Chapter 3
Walking as One


"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope."--I Thessalonians 4:13


There is the reality side of death with which I had to deal. Don was gone from this world, from the house, from my life. His overalls hung on the back porch. All farmhouses have an area where the chore clothes hang. When I came to this house as a bride, the overalls were on the back porch. Overalls! They are the dress code of mature farmers. The bib of the overalls is a farmer's brief case designed to hold pencil, check book, seed corn book, watch, calculator, and a few unpaid bills. Two back pockets hold a grease rag and a red handkerchief. The two are sometimes interchangeable. The front pockets are for hands, calf scour pills, loose change, an assortment of bolts, screws, nails, electric tape and a little string. They are muddy in irrigating season, greasy following machinery repair, frozen stiff in winter, and covered with manure during calving season. They are the second skin of a farmer, and they hang on the back porch. Four months had passed since his death. I knew I should deal with those overalls, but somehow, I just could not. They were the last two pair. They were patched in a place or two but still serviceable. In the pockets, I would find the last two red handkerchiefs, bane of former washdays when I dreaded to pull them from the pockets. I was unable to lift those overalls from their hooks.

As I contemplated this dilemma, Don stood before me. It was more that I saw him than he saw me. He was dressed in a white robe gathered on a gold band rather low on his neck. There was a gold rope or belt around his waist. His hair was slightly long and wavy. There was a light behind his head the way a photographer uses light to enhance hair. On his head was a round circle of gold...his gold crown.

He was glorious! He had no need for patched overalls, and I could give them away.

Don had always been my protector. He was the one who locked the door at night. Should anyone knock on the door in the middle of the night, Don answered. On the rare occasion when Don was gone overnight, I locked the doors early and pulled the shades before someone could be out there looking in. I kept the lights on as long as possible and went to sleep quickly. It was an eerie, exposed feeling I had when I was home alone. I knew I would have to face this fear, for some night a knock would occur. Don often quoted II Timothy 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." It was not a verse I was able to practice.

Two months after Don's death, there came a pounding on the door and pounding in my heart. What should I do? Should I pretend to be asleep? Stay quiet? Ask who it is? I got up to see who was there. It was pouring rain and 2:00 A.M. Surely no one would be out if they did not need help. I took the portable phone to the door, and said, "Call whomever you need."

"Can I come in?" ask a man's voice. "It's pouring out here." I stepped aside to let him in and a second man followed. Terror struck my heart! Two men! Anything can be possible. My years of bedside nursing came into focus. Be calm and matter-of-fact. They smelled of alcohol. Of course they would. No one has ever run off our flat road that has not been drinking. We found the telephone number of the neighbor they were seeking. They apologized for their trouble and expressed sympathy for the awful road I lived on. I smiled inwardly. They had no way of knowing the huge hole they tried to dodge was only one inch deep!

My waist-length white hair and my robe were an obvious testimony of who I was, and how vulnerable I could have been. It wasn't until they left, I found a blue sticky note which had been on my pillow now stuck to my chin!

I went back to bed and made a deal with God. I did not want to live in fear. If anyone came to my door, I would receive that person as from Jesus. I would witness to them and treat them as a guest of God.

Since that time, I have found two other cars in the ditch. No one has come to my door. The drivers have chosen to walk the one and a half miles to town rather than knock on my door. God is my very present help in trouble.

Don was the mechanic of the family. Anything that needed fixing, I took to him. We often joked that he ran things with motors, I ran things with handles.

Everything was a challenge to me. How do I use the riding mower? Our lawn is too big to mow by hand and my garden time is limited. How do I start the roto-tiller to till the garden? How do I put air in the well to make pressure for the water in the house? How am I to know if the truck tires are inflated properly? The list was endless. Don's health had been running very low but he had managed to do an amazing assortment of tasks; a fact that I didn't appreciate until I had to do them myself.