Intuitive Grandfather – to the Rescue

I had a best friend growing up and his name was Barney. He was a big guy; weighing about 2000 pounds. Together with Daisy, they made up my dad’s draft horse team. His reddish brown coat was oh…so soft, and his big brown eyes were filled with compassion for the little girl that fed him an ear of corn every night following her run down the lane from the school bus. While he chomped on his ear I provided him with an earful of my own. I spared Barney nothing; he knew all my secrets.

He especially knew my disdain of going to school. After attending the little one room country school with just a handful of neighbor kids, “town school” was  a deep dark sea of intimidating eyes and unfamiliar faces. As I  stood at the edge of the playground watching the other first graders playfully interact, it did nothing but make me want to be home where I was secure and comfortable. I could only imagine what it would be like to join in with my frolicking classmates. No, I didn’t have severe asthma or polio. I wasn’t in a wheelchair, but I might as well have been because my shyness kept me imprisoned as if I was.

Grandpa Harley was a soft spoken, intuitive man. I had no idea he had been witnessing my heart pouring reunions with Barney from across the farmyard. And I for sure didn’t know he was working on a solution… not until Mr. Tom Allan from the Omaha World Herald showed up at school. He knocked on our classroom door and asked Mrs. Windenhausen if he could speak to me  in the hallway. I was shy, six, and scared. He tried to explain to me why he was there, but the only words that stood out to me was “your Grandpa Harley.” That gave me some reassurance that he wasn’t all bad and after a couple of questions, he let me slip back into the classroom.

My next encounter with Mr. Allan was at our kitchen table. Dad and Mom were conversing with him over coffee and donuts when I ran into the house after school that same day. This reassured me that I had nothing to fear for my “non-coffee” parents did not brew the stuff for those that they would rather see move on. Mom and Dad were able to translate what Mr. Allan had tried to tell me at school that morning. Grandpa Harley had written to him, telling him of a special bond between a little girl and a plow horse. It had sparked interest in the human interest writer’s mind.

Within the week, a picture of Barney and me graced the front page of  The Omaha World Herald. My family –  including parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles – made quite an ado about it. I would expect this from my family, but I hadn’t expected it from my classmates. The classmates living in town and who’s parents had subscriptions to the large newspaper, had seen it before I did as our copy would not arrive until the rural mail was delivered that afternoon. Some of the mothers had cut out the picture and sent it to school with their children to give to me. Mrs. Windenhausen held up a copy in front of the class and smiled as she congratulated me. I wasn’t sure what that was all about – I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.

But, with that experience, something not so ordinary began to happen within me. I now felt more at home in this classroom and the eyes all around me weren’t so intimidating anymore. The smiles on their faces warmed me and I soon found myself joining in on recess activities. I practiced and practiced Jacks at home in anticipation of being the Wimbledom champion of Jacks in the classroom. I couldn’t wait for recess to show off my skills.

It was years later before I realized what Grandpa Harley had done for me. I continued to be shy through high school – but not painfully so. Psalms 139 tells us that God has examined our hearts and knows everything about us. I do believe that Grandpa Harley was very intuitive, but I’m thinking, on this one – he had a little help from my Heavenly Father.

Until next month – keep on readin’ and I’ll keep on writin.”

If you like this style of writing, check out my book page for how to get copies of my two Christian fiction novels.