The Day I Fell Asleep at the Church Picnic by Cate Robbins
About Me
It was our families annual family get together, a beautiful day in early September. Storms had swept through and left a cooling not unlike the first whispers of autumn. The breeze blew gently through the pine and maple trees surrounding the picnic shealter of the church . It swirled our skirts about our ankles and touseled our hair.
I sat beside the picnic table listening to my family talk of the years happenings and looking out over the rolling landscape to the hills leading to the mountains in the distance. The dirt road just below us turned up into an ess road leading to our home church stopping at a grass field round about the church . Our buggies and buckboards sat waiting, the horses nickered as if talking to one another.
My memories turned to Sarah, our dear sweet sister, as I gazed at the memorial garden planted for her just outside the back door of the church and beside the gate that swung open to the cemetery. A small stone bench beneath the redbud tree gave you pause to wonder if she might once have sat there or was it a resting spot for her to sit in spirit and watch the rest of us when we gathered together? No one knows for sure what happens beyond the veil.
I could remember well the early summer she turned three.
We had gathered here with a picnic lunch and a birthday cake with family and friends. Thomas was four, Leemon, Abagail and Benjamin were three, Matthew was two. They all laughed and played running around and taking turns jumping up on a tree stump acting like monkeys. Sarah would stumble now and again but what three year old wouldn't. I was sixteen at the time, and would run over and catch her up and swing her around and her blue eyes would twinkle and shine. She was a smart little gal growing up with older sisters and brothers. When our brother , Cord, would pick her up and zoom her over his head, Sarah would laugh and say, "To infinity and beyond!" At fourteen and almost six feet tall it had to seem like that to her.
I sat beside the picnic table listening to my family talk of the years happenings and looking out over the rolling landscape to the hills leading to the mountains in the distance. The dirt road just below us turned up into an ess road leading to our home church stopping at a grass field round about the church . Our buggies and buckboards sat waiting, the horses nickered as if talking to one another.
My memories turned to Sarah, our dear sweet sister, as I gazed at the memorial garden planted for her just outside the back door of the church and beside the gate that swung open to the cemetery. A small stone bench beneath the redbud tree gave you pause to wonder if she might once have sat there or was it a resting spot for her to sit in spirit and watch the rest of us when we gathered together? No one knows for sure what happens beyond the veil.
I could remember well the early summer she turned three.
We had gathered here with a picnic lunch and a birthday cake with family and friends. Thomas was four, Leemon, Abagail and Benjamin were three, Matthew was two. They all laughed and played running around and taking turns jumping up on a tree stump acting like monkeys. Sarah would stumble now and again but what three year old wouldn't. I was sixteen at the time, and would run over and catch her up and swing her around and her blue eyes would twinkle and shine. She was a smart little gal growing up with older sisters and brothers. When our brother , Cord, would pick her up and zoom her over his head, Sarah would laugh and say, "To infinity and beyond!" At fourteen and almost six feet tall it had to seem like that to her.