Roy McPhee was the first person I ever saw die. He was also the first person I ever saw come back to life.

I should have known. Of all my finer friends, if I had to pick one who was worthy of being resurrected, it would have to be Roy. He was as fine a human being as I’ll ever have the fortune to know.

I remember precisely when I first met Roy. It was 1973 and he was introduced to me as a banker, which really surprised me because
Roy had traits not usually associated with that line of work: Calloused hands and a huge heart. 

Roy and I became fast friends for life the minute we met. Part of it was because he and his family hailed from Missouri, like many in my family. But more than that, Roy was just so darn easy to like.

He didn’t put on airs, brag or pollute the air with more B.S. With Roy you knew every word coming out of his mouth was well thought-out and as honest as the day is long.

I never heard him utter a curse word or talk ill of other people behind their backs – never. Roy had integrity, was self-made, extremely hard-working, dignified without being stuffy, unpretentious and loyal.

People said of his cattle that they were honest and “easy keepers,” just like the man who bred them. To my way of thinking that’s as fine a résumé, or an obituary, as a person can have.

It’s been 12 years since Roy died and came back to life, thanks to the skill and persistence of three people who had CPR training, the intelligence to use them and the stamina to breathe life into Roy when the rest of us thought it was too late.

I often recall that experience, for that was when I learned the greatest good in this world is to give life to another human being.

Parents already know this, but I never did until Roy turned cold and blue and was brought back to life by three Earth-based angels.

Thanks to those three people, Roy was given a second chance at life.

His wonderful wife, Nellie, was able to spend 12 more years with the man she loved, and Roy was able to see three more grandkids and one great-grandchild be born, not to mention many more calf crops.

You learned right away the most important things in Roy’s life were his family, his God and his cattle.

Please note that I made no mention of money – Roy didn’t spend his life in the hopeless pursuit of acquiring trinkets in an attempt to impress people he didn’t even know.

He always promised Nellie if they had a good bull sale he’d build her a new house. They always had great bull sales, but Nellie never did get her new home.

It didn’t really matter, since the McPhees could find happiness in an appliance carton, so long as it was filled with God and family and surrounded by Red Angus cattle.

As he did in his first life, Roy didn’t waste a minute of the second life he’d been granted. Most people in Roy’s condition would have propped up on a couch, felt sorry for themselves and waited for death to come again. Not Roy.

I often saw him in far-flung places, breathing from one of the many oxygen tanks Nellie dragged all over the West. Roy breathed in gasps, looked like a limp dishrag and seemed to be on Death’s door every time I saw him, but he was determined to squeeze every beat from his worn-out heart.

To do any less would have cheated his three benefactors and life itself.

I know in another time and place we’ll get to see Roy again. (Most of us will, anyway.) Although I look forward to that time, I’m not in any hurry for it.

By his example, Roy taught me to savor every precious second of this gift we call life. Roy McPhee lives on through his family and his cattle, but also through his personal reminder to all of us who knew and loved him that every time we awaken we are “born again.”

For the rest of my life, every time I think of my friend Roy, I will be reminded to live every day as if it will be my last – for someday, it will be.

Readers with questions or comments for Lee Pitts may write to him in care of this publication.