The Last Walk

This poem was written soon after the death of a good friends wife after an 18 year struggle with cancer.  As he told me about his last walk before she passed I tried to imagine the feelings and the moment.  Grieving is a journey and this is how I move through grief. I hope this might help someone else move on in that journey.


The Last Walk                                                               Stephen J. Jeffries               
 

The sky surrounds us
                                with the glow of an early autumn sunset.

I feel the wind to our backs

                               as we stepped gently down the gravel road.

The winter chill had began to set and made our steps a little quicker

                                                     quicker maybe but not anxious

                                                                                        to hurry our time together.

These times were the great times.

These times when we did not have to share our selves

                                                                         with the world,

only with each other.

Some times it was a quiet time.

The only noise was that of an occastional passing truck or tractor

                                                  or the crunch of leaves beneath our feet.

Years of marriage,......... of loving,........... gave us the freedom of silence.

No need for small talk or nervous chatter.

There was comfort in our silent tongue.

                                                 Comfort knowing the shared thoughts

                                                     and the shared love did not require words.

But words came.

                                                                                                                           The children,

and all the many blessings they have given and how their lives will be a tribute to our love,

                                                                                                                           filled our hearts.

Our love will live forever in their hearts and lives

                                                                             and in that of their children.

As we clasp hands,

not knowing that this would be our last walk down this winding country road,

I felt the spark and the spirit

                                           that had carried us to this place.

It felt like the breath of God upon our

                                                      shoulders and neck,

                                                                                   lifting us up.

We knew God and God knew us

                                                                                             and peace filled us.

We never talked that night about endings,

or the possibilities of life and sickness.

We did not know this was the last walk,

                                                            or should we have.

Walking and living should always be as if it was the last time.

As if our fragle lives might end this moment.

not living in sadness,

                                                                                   but living in the joy of loving.

We only get one chance to hold each other in our hearts.

To live like tomorrow may never come.

To walk each day as if it is your last walk together.

                                                                                                              She is gone now.

Gone now from the pains of this world.

                                              But not gone from the love.

One day I will be able to walk that rockie country road again,

                                                                                    this time with only God by my side,

God and the spirit of my loving wife.

It will be hard but I know her hand will still caress mine

                                                as I walk shoulder to shoulder down the winding roads of life.

Her thoughts and mine will still shout to the heavens

WHAT A BLESSING OUR LOVE CONTINUES TO BE !
 
Live your love like the road you are on

                                                                                                is your first together.

Live your life like the road,

                                where ever it is headed,

                                                                                                                                  is the last.


　

Letter from a Grandmother to Christine

I was going through some of my Mom's , Marie Jeffries's journals and found this poem she wrote to my niece Christine Paddock. It still rings very true for all the people she loved. TO Christine With Love: Live each day to the fullest. Get the most from each hour, each day, and each age of your life. Then you can look forward with confidence and back without regrets. Be yourself - but be your best self. Dare to be different and to follow your own star. And don't be afraid to be happy. Enjoy what is beautiful. Love with all your heart and soul. Believe that those you love, love you. Forget what have done for your friends and remember what they have done for you. Disregard what the world owes you, and concentrate on what you owe the world. When you are faced with a decision, make that decision as wisely as possible-than forget it. The moment of absolute certainty never arrives. Above all remember that God helps those who help themselves. Act as if everything depended on you, and pray as if everything depended upon God. Your Grandmother

