That You May Not Grieve
Stories
Shining Moments
Visions Of The Holy In Ordinary Lives
John Sumwalt
Diane was eight years old when her brother Larry died. Larry was nine. They had always been close. Diane followed her older brother everywhere. They helped their dad and mom on the farm, cared for the animals, chased each other around the buildings, played hide-and-seek in the hay mow, and rambled through the meadow and the woods behind the barn. Diane would confess years later that she had been a bit of a tomboy.
One day, Diane was invited to go with two of her girlfriends to a baseball game. Larry asked to go along, but Diane said it was just for girls and they didn't want any boys tagging along. In the end, their parents decided that this time Larry would stay at home.
When they arrived at the game, there was a message that they should return home at once. Larry had been killed in a tractor accident. He was riding on the back of a tractor driven by one of the neighbor's hired men. The tractor had hit a bump, throwing Larry forward and down under one of the big rear wheels. His father, who was following behind on another tractor, picked him up and rushed him to the hospital where he died a short time later.
Diane's first thought was, "I'm all alone. I'll have to do everything by myself now." And then she felt a terrible, agonizing, painful guilt in the pit of her stomach. "If I had let Larry go to the game, this wouldn't have happened."
On the third night after the funeral, Diane wakened suddenly, sat up in her bed, and saw Larry sitting on the window sill across the room. Several moments passed as they sat there just looking at each other. "And then," Diane said, "Larry vanished right before my eyes."
When she told her family later, Diane said, "No one doubted me."
Diane says that she still gets goose bumps when she tells this story. She says, "To this day when I close my eyes I can see Larry sitting there just as he was that night when he appeared in my room."
If you were to ask Diane why she thinks Larry came to her, she would tell you, "I felt it was his way of saying good-bye, and God's way of showing me he is alive."
Editor's Note: Diane Henderson related this story to the editor in May of 1988. It appeared in Lectionary Stories: 40 Tellable Tales For Cycle B, John Sumwalt, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 1990, pp. 77-78.
Diane was eight years old when her brother Larry died. Larry was nine. They had always been close. Diane followed her older brother everywhere. They helped their dad and mom on the farm, cared for the animals, chased each other around the buildings, played hide-and-seek in the hay mow, and rambled through the meadow and the woods behind the barn. Diane would confess years later that she had been a bit of a tomboy.
One day, Diane was invited to go with two of her girlfriends to a baseball game. Larry asked to go along, but Diane said it was just for girls and they didn't want any boys tagging along. In the end, their parents decided that this time Larry would stay at home.
When they arrived at the game, there was a message that they should return home at once. Larry had been killed in a tractor accident. He was riding on the back of a tractor driven by one of the neighbor's hired men. The tractor had hit a bump, throwing Larry forward and down under one of the big rear wheels. His father, who was following behind on another tractor, picked him up and rushed him to the hospital where he died a short time later.
Diane's first thought was, "I'm all alone. I'll have to do everything by myself now." And then she felt a terrible, agonizing, painful guilt in the pit of her stomach. "If I had let Larry go to the game, this wouldn't have happened."
On the third night after the funeral, Diane wakened suddenly, sat up in her bed, and saw Larry sitting on the window sill across the room. Several moments passed as they sat there just looking at each other. "And then," Diane said, "Larry vanished right before my eyes."
When she told her family later, Diane said, "No one doubted me."
Diane says that she still gets goose bumps when she tells this story. She says, "To this day when I close my eyes I can see Larry sitting there just as he was that night when he appeared in my room."
If you were to ask Diane why she thinks Larry came to her, she would tell you, "I felt it was his way of saying good-bye, and God's way of showing me he is alive."
Editor's Note: Diane Henderson related this story to the editor in May of 1988. It appeared in Lectionary Stories: 40 Tellable Tales For Cycle B, John Sumwalt, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 1990, pp. 77-78.
