[Blog Author's Note: Walks with my father were sometimes a pleasure but frequently a duty. Yet the lessons learned during those walks will not soon be forgotten. (See also Marci's Thoughts on Walking.) My son's words below call to my mind 3 John 1:4, which I heard my father quote any time he was pleased with one of his sons. "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."]
A stooped old man, shuffling down the side-walk, dressed in a red and black checkered flannel shirt, with one pant-leg hiked up, wearing a shoe five sizes too large on the wrong foot, and on the other wrong foot, a woman’s sandal, this is not what most people consider a giant, but I would. I should know, since I was normally chasing after him. This giant was unlike any other. He did not leave a path of destruction wherever he trod; rather, he left a legacy in the hearts of everyone he knew. He did not tower over everyone or stoop through doorways, rather he was a man of small stature. It was not his appearance that intimidated, rather his intellect. Why then do I call this man a giant? He was a giant because, as children look up to a giant in wonder and maybe even dream of one day being as tall, so everyone who knew this man, Stanley Cabot Julin, looked up to him as a person they wished they could be. He was not respected because of money, for he certainly did not have much of that, but rather, because he was a man so devoted to his Lord that nearly everything he said had some spiritual value.
I had the privilege of sharing the same roof with this giant, for he was my grandpa. During the half-year my grandparents lived with my family, I watched my grandpa’s mind deteriorate from Alzheimer’s disease. In that time-span, I took many a walk with him down a particular stretch of road. Conversation was difficult, but worth it. It was rather like mining for gold. If you sift through enough dirt and rocks, you eventually find a little nugget of gold. Once I had managed to sift away the useless muck that clogged up his thoughts, I would usually find a nugget to discuss. Although the rewards were small each time, they added up and left me with a shiny gold brick to put in my foundation.
During a few months, half of the walks I took with him either began or ended with me chasing him down the road, not because we were playing tag or any other light-hearted game but because he would get it in his head that I wanted to harm him. I would have to chase him down and convince him that I was just his loving grandson. To the neighbors whose yards I chased him through, we must have been an amusing sight. A sixteen year old boy chasing a seventy-four year old man with shoes on wrong is an amusing sight to anyone but the sixteen year old boy. Yet, no matter how miserable an experience it may have been at the time, it still impacted me. You see, the one thing my grandpa almost never forgot was that he was a Christian. In fact, as funny as it may sound, he often ran away because he was a Christian. He would talk about how he was a child of God captured by pagans. In order to get him to trust me, I would have to convince him that I was a Christian because of him, and when I had convinced him, I would then follow in the giant’s footsteps as he shuffled back home.
As of June 3, 2011, giant footsteps mark the golden stairway to Heaven. I will forever cherish the walks my grandpa and I took together during those six months. Even though his size nine feet were often wearing my size fourteen shoes, my grandpa left me with some big shoes to fill. Although those shoes may have been on wrong, his path was steady, and I will continue to walk in the footsteps of a giant until they lead me up those stairs and back to him.
No comments:
Post a Comment