Wanted, Dead or Alive!

How wonderful to be wanted, when the one who wants you is the Son of God. He is coming for his church any time now. He is the Bridegroom and we are His bride. It is marriage time we are talking about. Right now we are engaged, and that is good too.

Imagine a newspaper notice that reads: The happy couple will spend a blissful seven years in heaven, and shall return to help rule the world. That's us. A wonderful dinner has been planned. It is to be called The Marriage Supper of The Lamb.

The Groom is heir to the world.

Dead? It is not a problem. Those who sleep in Christ will be summoned and resurrected to be with their husband. Story is continued in 1st Corinthians chapter 15.

A sign has been posted in a baby nursery as a reminder. It reads:

"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

I Want to Die

Sounds awful to say it, but it is not negative at all. I was charged with having “dark thoughts” by some. But they are very bright thoughts. Truth is, I want to go to heaven. I really feel I am at the end of my useful life. If I was a can of peaches you would not buy me.

Paul led the way, by saying he wanted to be with Christ.

Indulge me while I thank people who make me want to go on. Kymber started my whole blog and for quite a time entered my stories. She has ever been an inspiration to me. Jane of Virginia has given me so much encouragement. I cannot thank her enough. A man who described himself as an “old man with an old Bible” helps a lot. It is what I am, too.

I do not wish to leave my friends, whom I love so much. I do not even wish to leave my cat who cuddles up with me at night. Guess I want to be where sorrow is no more. Too much has ganged up on me. A mostly wasted life, too many graves and lives ended so soon. Jimmy, who jumped off the tar wagon with me, once jumped into a raging stream when I slipped.

He put his arm around me until I could climb out. Now he is gone. Things haunt you when you become old. A sparkling stone my wife Janie picked up in a mountain stream is still on her desk, but she is gone. My body is failing. After all, at my age, what would I expect?

Hours before she died my wife told me to go home. She knew I was very tired. She was wearing a little cap. Her tangling hair was shaved off. We had talked about how death might feel. I had come very close.

Abdominal cramps, then the lights go out. You come to, ringed with concerned nurses and doctors. They test your memory to see if any brain damage has occurred. But Janie was waiting for a voice to call to her, “Come up here." So am I. Her last words to me as she leaned on one elbow, “See you soon.”

I knew what she meant. She was dead a few hours later.

- Gerald Franz, The Last Robin

The Tar Wagon

What a nifty job, an honor, really. To fill a garden sprinkling can with molten tar and pour it out on the road to help mend it. I watched a man fill the can and pour the tar. I was a little boy and I was fascinated.

Then the wagon was retired. It had become a relic in a sand lot. But not to me and my friend Jimmy. It was an opportunity waiting for us.

Jimmy was from a different world and a different time. He could catch fish with his bare hands. He seemed to know a lot about his world, and not much about the other one. At school, he copied someones test perfectly, even the person's name. His teacher soon understood why she received two tests with the same name.

Why not climb all over the tar wagon? It was crusted with tar. It was so old it had wooden spoked wheels. We climbed the old wagon. No one cared. Then we thought, Why not jump from the top of the wagon into a big sand pile below?

I forget who jumped first. The sand was gentle and forgiving. We jumped with no fear. One challenge remained--jump backwards with your eyes shut. We did this. The big sand pile caught us. We were never hurt.

As a man, Jimmy developed lung cancer. His wife said his last wish was to be baptized. I believe pride kept him from coming to Christ sooner. I had, long ago. One morning he did not wake up. His wife found him dead, a little blood on his pillow. He sleeps in Christ.

Each of us made a bigger leap than from the tar wagon, years ago. We turned from pride, closed our eyes and jumped. Jesus caught us.

Me and My Shadow

I was walking home from a violin lesson. It was a sunny day. I moved automatically, neither happy or sad. A shadow caught my attention--my shadow. My little mind was filled with one thought. "If I cast a shadow I must be real." This was a psychotic moment. I had just discovered I was alive.

Years later at college, I attended a noon time meeting, very informal. A group had assembled to give their questions to a pastor. He was a properly quiet, sober, young man. I felt the good will in the room. People had questions and the pastor would try to answer them.

A young man volunteered. He stood out from the others in his neatness. He wore a corduroy suit. His hair was neat. What could be wrong? A sunny day, a quiet room of tinted glass, earnest people? Then his question. "I guess the big one for me is, Do we exist?"

The pastor spoke. "I believe Renee Dacarte answered that when he said, 'I think, therefore I am.'"

Should I have spoken out? I did not, though it was the only question I remember from that session. Sorry pastor. Sorry Renee. You meant well. But when a generation asks, "Do we exist?" We have deep trouble.

Please, someone, say it! We exist when we hurt, when no one cares about us. Why are we having children? So we can leave our fortunes to them when we die? I think we already have died.

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

I was such a lonely kid. A skinny little guy. My parents both worked. I fixed my own breakfast and lunch, usually a can of soup. An empty house awaited me after school or in the summer. I often wet my bed. In those days I would have been termed neurotic. But my mind was turning on. Nature was so appealing as spring broke. I loved nature, but also chemistry.

Today was a blending of both. I learned that sulfur fumes were used to bleach paper and cloth and would even bleach flowers. I had cleaned out a peanut butter jar for an experiment. I wandered around a garden bed bordering a neighbor's house. We had just moved in. My jar was filled with the fumes of sulfur. I was breaking off a lilac flower as a little figure appeared.

"I hope you're not catching insects, are you? They frighten me, but they have a right to be free."

