FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) – part 11

Part 11

(Continued from last week)

“We all came running out to the porch but were still afraid to remove the knot out of our stomachs until we put our eyes on you. By the time everybody got to the porch, Wayne had already walked out into the yard and down the hill, pointing out toward the Whatley house as he saw us all hurrying out the front door. We all looked, and, sure enough, we could see your dark clothes against the snow; but they weren’t all dark, they were starting to turn white.

“I hollered out for Wayne to ‘please hurry and get ‘em before my baby freezes to death,’ and I knew my voice still sounded frantic; but I knew you had to be freezing.”

“Reckon I was makin’ any shots in the snow?” I joked, interrupting her for the first time.

“Oh, I ‘magine you were. That’s all you ever did, except read your Bible and those L’amour westerns,” she snapped back pleasantly, and that’s the first time she laughed as she told the story.

I was glad my little joke cheered her up, and it occurred to me just then that that was one of the first times I had heard her really laugh since her surgery.

“There you were, barely in kindergarten, or maybe the first grade, shooting that ball down there without a care in the world. But you had a care when Wayne got ahold of you and practically dragged you up the street where your daddy and Tim were heading to meet ya’ll. That was about as upset as I ever saw your daddy when he wasn’t sick.

“I heard him say sternly as soon as he grabbed you and picked you up in his arms that if all the branches of the trees weren’t so frozen stiff he would break one off that very minute and give you a good shellacking right here in the middle of the street.

“But I knew he wouldn’t have, because he was as worried as I was. I could see it in his eyes when he got you back to the front yard and handed you over to me. I hugged you about as tight as I ever have that day, and I never forgot the empty spot in my stomach. Every mama knows you live a year in a minute when your baby is missing. You had escaped one other time a couple of years before when we went to the amusement park up in Columbus, and I about died that day, too.”

Mama paused, sighed a little, and said with sadness in her voice, “I had that same empty spot when I had to leave you to go to the hospital, because I didn’t know if I would see you or any of my children again.”

I felt more sorry for Mama right then than I ever had, I think, but I didn’t want her getting too sad, not today, not with the snow, not with us standing together, almost as friends more than mother and son; so I tried to change the mood.

“Aw, Mama, I must’ve been crazy slippin’ down there to shoot hoops in this kind of weather ...”

She interrupted me with, “Oh, you were crazy all right, but you always were crazy about basketball. You would have played it all day long if I would’ve let you, still would, I guess,” she said, adding a little chuckle.

“Hey, Mama, the snow’s starting to let up a little,” I teased, “I think I’ll go shoot a few baskets now if it’s okay with you,” but she snapped back with a “I don’t think so” and spatted me playfully like she did back then when I was five.

With that, we walked back into the house and out of the cold together, and I breathed a deep breath of fresh air and tucked that moment away, as I know she did.

Christmas had come early that year. It came all at once on that red-painted front porch that overlooked our world.

It snowed all day that day and into the next before it stopped and things begin to thaw. I hated to see it go, because I knew it might be the last snow Mama and I would ever get to share together.

But it wasn’t. It snowed and iced all through Georgia again in February, and I was glad it did. Mama was, too.

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well. 

In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.