I have a cousin named Jimmie Ray. He is about four years older than I, the son of my dad's youngest sister. He is so dear to me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he looks exactly like my beloved dad.

For years he was an elder in our church in Clinton. Sadly, neither of my girls every knew my dad, though they have seen pictures of him. I used to tell them if they wanted to know exactly what my dad looked like that all they had to do was look at Jimmie Ray each Sunday.

He was just Dad's height and weight, he wore his hair in a short flat top just as my dad always did; he even walked and talked like him. Every Sunday, my heart would ache just a little for my dad when I would see Jimmie Ray.

I have two brothers but neither ever came close to looking as much like Dad as he did. It was so uncanny that I just could never believe it myself.

In addition to loving him because he looked so much like Dad, he is just the sweetest person. And he has always been there for the family crises in my life. He was especially close to my youngest brother, whom we lost almost three years ago. J.R. always called Larry "Pup", his nickname since his youth because he had such a baby face.

Just a couple weeks before Larry died, Jimmie Ray called him in Houston at M.D. Anderson. At the funeral,he told me that Larry had asked him that day if he had a shade tree for an old worn-out dog. That just broke my heart all over again.

At Kenneth's (my ex-husband and the girls' father) funeral, Jimmie Ray came up to me crying to hug the girls and me. He had been so moved by the notes the grandchildren placed in their granddad's casket that he broke down.

He's the only one of my numerous cousins who has been to the nursing home to see my mother and he has been several times with his wife.

Jimmie Ray doesn't practice religion; he lives it.