This was how I met Minerva Flavin, who was to be my friend.

We talked. I told her about my experiment of bleaching flowers. She was interested! At last someone cared.

As I told Minnie of my interest in the sulfur dioxide, she looked with fascination. I opened the jar and placed the lilac blossom inside.

We continued to talk. She treated me as adult. She was the last of her line I found later. Her parents were long dead and she had never married. When she was gone, she said her family would all be dead.

I held up the jar. The lilac had turned white. Minnie was astonished. "My, my," she exclaimed. "Let's try some other flowers."

Dandelions refused to turn white, but violets lost their color. A little moisture helped I learned.

The summer passed too fast, as it does for children. But not my friendship with Minnie. I would ring her doorbell and she would invite me up. Her furniture was covered with cloths, the shutters were closed, the house was dark. At the top of the stairs I could hear the hiss of the gas jet on her little stove. She lived upstairs. Her front room was her little kitchen, in a closet. She had no refrigerator and cooled things, like butter, with wet cloths over earthenware crocks.

She had been a seamstress and still had her long bladed shears. She and her friends used to go to the opera, she said, eyes sparkling. On a shelf were her opera glasses.

"Would you care for some coffee?" she asked. Coffee was forbidden to children in our house. "It will stunt your growth," I was told. I had some anyway. The taste was so strange to a pop drinking kid--so strong. But I liked it and never forgot my first cup.

Minnie was Irish. Many in the neighborhood were, but she really was. A staunch Catholic, she had a large picture of the Sacred Heart over the fireplace. I had gone to her house at Halloween, dressed as a cowboy. She did not answer the doorbell. I found out she believed the dead came out of their graves on this night. It was no happy time for her.

Years passed. I did not see her much. One day the mailman walked off her porch. As he passed a clump of grass, he had a frightened look. There was Minnie trying to cut the grass with her seamstress shears, her white hair blowing in the wind. Her yard had gone wild, and she fought it.

Soon her little body was carried out of her home, covered with a wine colored cloth. A hearse had backed into her drive crushing some of the high grass. Soon the grass recovered. It rose up. It was as if Minnie had never lived. But not to me.

The Wounded Nurse

“I’ll put the cord on your chair,” she said.

I was in our little lunch room and was to be given the call cord while she was away, briefly. Her hair hung down as she tied the cord. She stuck her tongue out at me. She was a communicator!

She was marrying a slightly older man. He had found that two of his children were not his and was shattered. “Who else would be crazy enough to marry someone like me?”

She uttered more demeaning remarks in a light way, as if she was one big joke.

Our wheelchairs were lined up for shower time. I saw her nearby.

“Could you do something for me?” I asked. “I heard you knocking yourself several times today.”

“It’s because of my crappy childhood,” she replied.

“Please don’t knock yourself. What happened to you is not you. It was something that happened to you.”

She bent over and placed her face next to mine before she walked away.

So many hurting people! In this state, where laughter is almost compulsory, she was hurting. My problems were just to get over my stroke. I soon forgot about them. Hers will be with her until she dies.

As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. I heard an old preacher say that we never get over our childhoods. So true, I am afraid. Brave soul she was. Hard not to love her.

A Few Words Were All He Needed

His air conditioner had fallen off his trailer. He covered the hole with cardboard. The daytime temperature reached 104 degrees. “I can tough it out," he thought.

Like lightning, he had a stroke, then a heart attack. While he lay in his cot he heard a voice telling him he must get up. "You need to get some fluids,” the voice said. He tried to get up, but could not. The voice was his own.

He lay unconscious for a long time, newspapers accumulated. Efforts to call by phone failed. A good friend became concerned and had the life squad break down his door. You was taken to an intensive care unit. Your heart was beating fast, your body was at room temperature.

For a time he remained semi-conscious. A tube was placed in his nose and down his throat to feed him. He helped the woman who did it by swallowing it down. The tube was taped to his nose. "You look like an elephant," a visitor said.

The tube and tape bothered him. Finally he pulled the tube out and peeled off the tape. "Oh, Gerald, look what you’ve done!” a voice said. "Why did you pull out the tube?”

"Something to do," you answered. A grin was formed on your face like a mask.

"I can think of lots of things you could do besides that," The voice was a mournful rebuke. You could not. You went back into a slumber.

As your vision returned, you looked through a hall door. There was a picture on the wall. A woman was held aloft by a crowd of revelers. It was a rite of some kind, maybe a bacchanal . It was an evil scene.

You were being held prisoner by evil people. You had to get away. A friend could help you, though he was unable to drive. He would get a cab and wait outside. You could hide in a woods until they stopped searching for you.

If you could get to the window and get it open. You had read books on how firemen exit a burning building. You had a hook and a descender. You could do it.

Gentle hands were at your face. There was a blue rectangle with a dark cord on it. Someone was giving you something, though you felt nothing. It was gray dark. All you could see was a doorway. Could you get through the door?

A figure appeared in the doorway. He laughed. "You’ll never get out this way," was what he implied.

At last you had recovered enough to be transferred in a wheel chair. Past the picture, it was a little girl picking roses. Their flowers were the crowd you had imagined. No more dreams about being free, then waking up to see the doorway and hearing a hum.

Sense retuned, people had been helping you, they had saved your life . But you had felt so alone and trapped. You could only feel gratitude. But you had needed one thing. Someone to talk to you--maybe a volunteer--telling you where you were and why. You were a word person. All you had needed were a few words.