A Voice from Prison, Part Four

 In his letter from prison, Brad continues,

“I went to the church service in prison, and guess who was preaching?  It was Pastor David Troxell from Hilltop church where I’d attended for about ten years!  Brother David preached a good message that night, as he always did.  At the end of the message, he pointed his finger right at me and asked, ‘Are you saved, Brad?’  I looked at him and said, ‘I don’t know,’ so he suggested I find out.  So I went to the floor a-praying, and some of the fellows with the pastor got down and prayed with me.  I stayed there praying for awhile, then in my spirit I heard an old familiar voice say, ‘Stand up and scream for victory that you’re saved!’  And wouldn’t you know it, I said within myself, ‘Lord, you’re trying to embarrass me. I’m not screaming in front of all these people!’

But I stood up as I was commanded by the Lord, and when I did, my brothers and sisters, let me tell you that something evil and wicked came out of me when I was screaming.  I felt it all come out of me.  I believe to this day it was a demon or demons.  And then all of a sudden I felt this love, mercy, and grace open up above me and I began to feel the Spirit of God being poured out into my life.  I knew there and then I was truly saved!  I lasted about a year this time with God before I backslid.

God did a lot for me during this time before I backslid.  I was leading people to Jesus: drug addicts, drug dealers, and my family was getting back into church.  But the devil got to me through aggravation this time.  It came with a headache that led me to taking a pain pill.  I’ll never forget what Satan said to me: ‘Do you think God will send you to hell over one little pain pill?’  I answered him and said, ‘No,’ so I took one for my headache and before the end of the day I was drinking and snorting pills again.  But I have to be honest and say my backsliding started way before that.  It started by me missing church every now and then, and I wouldn’t quit smoking cigarettes.  The Lord dealt with me a lot about this; smoking was the hardest addiction I have had to overcome.

Don’t get me wrong—I know I deserve punishment.  I have lost everything during all this.  My family is nowhere to be found most of the time.  I have no contact with any outside friends from home, and I honestly have nowhere to go or anything to do when I get out of prison to go home.

I’m not trying to sell you a sob story; I’m just warning you that because of my sins and wickedness from an early age, it cost me everything in the end.  Even though God dealt with me every step of the way, I kept turning my back on Him.  Without a good relationship with God, life truly is miserable.  But I must also tell you that even though there are consequences to my sins, God has never given up on me!  Amen.

Young men and women, boys and girls, you do not have to learn things the hard way.  People do not always survive to have a story like mine.  As a matter of fact, most people die in the state of mind I was in.  And if I had, I would have lost more than I did: I would be lost for all eternity in a devil’s hell.  At least now I have a change to get it all back.  I believe honestly that God has allowed me to survive all that I have to show others that sin will cost you in the long run, and this is what happens to a backslider.  Trust me, the Bible verses in 2 Peter 2:20-22 are true; my latter end became worse than my beginning. 

This has been the first part of my life story before actually selling out completely to Christ Jesus and sticking with it.  There are many things I did not write or describe in detail.  Why?  Because my life before Christ was meaningless and of no real value.

But I assure you, that is not my life now, nor ever will be again!  I will tell you about my life now.  Even though I am in prison, I am freer than I have ever been.  If you have any questions concerning me or someone like me, and need some helpful info on how to help them, you can write and I will do my best to educate you on how to really help someone like me.

Please remember me in your prayers and pray for my family.  I haven’t heard from my Davenport family in a long time; the last time I heard, they weren’t serving God.  And please remember I am not proud of my past life at all!  But I am proud of how much God has brought me out of.

The best way I can describe my life now, until we meet again, is Psalm 40:2-3:

‘He brought me out of a horrible pit,

Out of a miry clay, and set my feet

Upon a rock, and established my goings.

And He has put a new song in my mouth,

Even praises unto our God.

Many shall see it, and fear, and

Shall trust in the Lord Jesus.  Amen.’

Remember: smart people learn from their own experiences, but wise people learn from the experience of others.