A Trip to the Warehouse

First of all, I am sharing this story not because I want a pat on the back or a reason to feel good about myself. I just want my friends to know a little bit about the human condition and what other people are experiencing in the world today right here where we live. Anyone who knows me , knows that I am a volunteer and board member of Changing Footprints, an all volunteer non profit that seeks to collect and distribute shoes to those in need here at home and around the world. Being involved with this organization is one of the best things I have done in my life and I thank Maureen Leisure, the founder and my Rushville High School classmate, for inviting me to be involved. I am a delivery person. I don't make light of what I do. Anyone could do it but without a delivery person donating, collecting sorting and boxing would be a useless process. So I like being even a small part of the process. I am also always looking for new groups to collect shoes and to volunteer and sort shoes. A year or so ago a church youth group, called The Rock, from New Palestine came to me and wanted to collect shoes in New Palestine High School. Of course I was thrilled. That was over a year ago and they are still collecting shoes. Last year they decided they wanted to do more. So I invited them to come to our warehouse and sort shoes. After a while of trying to find a date at the same time we had shoes to sort, we decided to take a group down to Rushville this last Sunday. I said we had to make sure we had shoes, as most times shoes come in. are sorted and go out pretty quickly. The needs are great and currently we have a hard time supplying all the shoes that are ask for. I decided to take a friend of mine from church with me. His name is Michael and he is homeless. Michael has been a regular in Cumberland First Baptist for several years now. When he first came and I found out he was sleeping on the street and often eating out of dumpster, I was very very sad and concerned as to how help him. I am still concerned but I have gotten past the tears. Michael has become a friend over the time I have known him. I was not sure when I ask him how he would respond. He said yes and after lunch we started our trip to New Palestine. I don't think he had been in the country for a while. He kept remarking on the little towns that you could almost miss if you blinked. On our ride down, he repeated several times that his homelessness was not relevant to who he was. He was not a homeless man, he was a man and a friend that happened to be homeless. I told him, the group of young people, were mostly strangers to me, and I did not expect him to say or do anything. I did not want to make him uncomfortable or feel out of place. I mostly wanted to show off our warehouse which we have recently rehabbed and show him a little about how it worked. If I know anything about Michael it is that he is a strong advocate for the plight of the homeless. He stands up for himself and for others, hoping to change the way the homeless in Indianapolis are treated and how they are viewed. From what he said , he was not one of those people that always had his hand out for money. He has learned the system and gets food stamps and an "Obama Phone". A friend gives him money for a bus pass so he can come to the eastside to our church. If you were to give him money, he would probably use it to help someone else with food or a bus pass. When we have a church dinner, sure he will take leftovers back "home" with him. But he would also be the first there to take down tables or to wash dishes. He is always willing to give back whether it is ringing the bell on Sunday to call us to worship or with projects in church. I would never attempt to tell Michaels story and how he was forced to live on the streets. But I do realize that his story is not a lot different and that I know a great number of people, myself included, could easily become homeless and be forced on the streets just as he has. Michael did not share with the young people as I had hoped he might. Maybe another time. He is pretty quiet and I am not sure many of the kids did not even knew he was homeless. Michael picked out shoes, not for himself but for several of his friends. I had just taken him shoes a few weeks back. The interesting thing is when helping him pick out shoes in a warehouse full of shoes, there were only a couple of pair that he thought would work. They need to be able to take the weather and not be too flashy. He needed one more pair for his friend Kirt but they required Velcro because he was unable to bend over and tie his shoes. We did not find them yet. This was a good day. This was what Changing Footprints is all about. The enthusiasm and energy that the youth and their leaders brought to the warehouse gave me hope that our mission would continue to thrive and grow and help those in need. This was a good day. I got to know Michael a little better and hopefully come a little closer to understanding his situation. When I finally had to drive Michael back downtown Indianapolis and drop him off, I will admit to some tears. He told me to drop him off in a parking lot across from Military Park where he stays. He than carried his belongings to an area of bushes to hide them so he could go into Marsh and use their Wi-Fi for the rest of the evening. I learned when he is not at a store using their Wi-Fi, he is at the public library on Facebook or studying genealogy. He is a genius when working with genealogy. I have also strongly suggested on several occasions that he record his story on paper. I know I am interested and I am sure many others are too. I hope introducing you to Michael will somehow put a face of the homeless issue in our community and around the world. Michael is just one of many who deal with homelessness in our community. True he is probably not typical but he represents many all with faces and lives and sometimes families. I feel like Changing Footprints does its share in helping but it will take much much more. Our tagline has always been "we are changing the world two feet at a time" Every action we take, every shoe we collect or person we help may seem insignificant but it all will help and together we can live in the way Christ taught us to live.

I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE

I Choose to Believe.                     By S. Jeffries

 

We are born into this world,

One hand grasping the inter womb

The other reaching to the sky to see the light.

The light so filled with possibilities

So full  of warmth and new love.

New love steaming through the tear filled eyes

Of mothers and fathers, love vibrating in their heart

Of hearts, like a symphony of notes and bars

Shouting to the heavens a new song of praise.

I reached down, down to the tiny fingers and toes

And I believe, no…. I know I touched the hand of God.

 

We know, new birth is the beginning journey.

A journey that takes us to death’s end.

Not a sad sorrowful end to be grieved.

Birth and death stand like the bookends of life,

Holding up and framing giving reason and support

To what lies between, a breath well spent,            

a heart worth beating.

