Christian Short Stories

Web writes: "Being over 70 affords lots of memories -- not all of them good."

Maybe it was association with my peers  -- some younger and some older. Who knows?  Maybe it was just me.  I don’t know quite why I did it. But I did.

I had been 9 years old or so. It had been the second time in my life that I had done something like that: picked up something—a small piece of plywood in this case—and heaved it at somebody. In this scenario, it was at a girl walking down Don Street, turning the corner and heading up Jeffries.

Why?

I don’t know.

Thank goodness, my arm was a weanie arm. The board fell a good 10 yards short. The girl—13, tall appearing and gauntly thin—had her zipper school notebook clutched in the crook of her right arm tucked into her straight blue coat.  No doubt she was headed somewhere for scholarly endeavor.

She just turned slightly and smiled, and kept walking. No tears. No shout. Nothing. She just kept walking.

I retired back to my house, wondering two things: 1) Why didn’t she cry or shout something foul? And 2) why did I do it anyway?

There certainly was no reason. She hadn’t made me angry. I barely knew her.  Maybe it was because I lived in a small town with lots of macho, and boys my age were expected to act mean. I don’t know. It makes absolutely no sense to me now.
Moreover, she acted so cool.

It bothers me.

She would do that quite often: walk down Don Street, turn the corner, and head up Jeffries.

After a few weeks, I saw her no more.  I wondered. But it didn’t bother me particularly at first. Later on my friend, Benny, who lived across Don Street from her, told me she had died.  Still later, I heard it had been leukemia.

I was sick at my stomach.  My morale was terrible. Threw a board at her? How could I treat an ailing girl so bad without tangible reason? Or even with one?

Eventually, of course, the whole episode passed, and I nearly forgot it. It wasn’t until much, much later that I recalled it, and was still wondering why.  Was I such a jerk?  I must have been.

To this day, I still wonder. The girl, whatever her name was—I think her last name was Junque—became my first true reason for introspection. Moreover, as far as I can remember, it was my first serious encounter with God.

But that encounter with the hereafter wasn’t because of my throwing the board.  Rather it was the first of several occasions when persons who passed through the edge of my life, and died soon afterwards..

It set me to thinking and emoting—deeply.

It became part of that cosmic sequence of events wherein somebody moved past me like a gray ghost or shadow and soon afterwards became part of the sunny, heavenly hereafter.

Lately, after some 65-70 years, the board throwing has been bothering me anew.

Why on earth…? 

In a strange way, I’m sort of glad it happened.  It was my first solid involvement with the Holy Spirit. And I’ve been tipped that way ever since.

If I ever pass on to the heavenly great beyond, I hope to see her in Glory. I’ll apologize, of course. Other than that I won’t know what to say.

Were she to ask me why I threw the board, I would still have to say…  “I  don’t know.”

(© 2013 Web Ruble – All rights reserved. Written material may not be duplicated without permission.)