Until we meet again,

Your brother and friend in Christ Jesus,

Brad Davenport”

If you’d like to write Brad (letters or photographs only) to encourage him or ask for help/advice yourself, his address is:

Brad Davenport # 12763-032

Federal Correctional Institution McKean

P.O. Box 8000

Bradford, PA 16701

If the Lord lays it on your heart to send a financial gift to Brad, you must use a money order marked “for Brad Davenport # 1276-032” and mail it to the following address:

Federal Bureau of Prisons

P.O. Box 474701

Des Moines, Iowa, 50947

Thank you for praying for Brad and his family; pray that the Lord will give him a home and gainful employment after he is released.  He’d like to get a ministerial degree and minister in prisons when he’s released. 

Copyright © 2015 Elaine Beachy

A Voice from Prison, Part Three

Brad's letter continues,

“When I was about twenty-seven years old, I married a young and beautiful girl named Amber.  I remember thinking that since I’ve tried everything else, maybe marriage would fix me.  But our marriage only lasted one short year.  To be honest with you, I really didn’t love her; I was just trying to fill this void in my heart.  Before we got married, Brother David Troxell of Hilltop Baptist church pulled me outside the church and asked me, “Are you sure you’re supposed to marry this girl?” I looked him right in the eye and lied.  I said, “Yes,” when I knew in my heart I wasn’t supposed to.

Anyway, back to God convicting me of being with Misty without being married.  (This wasn’t the first time I was convicted by God.)  Once when I was with Amanda R, God woke me up in the middle of the night with this same guilt of being in bed with someone I wasn’t married to.  So I got up to go to the couch to sleep, and had this sudden strange urge to read the Bible.  (My mother had left a Bible there when she started going to Hilltop church with the Douglas family and I told her I had gotten saved.) 

I grabbed the Bible and started reading but not understanding anything.  Suddenly I heard the sound of someone coming into the room, so I quickly hid the Bible because I didn’t want anyone to see me reading it.  But no one showed up.  Then I had to use the bathroom, and on the way there, I heard a Man’s voice ask, ‘Why are you hiding Me?’  That really freaked me out.  I went to check on my brother who was in the back bedroom, but he was sound asleep, so I just shook it off and went on to the bathroom.

When I came out of the bathroom and headed back to the couch, I got to the same spot in the kitchen where I’d heard the voice befpre, and again a Man said, louder this time, ‘Why are you hiding Me?’  I don’t really have the words to describe the feelings of this experience; I felt an overwhelming love and joy not of this world.  I stopped in my tracks and all I could do was cry tears of utter joy!  I stood there and wept for I don’t know how long in the presence of the Lord.  I went to the couch and turned on the radio to a Christian station, which soothed my soul.  When Misty awoke, I told her we were quitting drugs and going to church.  To my surprise, she said, “Okay,” so we went a few times.  I remember going to this one church with her and outside I saw some men smoking cigars and thought, ‘Really?  Right on the church steps?’  We went in anyway, but the place was as dead as a grave yard.  So we quit going to church after that.  You guessed it—I went right back to drugs and drinking.

One night, I was sitting there at Misty’s house drinking liquor.  I was pill-sick.  You get flu-like symptoms when your body doesn’t have the drugs it’s used to.  Actually, you can get very sick and this is one of the reasons it’s so hard for addicts to quit.  You have to get sick to get better!  Anyway, I made her give me the keys to her car and I was off to find a pain pill.  I stopped at a BP gas station/store where they had fruit machines and poker machines in the back where you could win money if you got enough points.  I had fifteen dollars to my name, and tried my luck with the poker machine, because I didn’t have money to get my fix.  Of course, I lost all my money and now I was drunk and mad.  So I devised a plan that I would tell the cashier I hit on the machine, and when the cashier walked back to the machines, I would grab the cash register and flee the scene.

Well, I did all that and after I got down the road a ways, I discovered the cash register had seven hundred dollars in it, so now I could get my Oxycontin drug.  I found a pill and was feeling better, but I knew I was in for it if the law caught up to me.  By now the sun was coming up, so I figured I better call Misty and tell her I was at a friend’s house and tell her to come over.

