The Wagon

The Wagon

Remembering back to my preschool years, with four siblings of school age - I spent a lot of time during the days, alone with my own imagination and thoughts. Many times those hours were spent in my own backyard, looking up into the sky. Watching cloud formations pass by and seeing all the animals or faces I could pick out in images as they flowed by. 

 

On one such day, staring into the blueness of the sky I questioned God “I did not have to die to come here, so going back I should not have to die either!” Always on some form of a quest in trying to achieve my connection and validating the truth in my own young mind. 

 

I decided I would go look for a way to find my way back, deciding when the next morning came I would be on my way. Thinking carefully how this might be done, I would need transportation. At such a young age, my transportation would be me and my wagon. During the rest of the day, I made the decisions of what would be needed in the wagon for my trip to find my way back into the sky, there had to be a way that was close, since my home was close to where I was born. If I could just get closer to the place I was born, I would find the way back to God, then bring my wagon home again, since I didn’t have to die surely it would not take long. 

 

The next morning, I woke up very early and packed what would be needed in three grocery sacks, knowing my wagon could only hold three. Some clothes, just in case it took longer than I thought, a doll – so she would not get lonely while I was gone and a book to look at if I needed to rest. In the third sack, I put some crackers and an apple out of the refrigerator. The sacks were complete and I was ready to go!

I remember eating breakfast that morning, and going out to the backyard proceeding to fill my wagon for my walk back to God for the day. My wagon, already passed down from the older children in the family with rusty wheels, was even heavier to pull with my sacks I packed for the trip. Pulling the wagon through the grass out to the street I found out was not going to be easy, when I made the trek to the street and started pulling my loaded wagon, four houses later my friend Stephen was outside. 

 

“Where are you going with your wagon?” he asked. “I am going to meet God today, I just need to get closer to where I was born, then I can visit him and come back for supper” I replied. “Why don’t you bring your wagon over here, we can go inside and play for awhile and then you can go meet God?” Stephen hollered back. 

 

I stood there in the street and thought about what he asked. Would I have time to meet God today, and be back for supper if I stopped and played?” Surely it would not take very long, since when mom would drive to the hospital in the car, it was a short trip. “Sure, I will come and play for awhile, and then finish." We went to his room that morning and looked at all his books, played with his cars, and wondered how the trip would finish that day. “If you see God today, could you tell him to make my brother leave me alone? Stephen asked. “I will make sure God knows to have your brother leave you alone when I talk to him today!” and we laughed, knowing this could happen. 

 

I ended up staying longer with Stephen than I had planned that day, and heard my mom calling from the street wondering where I was. With my wagon in the yard with the sacks she was soon at the door of Stephens house. His mother opened the door and called for me to come at my mother’s request. I said my goodbyes to Stephen and walked slowly to the door and back out into the now noon sky with my mother.

“Where were you going with your wagon loaded with sacks Linda?” “Oh, just for walk for the day, but they were really heavy anyway so I think I will have lunch first now” I replied. Thinking in my own mind “I guess I will not talk to God today, but maybe tomorrow”. 

 

Another tomorrow would not bring my packed wagon and pursuit of walking to where I was born to talk to God, my mother made sure of that in my future, with some explicit warnings about consequences in my efforts. Though my days sitting in the grass in my own backyard brought many new thoughts, and at times adventurous ideas my mother would also disagree with, but the quest for the meeting was not dampened by my own attempt to walk back to talking to God from the space I was born into this world from, a lifelong communication without the need for a wagon to transport me.