Being There
By Hal Haralson
Hal Haralson practices law in Austin, Texas and is a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today.
I still remember the number forty years later, 21554196628. My dog tags hang on the wall in my office reminding me of two years (1957-1959) in the Army.
I rose like a flash to PFC in the Military Police Corps. I can still make the traffic on a busy street corner flow with the best of them.
After MP school in Ft. Gordon, Georgia, Judy and I went through Abilene, Texas on our way to White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, my permanent duty station.
Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas had been our home for the past four years. I told Dr. George Graham, my mentor and friend and the Vice-President of HSU, that we were on our way to Las Cruces, New Mexico.
"Look up Ray and Laura, my son and daughter-in-law. They are the kind of folks you will enjoy knowing." Dr. Graham was obviously proud of them and his two grandsons.
After we found a place to live, not much on private`s pay, I gave Ray a call. He and Laura invited us over for dinner.
They had a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a fireplace! We thought they were rich. They shared generously with us and a close friendship began.
Ray was a scientist at White Sands Proving Grounds and a fun-loving practical joker. Their two sons, Kelly and Kyle, loved our baby daughter, Jill, who was born during that year.
Ray and Laura left Las Cruces and moved to Abilene, where he became Professor of math at Hardin-Simmons University.
After my discharge on June 12, 1959, we moved to Abilene where I was on the Public Relations staff at Hardin-Simmons.
The friendship grew. Laura gave birth to a baby girl who was the center of that family`s attention. Her big brothers adored her.
Ray was offered a job teaching math at Appalachia State College in Boone, North Carolina and took it.
Our friends moved to a forested site, on a mountainside in the Smoky Mountains, with a trout stream flowing by their house and on into the pond in front of the property. The pictures we saw made us West Texas flatlanders envious.
About six months later, a call came to my office from my wife, Judy. Dr. Graham had called and said Ray and Laura`s little 2-year old daughter had drowned in the pond in front of their house.
I was stunned. I started a letter but the words could not express my feelings.
I picked up the phone and made reservations on the first plane to Atlanta. After spending all night in the airport, I caught a Piedmont Airlines puddle-jumper to Waynesboro, North Carolina. I finally found a cab and paid $50.00 for the forty mile ride to Boone. We found the cabin and I knocked on the door.
The door opened and Ray stood there with a shocked look on his face. He said nothing at first, and then tears began to roll down his cheeks. Then he spoke, "No one could care that much."
I thin God must have realized that all His attempts to get through to his people had fallen short.
He then decided, "The only way they will know my love is if I go and be with them."