While she was on her way, my friend wanted to trade me a sawed-off shot gun for a pill. I didn’t really want the shot gun, but told him I would do it if he waited on Misty and snorted the pill with her.  When she got there, I put the gun under the back seat of the car, and we left to do God only knows what, but we got pulled over at the end of the road.  The cops found the gun, and I said it was mine.  The reason I’m sitting here in Federal prison is that possessing a sawed-off shot gun is a Federal offense.  I’ve been in custody about seven years now.

Photo by seraphicpress.com 

What I want you to see is how Satan got me when I was young and raped me of my life.  Sin will cost you more than you want to pay, and keep you longer than you want to stay.  God is a Gentleman: He never makes us serve Him. He’s looking for sons and daughters.  I kept choosing to go the opposite way every time He dealt with me, and my life got worse and worse because I wouldn’t do what was right.

The year was 2005, and there I was in jail at the age of twenty-seven.  I started having these dreams of being in hell, and I would wake up in cold sweats and shaking.  I said to God, “What do you want me to do?”  I felt He wanted me to go to church there in jail, so I did.”

To be continued…

Copyright © 2015 Elaine Beachy

A Voice from Prison, Part Two

Here is part two of Brad Davenport’s letter from prison.

“I picked up a lot of bad habits when I started running around with my dad.  And that wasn’t the only bad part: I shared those bad habits with others.  But the crazy thing about it, God was always around in the back of my mind.  He never really went away even though I did.

During my addiction process, I joined the Navy at age eighteen only to get kicked out when I was twenty because I drank too much alcohol.  I went home, worked in saw mills and eventually learned how to build log homes.  I had a natural God-given talent to be able to build things out of wood.  With this job, I traveled to different parts of America, but mostly stayed on the East coast where I made most of my money.  My addiction followed me the whole time.  Trust me, you can find drugs anywhere.  I’d come home with a pocket full of money, only to spend it all on booze, drugs, and women.   

Year by year, I got worse and worse.  I was drinking every chance I got, taking pain pills and shooting cocaine.  My dad finally went to prison for eleven years, but even when he was out of my life, I got no better.  I actually got worse, because now I felt all alone.  Not only had I lost my dad, I lost my best friend too, because I was into drugs too much for him.

So I would look for anyone to take away my loneliness and started sleeping around a lot until I met Amanda R.  For some reason, I really liked her, so we started shacking up.  I tried to become a real man, only to fall time after time; she never left me, although I don’t know why.  I began to feel like the Lord told me to marry her, but I never did.  Once again, the drug addiction won, and after five years, she left me.  To this day, I can’t blame her, and she should have left a lot sooner than she did because I became very abusive toward her.  I was no good—not fit to be a boyfriend or a husband.  When she left me, she was afraid of me.  Our washing machine was broken, and one day she said she was going to do laundry at a friend’s house.  I said “okay;” but as you probably guessed by now, she only took her clothes and never returned.

I was in my twenties going through all this.  Her leaving affected me deeply; I had lost my dad, and now the girl I truly loved.  My life had hit rock bottom.  I was out of work and out of places and people to go to.  I started having thoughts of suicide, and I did cut my wrist a few times.  I was in and out of psychiatric places.  I thought I was crazy, and then I met some really crazy people!  I wasn’t crazy: I was lonely and depressed, trying to fill my heart with things and people of this world.  It only brought temporary happiness clouded with sin of every kind. 

After I got through the suicide stage, I started hanging out with worse people than before.  I started shooting a lot of cocaine and became a needle junkie, which is something I thought would never happen in a million years.  When I was young, I used to tell my mom I was going to grow up and get a good job and take care of her so she’d never have to worry again.  I told her I would never be like Dad, but now not only was I like my dad, I was worse than he.

Photo from bensingerdupont.com 

I ran around getting high all the time and sleeping with anyone that would have me.  During this time I contracted Hepatitis-C, which is a liver disease.  I got it through dirty needles, using them after other people.  But honestly I didn’t know if I had Hep-C or not until I came to prison: I didn’t even care enough about myself to worry about it.  

