Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Illustrate the meaning of “Don’t Try to Walk before You Can Crawl” (without using the actual phrase or literal example). (01/17/08)
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TITLE: To Fly! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Daneda Heppner
01/24/08 -
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A sudden movement in the yard might be the rabbit that lived in the back corner of the pasture, making his morning trip through the front gate. It might be the neighbor’s cat, coming to dig up gophers from the sandy tunnels in his yard. It might be one of a myriad of birds coming to visit at his bird feeder. He knew them all: the meadowlark that lived in the orchard, the tiny wren that flew out from behind the garage, the woodpecker that walked upside down along the flat white bark of the sycamore tree.
He had planted that tree fifty years ago, and now the massive trunk stood straight and true, its smooth serpentine branches bearing eight-inch leaves that filtered the hot Kansas sun in summer and covered the ground in crackling glory each autumn.
He had seen many autumns, eighty-seven to be exact, and he longed for three more; to end his life with a full, round number. That would be something, he thought, to live to be ninety. He formed this goal in his mind as he sat there by the window for longer and longer periods each day, finally becoming rooted like the tree he loved so well.
Lately, doubt had started to creep into his decaying mind. At times he wondered if he would make it much longer. His speech was becoming garbled. At first it was just when he was tired, but then it happened at other times too, and lately it had become alarmingly constant. He had to expend great effort to speak distinctly, struggling to say each word individually, so his daughter would not miss the blessing he was trying to bestow upon her, “YOU – ARE – A – GOOD – MOTHER!”
He had dealt with loss all his life. When he was only seven, he had seen his father drop to the ground dead after cranking furiously to start their Model-T. His infant brother had died a year later, of the same disease that had taken eighty years to encroach upon his own brain. His loving wife, with her zest for life, had died a few hours after a stroke had paralyzed her at the inopportune age of 57. His children had grown up and moved away from the small town to start their own lives. Almost all of his friends were gone.
His children had arranged for Home Health care to come in twice a day. He surrendered his modesty as he stood in the shower in front of these kind and caring strangers, fumbling with the soap as he struggled to clean himself. He was dismayed at how weak he had become in the last few months. It became such an effort to put his shoes on, to stand, and then to walk the few steps behind his walker to his chair. Even a simple cup of tea could be his undoing, as he gulped and sputtered and choked it down, coughing to clear his lungs. It might not be long, he thought, until he choked to death.
“All of these problems would be solved if I were to die now, wouldn’t they,” he asked his daughter as they were discussing finances and nursing homes.
“God must still have a plan for your life or you wouldn’t be here,” she reminded him. He soberly agreed, but he was starting to want to go. To shoot up past the sycamore tree, into that glorious sky, to leave the decrepit weight of his body behind-to finally fly!
He settled back in his chair to wait, to live and to wait, for the right time to die; and while he waited, he watched the sky.
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” I Thessalonians 4:17 & 18
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The description at the beginning were so real. I could see the yard through his "sky blue eyes".
Great writing.