 

 

Stand tall and sing out,

Sing out the songs and melodies of life.

Feel the rhythms and drumbeats that echo

In every bone and every fiber of your being

 

Allow the human heart to expand… to care

To care about the people and the places

That God created.

Help us to remember from beginning to end….

We are because God is.

 

 

A Passionate Life

                                                                                                       SJJeffries 2011

                                                    A Passionate Life

   As a "forever" Christian, I have always considered the fact that I was born a Christian much like Jewish people are born into their religion. Christianity "flows" through my veins both culturally and spiritually.  When I was too young to be a real Christian, that is too young to decide to follow Jesus , walk down the aisle  and be baptized , I would pretend to be a Christian. I would pretend to take communion using” kool aide” and chewing gum, instead of bread and juice. Some how I knew being a Christian was more about being allowed to partake in communion than what I did or said. I reasoned that what I did or said, though important, did not matter as God was a forgiving God and whatever I did He would always forgive me.

For most of my growing up years I felt a strong "passion" for Christianity. I don't remember ever not feeling that passion and desire to be as good as I could be. Along with these feelings of passion came a natural compassion for other people, especially my parents.  I soon took these feelings to the extreme in that I tried so hard to always "please" my parents by being the perfect son. All in all my self worth  always seemed to balance on a thin string as I tried to live up to my parents expectations and the expectations of what I thought it meant to be a Christian.

Growing up my definition of "the passion of Christ or Christianity" would probably concern the passion of God and the fact that he loved me so very much that he sent Jesus to us to teach us how to be good and than hung him on a cross to suffer such a brutal death and die for us and somehow arise again to go up into heaven.  Pretty much every Easter  for many years was spent taking on the pain both of Jesus who was the sacrifice for me and of God who had to watch his son die in such a horrible way.  I remember a lot of Good Fridays, a name I never understood, business and even school would come to a halt at about two o'clock in the afternoon and all would morn the death of Jesus. In my memories and probably imagination, I think the sky would even darken a little much as we imagine it did on the first Easter.

I was a teenager before I one day looked in the mirror at myself, and made a conscious decision to make an effort to try and please myself instead of always trying to please someone else.  Realizing that my parents and my church had given me a pretty good idea of what it means to be a "good" person, it was time for me to make my own choices about my faith and what that faith meant to me.  It was than that I began to allow myself to question my faith.  I know the questions had always been  there just beneath the surface, but I had  restrained myself from asking these questions.  I soon redefined my interpretation of "the passion of Christ" to mean the passion of living my life as Christ taught us and a passionate desire to ask questions and learn what that means for me in a personal way.

Kevin and Wyatt, my pastors, taught a Sunday School series on” Living the Question”.  It was in this class that I first realized I was all ready spending my life” Living the Question” and that this was OK. It was often disheartening for me to question some of the traditions and teachings that always rang true in my heart but often did not balance with my brain.  It was alright to question and also all right that I did not expect to ever have a certain and definite  Yes or no, right or wrong answer to most questions of faith and religion.  We are taught at a very early age to think and reason for ourselves. In math, in politics, even in ethics, common sense was the rule. In matters of religion and Christianity we were expected  generally to accept all that we were taught on "blind faith".   It is such a relief to know now that I can look at my faith with eyes wide open and not fear that my faith will crumble with the first new idea or concept of what Jesus was all about.

Looking back at a life of being a Christian, I still feel inside like that child that was so eager  to be a Christian that I pretended to take communion. I still have a real passion for being a Christian. I would like to know how to pass the passion I feel on to my children, kind of like a legacy. But the truth is each person must seek out their own passions in both life as in faith.  It is these passions that make the blood flow a little quicker in our veins and reminds us that we are alive and that God is there with us as a loving God.

 DELIVERING SHOES FOR CHANGING FOOTPRINTS.COM

Delivering shoes for CHANGING FOOTPRINTS.COM is not a job it is a privilege and I am excited to have the opportunity.   Once or twice a month I make the trip up to the north Meridian street Changing Footprints Warehouse, usually early in the morning so I can get back to Greenfield and open my shop The Acorn Tree.

When I first started going up to the warehouse to sort and pack shoes, there were two rooms stacked to the ceiling with unsorted shoes. One of the rooms had not been disturbed for a year or so.  Other rooms were also packed with sorted and boxes shoes, ready to go out.   When I go there now there is one unsorted or "raw" room and it is pretty empty.  We still have some shoes packed but the inventory is significantly diminished.