I was in and out of jail I don’t know how many times, and every time I would turn to God to save me and make Him a million promises if He would only let me out of jail.  And every time He would.  And every time, I lied.  So it’s no wonder I’m sitting here in Federal prison with 210 months of time.

Right before I came to prison, I was shacking up with this girl named Misty, and I would stay at my cousin’s house a lot too.  He let me stay in a camper that had all the accommodations of a house, and I worked for him digging graves.  Yes!  Grave-digging.  Actually, there was money in it—believe it or not.  But once again God was there.  Every time I helped dig the grave, I knew this was where I would be one day.  Sometimes I helped families lower the dead bodies of loved ones into the grave, too.  And I always wondered, “Did this person make it to heaven, or did they end up in hell?”  

Mostly I worked for my cousin to make pill money.  I had quit cocaine by this time, but was now severely hooked on pain pills.  Out of all the drugs, this one gripped me the most.  I honestly thought I couldn’t function without them, and of course, Misty was hooked on them too.  She also liked downers like Xanax and Valium a lot, but I didn’t really care for them.  She was my girlfriend/pill-popping partner.  Not a good combination for a relationship—trust me!  At times it was weird.  She’d be lying asleep next to me there in bed and this feeling of guilt would come over me for being in bed with her to the point I would go lie on the couch. God was letting me know I shouldn’t be in bed with her because we were not married.

To be continued…

Copyright ©2015 Elaine Beachy

A Voice from Prison, Part One

How did I come to know a prisoner named Brad Davenport?  And why would I write to a prisoner anyway?  Here’s how it happened.

In late October, 2010, I happened to be watching Daystar TV when Marcus and Joni Lamb mentioned a prayer request for a minister friend of theirs named John who had been wrongly accused, tried, and found guilty of something he absolutely did not do.  He had been friends with Marcus and Joni for years, and Marcus made a plea by television that day for viewers to send John a card of encouragement, and put the address on the screen.  (I mean, can you imagine yourself unjustly convicted and imprisoned?)

The Lord laid it on my heart for me and Dave to send him a card and to start writing to him November 1, 2010, and I’ve written to him steadily for 4 ½ years.

One day I opened John’s letter, and a letter fell out from Brad Davenport, John’s cell mate.  In it, Brad told me John had been helping him with his Christian life in prison, and asked me if I’d write to him too. So, I’ve been writing to Brad for several years as well.  Recently, he expressed his longing to be able to make a difference outside the prison walls as well as inside, where he leads a Bible study and prays for men.  John was moved to a different prison a couple of years ago in a different state, but I continue to write Brad as well.

I told Brad I write a blog and invited him to share anything he would like with the world.  So he wrote me a missive that I’ll be sharing with you in several posts, and I’ll honor his request to re-write the structure and flow for him.  (Oh, and just so you know, Brad is not allowed to receive anything directly from anyone—not even postage stamps—except letters and photos.  It has to come from a place like Amazon.com, or a magazine subscription, etc.  If you wish, financial gifts can be sent via money order to Federal Bureau of Prisons, P.O. Box 474701, Des Moines, Iowa, 50947 for Brad Davenport # 12763-032.)

Brad sent me this plain paper picture last summer.  He identified himself as "Me" in the back row.

And now, here’s Brad.

Brad Davenport

Reg. # 12763-032

Federal Correctional Institution McKean

P.O. Box 8000

Bradford, PA 16701

March 30, 2015

“Hello Friends and Christian family,

My name is Brad Davenport from Kentucky, and I’m currently in Federal custody at F.C.I McKean, Pennsylvania.  I’ve been locked up since 2008.  I know in my heart God has called me to minister, since He has dramatically changed my life through Christ Jesus and Holy Spirit.

