A Voice In The Mountains, By Alan D. Turner

WHEN THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

For those who know me personally and/or who have been reading this column since its first article; you know that on October 13, 2008 mine and Nancy’s (Nana) then sixteen year old Grandson Kaleb Alan Turner left this world prematurely due to a fatal automobile accident.

During the week of Kaleb’s Seventeenth Birthday (May 19, 2009), I wrote an article titled: A Birthday Without Celebration. In that article I stated: On Kaleb’s Birthday; what should have been a day of celebration, was instead for my family and all those who love Kaleb a day of only heartbroken memories.

It seems so hard to believe, yet, another birthday is now upon us. Like last year’s birthday, so this year’s: Instead of a day of joyful gifts, there will be a day of placing tokens of our love at the sight of the accident, and new wreaths and flowers will also be placed at the gravesite that now holds his precious body.

In planning this article, the song lyric “Only the good die young” came to my mind; this song was written and sung by Billy Joel. Not that I believe the lyric to be entirely accurate; for I know that both good and bad can and does die at anytime and at any age.

What the lyric is saying to me at this time is: What a waste it seems to see a young life cut short, one that had so much promise and potential ahead of it; I am more keenly aware of this truth as Kaleb’s Eighteenth Birthday is now upon us.

As stated in a previous article: Even though all birthdays are precious, there are a few particular ones that seem to be more special than others, some of these being: The Thirteenth, when one becomes a teenager; the Sixteenth, when one may receive their driver’s license; then there is the Eighteen Birthday, when one graduates from High School, when one becomes capable to vote in elections and to join and serve in the Armed Forces.

At this age, some will go to college before entering the job market; while others will go directly into the full time employment ranks, to remain there for the next forty plus years. Young men and women marry and begin their own individual families; as they begin bringing into this life the next generation; populating and repopulating this world; thus the family’s lifeline is able to continue. At least this is the way that it should be.

For when one’s life is cut short without first leaving a child behind to continue that family’s lineage; that particular lifeline ceases. So, when the good die young; it is such a loss to not only the immediate family, but also there is the loss of future generations.

For the loved ones left behind, there is no being a part of their maturing into the adult that you dreamed of them becoming when they were a child; no watching the family’s continuance. All the hopes and treasures that you had been storing for them, has now lost all it true worth and value to you. You care less for whatever monetary value that may still yet be in the material items that you had purposed one day for them to receive as an inheritance; for without them, it is all meaningless.

What is left for the ones left behind? The only hope and plans that one can hold onto now, is the reassurance that if the child died as a Child of God; then there is coming a time appointed when all those who die in Christ, will have their souls and spirits reunited with their bodies, never to be apart again throughout eternity (2 Thessalonians 4: 13-18 and 2 Corinthians 5: 7-9).

I speak honestly and sincerely, sometimes this hope for an eternal reunion just doesn’t seem to be enough; now, in reality, I know as a Christian that it is; but as a Nana and Papaw it just doesn’t feel like it.

When I have such feelings, it is then that I am once again reminded of that young man who often, while reading from several Bibles that his Nana has at her home, would mark Bible Verses dear to him. In one such Bible in the final chapter of the book of Revelations where The Lord said , “Surely I come quickly” followed by ‘even so, Come, Lord Jesus”; this young man’s words are written, “Home at last” and “Thanks”; and then beside these added comments, it is personally signed by him.

That young man was KALEB. His Nana and Papaw know in our hearts that he has arrived at the place that he knew to be his true HOME (with his God); where we someday hope to be reunited with him and all of our other loved ones who have gone ahead to that very same place, or who will follow there after.

Even though his Nana and Papaw know where he is; it is also, during the times of these feelings, I understand how Job felt, for as he did when his suffering seemed unbearable; Kaleb’s Nana and Papaw scream within our very soul “When Lord, will our change come?” (Job 14: 13-15).

I close this article, repeating what I stated earlier in this same article: (In this current world) what a waste when the good die young!

THIS HAS BEEN ONE PAPAW AND NANA STILL MISSING THEIR KALEB.

For comment I may be contacted by email alandturner@hotmail.com.