I hurry in and quickly load up the boxes that Carol had staged for delivery. Six or eight boxes to go to Horizon House and nine designated for Wheeler's Woman's Mission.  I wish I had my grandson Jackson with me, as he always enjoys the days he gets to help deliver. The last time he helped when we got to the Wheeler's Men's Mission, several men came out to assist in carting the boxes into the storeroom. Before they could blink Jackson had rolled several cartloads in by himself. He was seven at the time, looking up to these men almost to say "get out of my way, Mr."

As many delivers as I have made, mostly in and around downtown Indianapolis, I never get tired of the trip down Meridian street from 96th street.  It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful and magnificent the homes are on North Meriden.  You pass mansion after mansion that I am sure represent a lot of "old “money in Indianapolis.  When I finally get to the Governor’s Mansion, I think how could all this wealth exist and still not have enough to solve the problem of homelessness in our town.

Thirty or Forty years ago if I had made this trip there would be an even sharper contrast between North Meridan and the inter city.  Now down town Indy looks pretty good. Even the shelters are nice clean buildings. 

But the journey always leaves me a little contemplative and a little weepie and sad.  That is not to say when I leave the shelters I don't leave with joy and hope. The joy that fills my heart when I see firsthand the work that is being done and the hope that someday no one will need to sleep on the street whatever their situation.

Shoes are such a basic need in our society. I am some times embarrassedto think about how many pairs of shoes Joyce and I own between us.  I basically wear two pair of shoes, one black one brown. Except of course in the summer when I add sandals.  Joyce on the other hand has a very large collection of shoes and boots.

Changing Footprints is a small but growing organization. We have hopes and dreams of providing shoes for all the needs in our area as well and try to make a dent in the needs around the world.  But that takes shoes and shoes come from people and people are the ones who have to open their closets and their hearts and find a way of helping someone else.

Warren Central High School, one of the largest Indiana schools has agree to do a shoe drive. Several other groups and organizations have got on the band wagon to help. CHANGING FOOTPRINTS needs your support.  In the midst of trying to continue our mission we are also raising money to rehab an old glove factory/warehouse in Rushville to house our organization. Any support, money or material would make the organization grow faster and continue and spread our mission.

The Plane Ride Home

                              stephen Jeffries

 ThePlane Ride Home

On  my recent trip back home to Indiana from California, I was in the air on Southwest Airlines at the approximate time I should have been sitting in a church pew.  Because I was the last one on the plane. I sat in the far back behind the wing and for once I had no neighbors fighting for my armrest and leg room.  As soon as I sat down by the window I was amazed how bright and sunny it was as we flew over the beautiful California terrain. I was again in awe at the patchwork of beauty that we call earth. The fields, the mountains , the scattered bodies of water, remined me once again that I am blessed, we are blessed and the earth is a blessed place to be.

It was a glorious sunlite day as we skimmed above the smattering white clouds. Above the clouds I was facinated with the shadows cast down by the clouds. I have flown many times but don't recall seeing this.

I ordered a cranberry with vodka as a special treat. I don't normaly drink liquour in the morning and especially never on Sunday.  Communion?? Hummmm??

Suddenly the pilot came across the intercom and almost yelled for the flight attendants to find a seat immediately.  I could sense a bit of fear in the voice and soon the plane began to wobble and shake like a logwagon.

As I continued to look out the window at the beautiful day, I was perplexed but more astonded that I felt not fear. Even as the nose of the plane began to point down a little I did not feel fear. My first though as I smiled out the window was will Joyce be able to survive on what little life insurance I have. I was carrying home a check from working in California. I wondered if Bloomsters would rewrite that check for Joyce. Oh yes I even questioned if Joyce would get back the five dollars I spent on the drink I did not receive.

Now was this weird. Maybe but I had no white knucles holding on to the seat. Was it the beautiful time I had in  California or the fact that I continue to realize how bless I am to have family and friends that I care about. I do know that in that moment I had absolutely no control of what would happen and I was ok with that.

The plane rattled for a long time but it did finally subside and the pilot admitted it was current from the Sierra Range that had unexpectly caught him off guard and caused the hovoc.

It was a perfect flight after that and yes I finally got my vodka . As I drank a little and ate a bite of cream cheese danish I remembered.....and I praised and I worshiped  and after all is'nt that what "communion" is all about.