Never Walk Alone

Please listen to the song... It will inspire you, as it did me. 

Listening to this song brought back a memory that is painful to think of, but too beautiful not to share.  In the 44 years since this happened, I have never put this down in writing.  It is time.

I was just a girl, 15 years old; I had spent the last two and a half months waiting for my grandfather to come home from the hospital. He and I had lived alone together for over a decade, most of my life, and I could not imagine living without him. I planned on how I would care for him, but most of all, how we would have more time together, to laugh and share our thoughts. But that was not to be.

My father had moved him from the hospital to a nursing home, and after just a week there, knowing he would never return home, he gave up on living.
I saw him two days before he died, on a Christmas Eve, when I had promised that when Christmas day came, I would be there with him.  That also was not to be.  My father decided that he did not feel like going into town on Christmas, and I had no way to get there.  Christmas was a bleak day without him, but the next day and the days that followed were even darker.  He died the next day, alone.  When my father came to tell us, I felt like I was going to die too. 

In the days that followed, I kept up with all that he had taught me.  Chores were done, as they were supposed to be done, with the exception of dishes and bringing in kindling and firewood to heat the house.  I didn’t feel like eating, so that chore, that I had so despised, was not necessary. And my heart felt cold like a stone, so why heat up the rest of the place.  At night, I lay down in my bed, the house dark, empty and silent, and cried myself to sleep. 

The day of his funeral came, and I was not prepared for the emotions I would feel.  The long ride to the cemetery from the church was familiar, having done that with my mother and grandmother’s funerals, but this time, my grandfather, who was always my support and comfort went along for the ride in the hearse.  I sat in silence, afraid to cry. 

The graveside ceremonies, with the 21-gun salute, the folding of the flag, the quiet prayers committing his body to the ground, all were a blur. And then they began to lower the coffin into the ground.  Something snapped inside of me. Like some tight band that held me together just broke loose.  I sprung into action to try to save him. I screamed, “No!” at the top of my lungs and ran toward the gaping grave hole, with every thought and nerve within me to get him out of there and keep him forever.  I almost made the jump into the grave, but my brother and my friends held me back.  No matter that they held my body back, they could not keep my heart from going down with him into that grave. 

I do not even remember the ride back home.  The days that followed were cold, bleak, empty.  I wanted to die.  Tears fell like a flood for days on end, until there were no more tears.  Just emptiness.  I was alone. That was it.  Abandoned again. Just the same as when my mother died and my father moved me in with my grandparents. Daddy didn’t visit much, only long enough to give a tongue-lashing, or dole out some form of punishment.  Emotionally and physically, I had been abandoned, but I had always had my grandfather, even after my grandmother died.  My child like mind felt that this was someone who was invincible, who would never leave me.  Only now, he had, even if not by his own choice.  Living each day now seemed a fantasy that I would never achieve. I was alone.  I could not do this on my own.

One of those nights, trying to sleep, unable to come to terms with what my life would be like from now on, I picked up a little book my grandfather used to read to me when I was very small.  It was a little story book, with stories from the Bible, with a picture on the cover of Jesus with children sitting in his lap.  I began to read, and as I did, I felt a presence in the room.
No one was there, but someone was.  Something within me recalled the same feeling as I had when I was a little girl out walking in the corn field alone.  I remember coming to tell my grandfather about my friend who walked with me in the corn rows, and how he was watching over me so I would not get lost among those tall stalks of corn. 

I continued to read, still feeling this presence with me.  And there, on the very last page, was the answer to who was with me in the darkness of that night.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you, for Lo, I am with you always.” 

My senses and my knowing suddenly came to life, and I knew it was He, the one from the corn field.  I suddenly knew he had been with me through each of these dark, shadowed nights of sorrow.  I knew suddenly that He had always been with me, in the corn fields, at every graveside, in the fear and the torment that life had brought. He had always been with me.  He had not forsaken me. I felt His presence so strong, it was like I could have turned my tear stained face around, and seen Him standing there.

 Thus began my entrance into adulthood. At too early an age, without worldly guidance, I began to grow up.  I came to know the One who would walk with me every day of my life. I began to understand that He was always there to hold me, comfort me, guide me and watch over me.  

I still felt loneliness throughout my life, but it was never because He was not there, it was because I had pulled away to other things.  Whenever I would come to myself and understand that I was the one who was absent from Him, the loneliness would leave, and I would feel His presence. 

I will never forget that night.  Every time I recall it, I remember the fear, the sadness, the feeling of being abandoned. But I remember more, the knowing that Jesus, Yahweh, God, was with me, and that I never walked alone.