From the Mouths of Babes

I grew up in Small-Town, IL. Anyone from Non-Chicago, I'm sure, can relate. My family lived in this town for more than 5 generations since finding their way here from Germany. My parents lived in the family farmhouse where my grandpa was born. After WWII, my grandpa brought a wife back from Australia and built a new home next door to the farmhouse.

I grew up making the 100 foot walk to and from that house. Grandpa took me on walks back in the woods behind our house to look for mushrooms after a spring rain. He drove us down to the end of the road to wait for the school bus with my brother and sister and I. He'd take me out into the corn fields to show me how the farm has changed throughout the decades that he'd lived there. He'd sit me on his lap, bouncing up and down while riding the John Deere. I can still smell the freshly cut grass. I can still feel the warm sun on my neck. And I can still feel his arm wrapped around me tightly. He died on May 17th, 2004. I had left the night before to L.A. to make the drive back with a high school friend who was lugging stuff home from college. I was out for lunch with my aunt when my mom called.

I had just started dating my current boyfriend a week and a half before this happened. We were in the midst of that awkward first days when I called him and asked him if he could pick me up from the airport if I flew home that night. He assured me that he'd be there. I got the red-eye out of L.A. with a 2 hour layover in Vegas. I found my terminal in Vegas and laid down in the hallway next to the seating area. With my bags wrapped around me, for fear of having them stolen, and my cell phone alarm set for 15 minutes before boarding, I tried to fall asleep.

Grandpa was no spring chicken. He would have celebrated his 89th birthday that November. But grandpa was about a 50 year old in an 88 year old's body. No one expected him to pass away so suddenly. And he never let on that anything was going on. A heart attack took him home to his Heavenly Father that Monday afternoon.

A week before the visitation and funeral had passed, my boyfriend took me fishing with his brothers, the youngest of which, Caleb, was 10. The following is from a note I wrote to Caleb's mother.

I have often thought about telling you this story, but I never really felt as though it was appropriate timing. But I feel as though now is just as good a time as the next, so here is a story about how your youngest son Caleb made a profound impact on my life.

Jarrod and I started dating on May 7, 2004 . On May 8, 2004 , he asked me if I would like to go fishing with him, his brothers and a few other family members. I accepted his invitation and we went out to his Uncle Robert's lake for an afternoon/evening of fishing. I had to drive separately due to an earlier obligation. When I arrived, Jarrod was on the other side of the pond so I didn't't feel the need to walk all the way around just to sit next to him. I said hello from across the pond and progressed over towards Jarrod's cousins, Ashly and Dan. After talking to Ashly for awhile, I noticed Caleb standing on the shore attempting to fish all alone. It perplexed me that with all the people fishing around the pond, he was all by himself trying to cast his rod. He was having a difficult time with his cast, yet he wasn't really asking for help from anyone. I hadn't picked up a rod yet so I decided to go see if I could help him out.

As I approached him, I asked, "Could you use an extra hand?"

"I sure could, I can't get this darn thing to cast right," was his response.

I took the rod from him, cast the line a fair distance and handed it back to him to reel in. He seemed satisfied with this partnership so I stood by to make the next cast for him in hopes that he might catch a fish.

After my second cast I asked him, "How come you're standing here all alone? Don't you want some company?"

He stopped what he was doing and with the most certain and confident expression upon his face he simply stated, "Jesus and his angels are always with me, I'm never alone."

That response, coming from the mouth of a nine year old child, displaced my thoughts and emotions in such a way that I almost felt foolish for assuming he was alone in the first place. Of course he's not alone. Of course Jesus and his angels are with him. What was I thinking?! His answer to my question made sense to me, but the fact that he had that answer at that specific moment didn't seem to settle with me. Not until later.

Just over a week later, May 17, 2004 , my grandpa died. My grandma had passed away on September 30, 2002 , and my grandpa had been living on his own next door since then. May 18^th would have been their 60^th wedding anniversary. I like to think that he went home to be with her and celebrate their lives together. His death however, came as quite a shock to my family and me. Every time I would think of it, it was like I was hearing it for the first time again. My grandma had been sick; she was in the hospital for 3 weeks before she passed. We were prepared, as much as you can prepare for these things, for my grandma to pass. My grandpa's death however came quite unexpectedly.

My dad had asked me if I would take it upon myself to create a picture board for the visitation. This task required going through old pictures, deciding which ones would be appropriate, and assembling them into a display, or tribute, of my grandpa's life. Jarrod came over that evening to help me, or maybe just more so to be with me while I made the picture board. It was a very hard thing to do, but it had to be done. Once I went through all the pictures we had at my house, it appeared as though I was going to have to go through pictures at my grandpa's house as well to get some of the older ones. This also meant that I would have to go into his house for the first time since he had passed. Jarrod agreed to go with me. I made it about six steps into the house before I lost all composure. I stood there in my grandparents' breezeway, next to the chair that my grandma did crosswords in and the couch that my grandpa read Newsweek on and I cried. Jarrod was good to just be there with me and let me fall apart at his side. He didn't say much, if anything, but his presence was more than words could accomplish. I eventually gathered myself and moved through the house to collect some pictures. We'd find some, maybe laugh, I might cry a little more, but eventually we had a decent stack...at least enough for the night.

Before we left, and I don't even remember why, we went into the garage. Jarrod was looking at all the "junk" hanging or sitting around. As he was preoccupying himself with all of my grandpa's little and not-so-little trinkets, I found myself being slowly overcome with emotion once again.

Jarrod looked at me and said, "What's wrong?"

"I can't help but think that my grandpa died 100% completely and totally alone. There was no one here to be with him. There was no one around to even find him right away. I feel like he died at maybe the loneliest part of his life."

Jarrod came back and put his arms around me and said, "Annie, remember what Caleb said? Jesus and his angels are always with us. And this is not an exception."

Had those words come from anyone but a nine year old boy, I don't think they would have made a fraction of an impact on me. I think if you were to ask a thousand other boys the question I asked Caleb that day, I don't think you would get another answer that was similar. Caleb won't understand exactly what he did when he said that. But I thought maybe you would. And I think it is an important lesson for us all to remember-we're never alone, even at our loneliest most humble moments... "Jesus and his angels are always with us."