In this difficult time in our economy, we are inviting our Christians in media to contribute words of encouragement in short stories. Please enjoy this one from Merlin Pearson.
Not Alone
– Merlin Pearson
There is some opinion that children bounce back quicker from traumatic events. This is because they are more resilient, have quicker memory loss I guess, and maybe don’t have quite the reference points an older person would have. That isn’t always the case, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I personally think it also could be that they feel the pain for a longer time because they have more life to live. It gives different insight to future events and gives a different reference point that others might not have. Once something happens in your life I believe it becomes a part of who you are. Different people deal with it in different ways, but no matter how old you are a traumatic experience is still that...a traumatic experience. I can speak with some knowledge on this subject. At the age of 7 1/2, almost eight (At that age it is so very important to be considered older!) I lost my older brother. He had nearly a two-year battle with leukemia. He was nine. He was my best friend, often my only playmate, and, of course, he was my OLDER brother. There were four of us (the oldest, my sister, and a younger brother), and now there were only three. My older brother and I were the closest in age to each other. Over the next ten years three of my four grandparents passed away. My mother’s parents from cancer, spending some of their last days in our house, but always with my mother as the primary care giver, during long, tough, painful battles that I still remember. My younger brother developed an illness the doctors thought was also leukemia. It turned out to be Crohn’s Disease. He was opened up so many times in his life that I tell him “he should have just had a zipper put in.” My father, a long distance trucker, and I never got along when he was home from his job, which was only about a day and a half every week. Six days before my seventeenth birthday my mother, who was the rock, the center, the core of our family, died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. But all of those sufferings are for other stories. This story is about one day in my life. God chose to bless me with a very good memory, which can be both a blessing and a challenge (no, not a curse). When my older brother died I think it is fair to say that it devastated our family, maybe a little more than most because he was a very special young boy (which is another story all its own). We lived on a farm in a small town in Illinois. We didn’t own the farm so it was less painful for my parents to make the decision to sell everything at an auction in the barnyard of our home, move, and basically change our lives as much as possible. We moved into the nearest “larger” town (12,000 residents, a major metropolitan area) after my father got the job as a long distance truck driver, and we were able to buy a house and move in. At the age of seven (almost eight!) it was tough to figure out all that was going on...it seemed like everything was moving so fast. I was in the second grade and had to leave the friends I had started to make at school just a short time after school had started. I had to leave the only home I had ever known. I didn’t have big brother to play with any more, to look up to, and to show me things. My parents were distraught, to put it mildly. There would be no farm, with plenty of room to roam, plenty of places to play, knowing where everything was, not worrying about neighbors or streets with cars, or much of anything else. Now everything was changed. There was some excitement. It was a nice house, and being new and different certainly had its curiosities. The house had a basement, which was different...different, partly because the man of the family who had owned it before worked for a major paint store. The basement had a block wall about half way up to the ceiling and every block was painted a different color. It was a place to go to get away, kind of. My younger brother and I were to share a room. Now I was the older brother, and I was not sure I could even begin to live up to being what my older brother had been to me. We moved in January, and if you have ever been in northern Illinois in January you know that being outside is not the warmest place to be. Three layers of clothes, boots, gloves (heavy!), and more are required just to go out and play in the snow. The time to get ready to go out, and then to dry out and warm up when you came in, was about equal to, or less than, the time you actually could stand being outside. We didn’t need “wind chill factors” to know that it was COLD. I always thought that the old wives tail about your spit freezing before it would hit the ground was a given fact. My mother had taken me to register at the new school I would be going to...much larger than the one I had come from. It was all very different, and being the “new kid” in school was not anything I was looking forward to. Several days after that she told me that I would be walking to school, the bus did not pick up in town and we were about a mile or so away from the school. She told me that there was a boy that lived across the street that was my age that came home from school through our backyard. So it was her idea that I wait in the backyard, giving some time after the end of the school day for him to get home, so that I could meet him and begin walking to school with him. Wait outside, in the cold, for someone I didn’t know? For a seven year old (used to be six...I was feeling much younger right about this time...who had just gone through a traumatic life change, this did not seem like a very good idea. I was really hoping for a ride to school each day and then someone to pick me up as soon as school let out so I wouldn’t have to be in that “new kid” environment any longer than necessary. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to me, just for the freezing aspect of it, if nothing else. She told me this in the morning, so for the rest of the day my mind was somewhat pre-occupied with the perceived horror that awaited me. It was not something I was eagerly anticipating to say the least. Time marched on and the moment grew closer. I could almost picture the boy who I was to meet. He would probably be 6 inches taller than me, tough as nails, and would have experienced a rotten day at school. Maybe the teacher even scolded him and he was going to be looking for someone to take it out on. The time finally came for me to start putting on the layers...Sweater, coat, hat, gloves, boots...At least I would have padding if he tried to beat me up. I could always try to disappear inside my bundles and maybe he would just think I was an elaborate snowman and pass right on by...probably not, though. Out the door I went. We had a fairly long yard to the alleyway behind (at least it seemed that way to a seven – used to being – a six year old). I went about half way and stood there. The ground was fairly flat in what was known as “prairie land”. I could see across the yards to each side of me. The snow was relatively new and so there weren’t many tracks (our neighbors must have been pretty smart I figured...they didn’t go outside). The wind was very still. When it is cold like that and the wind is still there is a dead silence...no bird or animal sounds, no wind sounds, nothing but the sound of my own breathing...and I was alone! I was all by myself, in a new and strange place, not only physically but emotionally as well, waiting for a boy who I didn’t know. I didn’t know if he would like me, hate me, make fun of me, or just beat me up for the pleasure of it in this cold, silent place. I might as well have been alone in the desert or in Mars. Either place. That would have been much warmer, but wouldn’t have been lonelier. The only thing I could see moving was the vapor of my breath as it came out. My being alone to the Nth degree compounded my fears. I felt like I was waiting in a jail cell alone because of the cold around me, and because of being bundled up. Every moment seemed like an eternity. I thought about going back into the house and telling my mother the boy had never come, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Besides, my mother could tell every time I was not being totally truthful. So I started to think about what had brought me to this moment and place. All through my brothers ordeal there had been one constant – FAITH. My mother had great strength in her faith, and her parents also had this strength. I stayed with my grandparents often during this time, so I know that’s where it had come from. There was a daily Bible reading at lunchtime and a quiet courage to deal with what was presented, trusting His will. Prayer was a constant. My father was not of the same strong belief, but I think he knew of His existence in everything. My brother, even at his early age, was a strong believer. He trusted. One week before his death he had described a dream to my mother that he had about heaven. He and another boy who was struggling with the same disease (and who he became great friends with during their hospital stays) were there in heaven together. He told my mother how wonderful it was! By the next week they both passed on within a day of each other to that scene he described. As I stood there and thought about this...his death, the pain (not only for him but also for all of us, because of his loss) and all the other changes, my focus on the cold and emptiness faded. I actually started to feel a little warmer. Not just because I was now starting to sweat somewhat under all those clothes, but warmer inside of me. I did begin to feel a presence. I didn’t know what it was, but it did make me feel better...not quite so all alone...not quite so cold...not quite so empty. Colossians 2:5 says “For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit.” I began to feel that spirit, even the spirit of faith that was in my brother. It seemed as if my brother was still here. The more I let that feeling in, the warmer and less afraid I became. Some comfort and peace started to filter through the fear and anxiety. It wasn’t a revelation, or a lightening bolt – it was a gradual feeling of not being alone. There were no words, no visions, and no gust of wind or sudden light flashes...only a growing feeling that the cold wasn’t quite so cold, the emptiness really not empty at all and that I was not alone. I could finally see the boy coming through the yard behind us and into our yard. He was about the same size as I was. He was certainly bundled up as much too. As he approached I found I had the courage to say “Hi”. He responded in as friendly a way as any seven year old boy nearly mummified by layers of clothing can. It turned out that his mother and mine had spoken, so he knew I would be waiting for him. That day began a very good friendship that lasted until his family moved several years later. I had a new best friend, and though he could never take the place of my brother, it was a special friendship. The next morning we started the daily ritual of walking to and from school each day. Now even though I was the ‘new kid’ I had a friend to show me around and introduce me. I also had something else. I had the knowledge that I wasn’t really alone, and that I never would be. I wouldn’t begin to tell you that I was a perfect angel and didn’t go far, far, far, off the beaten path. That would not be true. You can see by the first part of this story that much more heartache and pain was just down the road I would travel. My life has been filled with “learning experiences”. I have made many mistakes and many errors in judgment. My choices in life have been far from right or perfect...but through every twist and turn, every falter to temptation, every pain and sorrow, and every thrill and happiness, there has been one constant. I have always known from that day on that I am not alone. The last sentence of the last verse of Matthew says “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”. He gave me a memory, along with all of life’s lessons so far. One of the reasons He did, I think, was so that I could tell you this story, and confirm to you that the sentence is absolutely true. No matter what you’re going through or facing in these days, remember that He is always with you.
