Remembering Uncle Pete

This past Friday while attending a Disciple’s Men’s Retreat I received word that my uncle had died from complications related to a long-term illness. Here’s a brief family history. Back in the middle of the last century, Harry Stanley McGuffee, Sr. (part Choctaw ancestry, part Scottish ancestry, and 100% Marine) married the lovely Hattie Mae Terrell. After WWII, my grandfather briefly worked with his father in the furniture business in McComb, Mississippi but soon felt called to preach and he and his young bride began their journey in ministry. Apparently lacking for quality entertainment in rural Mississippi they ended up having six children. The children, in birth order, are Harry Woodson (my Dad), David, Betty, Harry Stanley, Jr. (a.k.a. Pete), Jimmy, and Hattie. Yes, my grandparents had two sons named Harry and the third born son was the junior. According to my Grandmother, the doctor would not sign Pete’s birth certificate unless she named him Harry Stanley, Jr.

Pete was born on April 23, 1955. Pete was kind of a typical teenager of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. However, in July of 1970 his life was changed forever with the blessed arrival of his first nephew thus changing him from “Pete the punk teenager” to “Uncle Pete”. I am privileged to have played such a pivotal role in the formative years of my uncle’s development. In fact, as he was wont to tell me, I set the stage for his later development as a loving father. You see, one Sunday night in 1970, Pete figured out a way to skip going to church – he volunteered to take care of his baby nephew James. What Pete had not counted on was that when he went to change my diaper I still had not finished and, apparently, I had great aim OR as Uncle Pete would always tell me “Boy, you peed right in my eye.”

Apparently, I did not permanently traumatize Uncle Pete as he went on to father four sons: Trey, Brandon, Bryce, and Brian and be a father to the children in his blended family.

The last memory I have of my uncle is on the afternoon of Thanksgiving 2009. Lynn, Gage, and I traveled with my sister’s family and my Dad for a large Thanksgiving gathering at my Aunt Betty’s house in Mississippi. As many of you know, my Dad suffers from MS and has trouble with balance. As we were getting ready to go, my Dad was having trouble getting to the car. So, Uncle Pete offered to help my Dad to the car. Trouble is, at the time, Pete only had marginally better balance than my Dad. To the external observer, it was this wild scene of snake like mass of McGuffee men wobbling to the car. To those that knew, it was two brothers that loved each other and would do anything for each other no matter how ridiculous it might look to the world.

I love you Uncle Pete and trust that you are in the loving hands of God. We mourn because we miss you. There has never been and never will be anyone else like you.