Mrs. Atwater, a friend of grandma, visited the farm one day and met Caleb. She also felt a need to say something comforting to him. Without any real thought about what she said to him, an old tape seemed to load and play itself. She greeted Caleb and said, “You know Caleb, God needed your parents in heaven more than you needed them.” Then she gave him a big warm smile. Again, her reassuring comment, like Mr. Bowman’s comment, did not reassure Caleb. It only hurt him and added to his confusion. “What kind of God needed a kid’s parents more than he did?” he wondered. He was sure God had plenty of angels in heaven to do whatever God needed done. The God he learned about from his parents and in Sunday school did not sound like a God who needed very much, if anything at all. Caleb would lie awake trying to figure out why God was so needy and so selfish. “Why would God make a kid’s parents abandon their child to do stuff in heaven that God didn’t really need to have done anyway?” he complained. One morning on the way to Sunday school, Caleb screwed his courage to the sticking point and asked grandma about the things well-meaning adults were saying to him about his parents’ tragic deaths. “Grandma, why do people keep saying things to me about mom and dad’s deaths that just don’t make any sense?” he asked. “What kinds of things do people say?” grandma asked. Caleb told her what both Mr. Bowman and Mrs. Atwater said to him. Grandma was stunned. Her heart ached for her innocent grandson who was deeply hurt by their well-intentioned but thoughtless friends. “Grandpa, stop the car!” grandma said in a commanding voice that Caleb had not heard her use with grandpa. “Caleb’s question needs to be dealt with right now, before we get to Sunday school and church.” Grandpa did not hesitate or even question grandma. He heard in her voice a need and an urgency that could not wait and could not be resisted. “Better pull over and let grandma take care of this right now,” he thought. He slowed down and pulled the car over at the first place where it was safe to stop on the narrow country road. He stopped the car but left the engine running, so the heater would keep out the late October morning chill. Grandma slid around on the front seat so she could look over at Caleb who quietly sat in the back seat. She put her left arm over the seat and reached for Caleb. “Come here, my dear child,” she said. “Grandma needs to touch you when she talks to you about things like this.” Caleb unfastened his seat belt and slid to the edge of the seat. He reached out his hand for her shoulder. Her hand found his outstretched hand and grasped it with a warm and tender touch. She looked at him as her eyes probed him and tried to get behind his eyes. That was what grandma called it when she tried to understand what someone was feeling and thinking. Her gaze seemed so different from the looks he got from those well-meaning adults who said such troubling things to him. Slowly grandma spoke. “Caleb, people are not always comfortable dealing with death, their own death or anybody else’s. So they don’t know what to say when they come up against it. But they think they have to say something, even if it’s the wrong thing. Now, our friends are all troubled by the death of your parents, just as we all are. So they sort of blurt out whatever comes to mind, thinking maybe that say’n anything is better than say’n nothing. So they often say the wrong things, especially to children. People don’t always know how to help children deal with their grief, so they try to get past it as fast as they can by saying just about anything that pops in their mind. So they often say the wrong things, things that don’t comfort and often hurt. My child, accept their attention as an act of kindness and concern, but don’t you pay it any mind whatever to the crazy things they may say to you about your parents’ death. No one has any easy answers about why tragic things happen to us. But many folks will mouth easy answers just the same. Sometimes silence can be a lot more helpful and less hurtful than mouthing silly things like you’ve been hearing.” Grandma’s words sounded very comforting to Caleb, but there was a sharpness in her voice that she could not hide. He could tell she was disappointed and a little upset that her well-meaning friends hurt her grandson in his grief. When she finished her say, grandma patted Caleb on the shoulder, reminded him to refasten his seat bell, and turned back to face the front of the car. Grandpa looked over at grandma and nodded his approval. Then he shifted out of park and headed on down Boundary Road towards West Fountain City Pike, and then on to their church in town. Grandpa was always impressed by grandma’s wisdom and her amazing ability to say what needed to be said. She had a way of getting right to the point. He was proud of her. Caleb felt the kind of assurance he so desperately needed and was not receiving. “Grandma is wonderful,” he thought. He felt lucky to have her for his grandma and thought how blessed his mom was to have a mom like Grandma Harris. Caleb liked his grandma’s God and hoped he would learn more about this God in his Sunday school classes. Caleb slept better that Sunday night. Grandma’s words worked their way into his pain like the healing salve grandma put on his scrapes and bruises. Soon the nightly quarrels with God grew silent.
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