof of time, does not remain. It is “thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, and are burned up.” (John 15:6 The NET) He “takes away every branch that does not bear fruit” and He “prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit.” (John 15:2)

He’s all about the fruit.

What doesn’t bear fruit, what fails to resurrect Spring after disappointing Spring, finally needs to go. That doesn’t mean you forget. Some things are too big to forget. Take Old Moses, for instance. He blessed us with a lot of shade. And spectacular beauty. And he’s so big, we’re not even sure how to move out what’s left of him. But we’ve quit begging him to come back to life and we’ve pushed him back where he’s not so easy to see. Trying to resuscitate what’s not coming back to life just leaves you out of breath.

But this is the miracle of the whole thing. The drought stole life from these woods that bore roots in this ground for a hundred years. It was a terrible shame. But the sun rays and showers blocked so long by their enormous branches found their way to the fertile ground and the space that was bare gave way to new life.

God will not leave us comfortless. He will not leave us alone. He will not leave us fruitless. He will either resurrect the dead or grow something brand new.

I say this to you with a tender heart and deep compassion and empathy. If it is gone, let it go. If it is possible to move the deadness from your sight where it has become a monument to your sadness, pile it up and carry it off.

And know with all your heart and all your faith that something new is coming. Hope preferred for your hope deferred. Give it space. Sunshine. Water. Inspect it with great expectation. And you will surely – as surely as God is faithful and Jesus is the fleshing out of life itself – live to see new trees sprout out of that soil. Something you couldn’t have expected. Something Old Moses could never have given you.

We’re here too brief a time on this finicky soil to spend days on end grieving what could have been. We’ll talk to Jesus about that when we get Home. We’ll have forever then. For now…

Let it go.

So something new can grow.

Water it with your tears if you must but release your fears that nothing but nothingness is ahead for you. Is God your God? As sure as He is, new life is coming.

All the deadness did not manage to kill you. You are stronger than you thought. Stretch out your arms like mighty branches even if, for now, they’re as thin as sticks. It is to your Father’s glory that you bear much fruit.