Tag Archives: Writing

Day Eighteen: Questions – Part IV

Did you miss Part I, Part II, or Part III?

The young man smiled and thanked God for one person who was willing to stop and take the time to understand. The old man laid the stick on the ground, said a few more words, and started off down the beach. The young man watched him walk off until laughter and yelling caught his attention and he turned to see three children playing catch. He realized that, for the first time, he was actually enjoying their play, not jealous of it. He felt a peace that he had not known before, and he knew the source had been in the simple, kind, and honest words whispered to him by the old man. He turned to yell to his teacher, to thank him even though he wasn’t quite sure what to thank him for.

The beach was deserted. He could see at least a mile away, but saw no one, only sand and the waves crashing upon it. The footprints! He saw them in the sand where the old man had stood and where he had walked off. Quickly, almost in a panic, he pushed the controls on the wheelchair and guided it along the path, until, after only a short distance, they stopped. Well, disappeared. How or why he didn’t know, but he did know that something very unique had happened to him on the beach that day.

He turned his chair around and drove back to where he had written in the sand. The children were gone and he sat there, alone, thanking God for sending him His peace in such a special way. Turning to go, he left his questions to be smoothed over and washed away by the rising tide. After all, they had already been answered.

Day Seventeen: Questions – Part III

Did you miss Part I or Part II?

He should have been used to it, but he never could understand why people were so afraid to be near him. He tried once more, this time yelling to an elderly man who was out for an evening of seashell hunting.

“What’s that,” the old man responded.

“Could you help me for a moment?”

The gentleman nodded and approached the wheelchair. He listened as the young man explained the situation, and when no paper could be found, suggested that he use a stick and write it in the sand. The author agreed and began to recite the words to his new-found friend:

I look out and see a beautiful ocean
With all the waves set in motion.
I see the people as they pass me by,
I watch birds spread their wings and fly

Look at the crab dart quickly in the sand
Narrowly escaping a child’s grasping hand.
There’s a beautiful shell made so carefully -
People notice the shell, but they don’t see me.

It’s hard for me to talk and I move kind of slow
But my mind still works, and I really want to know -
I wonder as I sit here looking at the sea
Why the God Who made it all
Won’t reach down and heal me?

The old man put the stick down and knelt in the sand beside the young man. Expecting a sermon on why he shouldn’t say those things, they poet softened when the man whispered in his ear, “I don’t know. All I know is that God never promised us it would be easy; but He did promise to never leave.”

Tomorrow: Questions – Part IV

Day Sixteen: Questions – Part II

Did you miss Part I

Sure, he knew the risks involved with being on his own. He was rapidly losing the use of his muscles and so daily routines were becoming more and more difficult. Each day seemed to present its own set of hurdles to overcome, but he knew the time had come for him to face them on his own. And he had! For the past two weeks he had found no circumstance too difficult for him to handle. Nothing except for the writing.

His mother had always been there to write down the words as he formed them in his mind. They would even joke about how she was his secretary taking down dictations. But there had been no one to take down the words in this new world of independence and he was horrified to think of all the thoughts and words that had been lost.

He looked out at the waves and their rhythmic motion across the sea. He took in the freshness of the salty air and laughed at the drunken flight of a wayward seagull. As he watched the life around him, the words poured into his mind. He hadn’t expected it and was taken by surprise. He was panicked at the thought of losing the words if not quickly put to paper, and so he motioned to a young man who was jogging in the hard sand a few feet away. Instead of stopping, he quickened the pace of his workout. Soon a family walked along in front of him and he called out to them, “Please, could you give me just a moment of your time?” Again, no help. The mother pulled the small boy close to her and walked off, periodically looking back as if somehow she expected this man in a wheelchair to suddenly stand and run after them.

Tomorrow: Questions – Part III

Day Fifteen: Questions – Part I

The wind felt warm on his face and he immediately began to describe it in his mind. Refreshing, clear, an awakening. “There I go again,” he thought. “Over dramatizing simple things.” A writer, he tended to exaggerate even the most mundane events, and the ocean breeze had been too much to ignore. He laughed at himself as he remembered the three page poem he’d written about the tip of a cotton swab. “I have come a long way.”

He was alone, maybe for the first time in his life. He was acutely aware of the advantages: no lawnmowers outside his bedroom window, no more constant questions from curious children, no more stares from insensitive by-standers. Yes, solitude had it’s advantages, but it had come with a price.

His decision to leave had been hard on his parents, and he wondered how they were handling it now. It had been two weeks since he’d left home, and the move had been hard for all of them. He had watched his parents care for him everyday of his thirty years, and he’d finally decided that he couldn’t put them though anymore. The energy it took to help him through just one day had finally taken its toll on them, and he had chosen to do the only thing that seemed right: he had gone out to try it on his own.

Tomorrow: Questions – Part II