I would like to share some of my life with you all, hoping my testimony will help you with your walk with Christ.  And if you don’t know Him (Jesus Christ) as your personal Savior and Lord, just maybe my testimony will help you want to know Him and have a healthy relationship with Him.  I have a heart for prison ministry and of course our future generation; children stay on my heart and mind a lot. I hope that even children can get something out of my testimony that will encourage them to pursue God with all their hearts.  Please keep Matthew 9:13 in mind as you read my story.  Jesus says “He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  And friends and family, we have all fallen short of the glory of God in some shape, form or fashion.  See Romans 3:23.

Let me start at the beginning.  I was born in July of 1977 and raised as a country boy in McCreary Co., Kentucky.  I spent a lot of my time outdoors—hunting, fishing, playing in the woods, barns, etc. 

My parents were poor, but honestly, I was happy, even though I didn’t have everything others had.  I was very free-spirited and did pretty much as I pleased, which led me into a lot of my troubles.  My parents weren’t very good at discipline.  My mother was born without hip sockets and has been crippled all her life; she walked funny and couldn’t run after us kids.  I have a sister Amanda, and a younger brother, Chris; I am the oldest.

My dad was and still is a party person, always drinking and doing drugs of every kind.  He hung out with his friends: bikers, mafia people, and local drunks.  So as I grew up, I met all kinds of people.  Dad was into selling drugs and everything else you could imagine.  But I have to be honest: he was never abusive to any of us kids; he and Mom fought a lot, though.  He would slap her and stuff.  And of course, once I was old enough, I would jump in when he started in on her.  He quit hitting her once I was grown, ‘cause he knew I wouldn’t allow him to hit her anymore.

But once I got to my sixteenth birthday, he and I started hanging out a lot together.  I thought it was cool to go a lot of places with him I should not have gone, doing grown-up stuff.  I thought I was just becoming a man.  So during this time, Dad allowed me to drink beer, liquor, smoke pot and snort cocaine, and “crank” with him.  So by the time I was eighteen, I was already a drunk and hooked on drugs.  Some of my friends thought I had the coolest dad; I just thought it was normal.

I was introduced to sex during all of this; my dad had no respect for women except for one: my grandmother, his mom.  Trust me: biker guys are not nice to their women!  I was taught women were made to be seen and not heard and some other things I won't write about.

Did I believe in God during all of this?  My answer might surprise you.  Yes, I actually did!  Sometimes during my childhood my mother would get involved with different religious stuff.  She went to a Mormon church for awhile and talked with Jehovah’s Witnesses.  When I went to my grandmother’s house (my dad’s mom), she always had a big white Bible on the coffee table.  And sometimes someone there would say something about God.

So yes, I believed there was a God, but my first real encounter with God was when I was about twelve or thirteen.  We lived beside the Douglas family and they were church people.  I befriended their son, Jimmy, who became like my older brother.  His step-dad, Nick, invited me to a home service at one of his friends’ house across town.  And since Jimmy’s cousin, Donnie, was going, I figured I would, too.  While I was there I heard them play what they called “gospel music.”  It was amazing and I felt the power in it right away.  And then I realized we didn’t just come to visit—they were expecting to do Christian stuff.

While Donnie and I were sitting there listening to them play music, the older men explained the way of salvation through Jesus to us.  I looked over at Donnie and saw he was crying.  They asked him if he would like to be saved, and he said “Yes,” so they prayed with him.  Then they turned to me and asked me the same question; of course I said “Yes” to Jesus and whatever else they said.

As soon as we were done with getting saved, we went outside to mess around, and my temptation started immediately.  There was this girl about our age who lived next door; we got started talking about kissing, and wouldn’t you know, I kissed her, even though I knew it was wrong.  But honestly, I didn’t “feel saved” as they called it.  So we went back to the Douglas’ home, got out of the car, I headed home.  (We lived in an old beat-up 80’ long single wide trailer, but it was home to me.  And to tell you the truth, I miss it to this day!)

When I entered my yard, I began to feel really light and happy.  I thought I was going to literally walk off the earth! I felt as if I could fly!  When I entered the front door, my mom asked where I’d been.  When I told her I went and got saved, she just looked at me funny and said something like, “Good.”  And then I just went to my room.  But from that moment on, I knew God and Jesus were for real!

