One hot, summer Sunday afternoon, we came home from church to unbearable news. A neighbor who lived just over a mile away – the father of five children approximately the same ages as my sisters and I – had drowned at the beach during a family vacation. As I recall, his youngest daughter was being pulled out by an undertow.  He saved her, but lost his life in the process.  I remember going to his house for the viewing (yes, that was common in those days) and feeling sick to my stomach for the terrible grief I knew his children were bearing. How did any child deal with losing his or her Daddy? I could not fathom the grief. 

Frequent nightmares woke me from restless sleep. Daddy’s comforting words helped allay my fears. I did not dare tell him that in my dreams he had died. How could I! Often, after he returned to his bed in the front end of our sleeping attic, I would lie motionless under the quilts, begging God with all my heart to let me keep my Daddy. Then I would feel guilty for thinking I deserved to have my daddy when other children had lost theirs. 

Sometimes the anxiety was agonizing. I rode the school bus with these kids – really nice kids – three boys and two girls – and for many weeks after their father died, every time I saw them my heart went into panic mode. Silently, I would cry out to God to keep Daddy safe. During the day, at school or play, my mind would gratefully be focused on life, not death…but when darkness fell and the other members of my family were asleep, the terror would creep back into my heart. I tried not to, but often imagined swimming in the ocean and being pulled under the raging water. I didn’t dare call for Daddy to come help me, but he came anyway, reaching out to me and then sinking underneath the waves, his hands outstretched above the foam. I would open my eyes wide to the darkness in an attempt to erase that terrifying vision. I would pray myself to sleep, always pleading, “Dear God, please don’t take Daddy away.”

Eventually, my fears subsided. Three requests Daddy made nightly during our family prayer time helped me. The first was, “Be with those who have lost loved ones.” The next was, “Watch over those nearest eternity.” The third was, “Keep us from any harm that might befall us.” The first request helped me to understand that God was near to those who have suffered the death of someone they loved – even a young child whose father had died. The second, in some childlike way, helped me to see that our Heavenly Father knew all about life and death – and that He was in control. The third really helped to comfort me because I believed God would answer Daddy’s prayers and protect us from harm. 

I am going to add something here, because even though it veers from my main thoughts, it came to mind as I was writing, and may serve to provide a lighthearted diversion in the middle of a somber topic.

As our children were growing up, during our devotional times I adopted some of the requests I had heard Daddy pray through the years. One of them was, “Keep us from any harm that might befall us.” Just after we moved to Brooklyn, New York, to serve as urban missionaries, Amy, who was then seven years old, told me, as she looked up at all the tall buildings that surrounded us, “Mommy, now I know why you pray ‘keep us from any harm that might be falling on us’.”

Almost a year to the day after our neighbor children became fatherless, I woke up on a sultry Sunday morning to get ready for church. When I stepped off the bottom stair into the kitchen, I immediately sensed something was dreadfully wrong. Mama was standing at the kitchen sink, her face sad and drawn. Had she been crying? Daddy was sitting quietly in his chair at the end of the kitchen table. I was thankful they didn’t keep me in suspense. 

“Cecil Smith died in his sleep last night,” Daddy told me, just a hint of a quiver in his voice.

This news felt like a terrible dream. The Smith family – Cecil, his wife Helene and their three children – lived about a half mile away on our dirt road. Their son David and I were in the same class at school. He had two little sisters. 

I was devastated for David. I was devastated for me. Just when I had begun to believe something so terrible could not happen again, it did. Again, I was plunged into a dark hole of fear. And again I felt so guilty for being so afraid of loosing my daddy when these three children had actually lost theirs. After church we went home to eat lunch but my appetite was gone. As soon as Mama washed the dishes, I followed Mama and Daddy out to the car. As Daddy drove over the bridge and around the sharp curve to the Smiths to pay our respects and share in their sorrows, I felt as if I was going to be sick. I wanted to be kind, and comfort them, but I had no idea how to comfort another child. We went in the house, which was bustling with family members and neighbors bringing food. Someone suggested that the children go outside and play. I remember running on the grassy hill in front of their modest but tidy white cottage. I thought they must be very strong to be able to play, knowing their Daddy was gone.

In our family prayer time that night, I prayed for David, Elaine, Darlene and their Mama, but after I crawled into bed, my fervent prayer was, “Please, God, oh please, don’t take my daddy away.” 

This past September, Mrs. Smith (who had remarried) passed away at the age of 88. When I heard about her passing, my thoughts immediately went back to that Sunday afternoon almost sixty years ago. It had been years since I had seen David, Elaine and Darlene. The next evening, as I greeted them at the church where the visitation was held, I was amazed when each of them, in turn, recalled my playing with them the day their Daddy had died. All three said it meant a lot to them. It reminded me of how indelibly some memories are embedded in our memories.

For many months after Mr. Smith died, every time Daddy was a few minutes late coming in from the field, or home from town, or from a revival meeting, I would get on my knees at a kitchen chair and beg God to bring him home safely– and He always did. 

Sometime after that (I really do wish I had kept a journal throughout childhood!), we were spending a pleasant summer afternoon at our favorite swimming hole, just a hop, skip and a jump down the dirt road. At the bottom of a steep hill, Stinking Quarters Creek made a sharp turn over a bed of rocks that formed a sandbar between shallow and deeper water. We considered the resulting “rapids” a rather spectacular feature. Cool creek water trickled over the rocks in that area, but to the left, a deeper pool with a slimy mud bottom gathered for our swimming pleasure. Daddy was floating on a piece of our fine aquatic equipment – an old inner tube – when he suddenly flipped over backwards, his head and trunk underwater and his feet flailing in the air. My sisters and I were all startled, but I was the first one to run to his rescue. With adrenaline flowing, I splashed through the water and pulled Daddy upright. He was coughing and I think, a tad embarrassed, but he was okay. I had saved his life!

As I matured, not only physically but also in my Christian walk, I learned more about life and death and God’s omnipotence. By the time I was in junior high, I had overcome the oppressing fear that Daddy would be taken from me. 

Years later, after marriage and children and living far away, I would return to take care of Daddy as he drifted through the journey of Alzheimer’s. When our family moved back to my childhood home from Brooklyn, New York in 1998, Daddy was 87 years old and his strong body and sound mind were both showing evidence of decline. My prayer was “Dear God, please give me one more year with Daddy.”

He gave me five. 

Since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”  Hebrews 2:14-15Hebrews 2:14-15