Remembering Charles W. Naylor

The t-shirt read: “I Have Chemo Brain, What’s Your Excuse?” The nurse was telling that as she pushed me in a wheelchair to see my primary oncologist, Dr. Abonour. I was trying to tell her about the last I was in this part of the hospital. Her comment regarding the t-shirt was her way of telling me that chemo will take away part of my memory.

Dr. Abonour said that I was on schedule with the treatment plan for myeloma. Early next month I will once again have six more rounds of chemo and be hospitalized for four days. After that, he will determine the next steps.

As for the chemo brain and the loss of memory, I can say with assurance that memory loss has occurred. I have been struggling with writing down my thoughts on divine healing. The simple old question keeps coming up. Why are some evil people healed and other “saints” suffer and die?

Recently Jeanie Harbron was telling me about her visits to see C. W. Naylor. When she was only six years old, Jeanie would bring flowers to this bedridden songwriter. Naylor penned some of the best known songs for the Church. “I Am the Lord’s,” “I Will Follow with Rejoicing,” and “More Like Jesus” are just a handful of his songs. Naylor prayed for complete healing several times but this miracle never happened. In 1908, while removing timber from a camp meeting tent, he was injured. A year later, a bus accident confined Naylor to bed for the rest of his forty-one years of life. Could it be that his suffering gave him the ability to focus on his music which helped others struggling with tough answers?

Jeanie reminded me of an event that took place at the 2003 camp meeting. I think it must have been in the fall of 2002 that Robert Reardon and I met at our local Taco Bell. He sketched out a possible plan on the back of a placemat to recreate a monument at Naylor’s grave site. When I called Jeanie about remembering her connection with Naylor, she told me of the unveiling of the monument in Maplewood Cemetery. She and Tom brought over the VCR version last night for Avis and me to see. Oddly, I remember only part of the event. Reardon talked to  the crowd that gathered around for the unveiling of the seven-foot monument and told them I was the designer. The memory I still have was the meeting at Taco Bell and seeing the design that Reardon had drawn. I hope I kept his drawing.