I didn’t keep going to church, but went with the Douglas family every now and then to a Baptist church called “Hilltop.”  It was nice, and the preacher there was something else; he could sure do some preaching.  I haven’t heard anyone like him yet, to be honest with you.  I used to go up front sometimes and repent, only to fall away again.”

To be continued…

Copyright © 2015 Elaine Beachy

Softly in My Heart

Mom, you’re smart.

At age ninety

You play Scrabble on an i-Pad

With multiple players.

Board Scrabble with Auntie

Word Find and jigsaw puzzles

Keep your brain flourishing.

Mom, you are love to me.

Growing up,

You were my best friend

As we worked together

And shared hugs

In the kitchen;

We cooked, baked,

And listened to Unshackled

Every Saturday

On radio station WCKY 

Out of Cincinnati, Ohio.

I remember the day

I heard the story

Of a man

On skid row

And the Holy Spirit

Showed me

I was no better

In God’s eyes

Than he.

That revelation

Has shaped much

Of who I am today.

A skilled homemaker,

You made our home

A warm haven of peace,

With a focus on Jesus.

I remember the special times

Of Bible reading and prayer

In the living room after supper.

You encouraged my interest in music

With a pump organ

And Auntie’s accordion

Even though money was tight.

When Dave started dating me

You fixed delicious snacks for us

Sunday nights after church.

Always friendly and understanding,

You made my brothers

Scoot to bed

So we could be alone in the living room.

You taught me to value

Sexual purity

And I passed it on

To my children.

There’s just no one like a mother

To love, teach, encourage,

Or wipe away a tear

As I struggled

To learn to read.

There’s just no one like a mother

Who reads Bible stories

To the children

At her knee.

I admire you so much, Mom.

You are a shining example

Of a godly woman

Whose price is far above rubies.

Always faithful 

To husband 

And family,

You’ve given me a legacy

Of what’s important

In life.

I hold you softly in my heart.

Copyright © 2015 Elaine Beachy

Smell the Roses

This Mother’s Day, my mind went back to my life with Mom on the farm.  I think a farmer’s wife with children needs a special kind of resilience to survive the yapping demands of barn work, house work, garden work, and church work.  Do you see a common denominator?  When did she have time to “smell the roses?”  (For those of you who don’t know, that term means “Slow down: take time to enjoy life!”)

Before we children were old enough to help much on the farm, Mom’s daily early morning routine involved helping Dad milk the cows and do barn work.  Then she’d come into the house, wake us four children for school, get baby George out of the crib, pack our lunches and make breakfast.  After that, she diligently pursued the work for that day, whether it was doing the laundry, ironing, mending, planting or weeding the garden, gathering produce and canning or freezing it for preservation.  Of course, she fixed dinner for Dad and any hired hands (the noon meal was called dinner because it was the main meal) and then planned and fixed the evening meal we called supper.  In the evening, she went to the barn to help with chores again.

On Fridays, she cleaned the entire upstairs of our large farmhouse, stripped the bed sheets, put on fresh linens, then bunched up all the dirty linens and rolled them down two flights of stairs to the cellar floor where the wringer washing machine was waiting for laundry day on Monday.  Washing and drying clothes was an all-day job; I hung many a load of clean, wet laundry on our clothesline in the back yard.

Saturday mornings, she got up at 4:30 to clean the downstairs before she had to go to the barn to help milk the cows, so she’d have enough time to prepare food for company on Sundays, and then prepare her study materials for teaching a Sunday school class at church.

The two oldest of my brothers and I helped with all farm work as well.  Morning and evening, I helped with the milking and washed/sterilized the milking machines afterwards.  When I was eleven years old, Mom taught me to do laundry and ironing.  On Saturdays, my job was to wash the legs of the dining room and kitchen chairs, dust, and clean the tub and toilet.  More than once Mom found me sitting in front of the bookshelf reading a book that caught my fancy as I dusted.  I still remember the words I hated to hear: “First word—then play!”  Reading was ever so much more fun!  Another job of mine was to scrub ten pounds of potatoes, put them in a large pot to cook to make “jacket potatoes” for the coming week.  They were super-handy for making Dutch fried potatoes or casseroles.  We also baked cakes, pies and cookies for company on Sunday, because we often had guests on Sunday after church.  Mom needed lots of cookies for lunches and hungry boys who raided the large walk-in pantry. 

Mom also had a huge garden to tend, produce that needed picking and preserving: strawberries in season, peas, beans, tomatoes, and corn that we used to sell by the dozen to area customers.  (How well I remember the many dark green rows of corn wet with dew and the wet, unpleasant "slap-slap" of my Mennonite skirt against my legs as we picked golden Iochief corn early in the morning).  A farmer’s wife had no time for vacations.  Lord knows, with life constantly barking at her, Mom could have used one!

When I was fifteen years old, Dad had to have what was to be the first of three open heart surgeries.   

Mom’s parents and her sister Fannie took my parents to Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Dad checked into the hospital.  Having never been away from any of from my family and children, Mom suddenly found herself alone in a strange city with a husband who was miles away in a hospital, not knowing if he’d live or die.  She had to learn to hail a taxi morning and evening to get a ride to the hospital.  Mom slept alone in a strange bed, ate breakfast alone, and was alone at the hospital.  She was there for two weeks until Dad was released to go home.

Grandparents Claude and Ollie were with us kids at the farm house during that time.  A hospital bed was waiting in the living room for Dad when he came home from Shadyside.  Mom was so glad to be home again, and with Daddy on the mend, she resumed her duties in the barn and daily routines as before.  To take Dad’s place in the work load, we also had a hired hand boarding with us, and Mom cooked for him and did his laundry too.  For reasons I’ll not go into, he didn’t last long, so they hired his brother, who didn’t last long either. 

Because Dad needed help on the farm, my oldest brother, Stan, had to quit high school and finish his education by correspondence.  Things began to settle down; Daddy was doing well and able to go to the barn and help out a bit.

Then Mom fell apart.  Because of her stress over Dad, she had a nervous breakdown after she relaxed—so said Dr. Rock.  She told me whenever she’d see everyone come in for breakfast after milking was done, she felt like screaming and pulling her hair out.  (She never did.) Dr. Rock told her he could give her medication for it, but the best remedy, he said, was to go somewhere quiet and relax.

I had to stay home from school on Mondays to do the laundry and help Mom.  I remember falling asleep in Mr. Slifko’s science class, and the awful embarrassment I felt when he called on me to answer a question.  Everyone laughed, but I didn’t think it was funny.  I barely squeaked by with a “D” in Mr. Deeter’s history class because I had no time to do my homework.  Our family became especially closely-knit as we did what had to be done.  We were like a team of horses hitched together, each pulling his weight.   

Leaving the farm for a vacation (even a short one) was out of the question. So Dad had an ingenious idea to help Mom: he and the boys built a simple 10 x 10 cabin covered with homosote in the woods above the “clearing” on our farm.  The cabin sported two old chairs and a small fold-away table on one side of the wall, with a bed on the opposite wall.  Two windows could be propped open to let in fresh air.  (I had a few camping trips there with my cousins, Pauline and Judy, and also my friend Ruth Yoder who lived on a neighboring farm).  Many an evening, our family went up to that cabin, and sometimes enjoyed the luxury of roasting hot dogs in the little stone fireplace Dad and the boys assembled. Mom sat in a chair surrounded by the peaceful beauty of nature, looked at the sky, and watched the trees sway in the breeze.  And she gradually recovered. 

I think moms are the glue of their families, and the importance of taking care of their physical and emotional health—the need to smell the roses along the highway of life—cannot be minimized.  I wish Mom had been able to smell the roses much more than she did.

 

A beautiful bouquet of eighteen roses my youngest son sent me this year for Mother’s Day reminded me of the chorus of an old song Mom used to sing when I was a girl on the farm: “Give me the roses while I live, trying to cheer me on; useless the flowers that you give, after the soul is gone.” 

Amen, Mama.

Copyright © Elaine Beachy 2015