Capture the Wind for Me
capture
the
wind
for
me
Other Books by Brandilyn Collins
Cast a Road Before Me
Color the Sidewalk for Me
Eyes of Elisha
Dread Champion
ZONDERVAN
capture the wind for me
Copyright © 2003 by Brandilyn Collins
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
ePub Edition July 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-85808-9
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan,
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Collins, Brandilyn.
Capture the wind for me / Brandilyn Collins.
p. cm.â(Bradleyville series ; bk. 3)
ISBN 0-310-24243-6
1. Fathers and daughtersâFiction. 2. Motherless familiesâFiction. 3. Teenage girlsâFiction. 4. KentuckyâFiction. 5. WidowersâFiction. I. Title.
PS3553.O4747815 C36 2003
813'.6âdc21
2002152346
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherâexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 /
DC/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
For Amberly, my wonderful thirteen-year-old daughter.
May we ever chatter away with each other,
go to concerts, and remain great friends.
And may you never stray from Christ your Savior.
As for your first dateâlet's talk again when you're twenty-five.
M
y thanks to these folks who helped make Capture the Wind for Me a better book: Melanie Panagiotopoulos, for teaching me about Greek accents and language, and the country of Greece. Niwana Briggs, for her keen eye in critiquing the manuscript. My daughter, Amberly, for coming up with a great name for a singing group. And as always, my editor, Dave Lambert, and my agent, Jane Jordan Browne. For all they do.
Forgetting what is behind
and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal
to win the prize for which God has called me
heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13â14
I
remember how even the sky mourned with us, hanging in shades of gray, chilled and fitful. How the wind moaned through the red-leaved trees in the cemetery. I was only fourteen. Nature's sorrow seemed right to me, for surely the world could not go on as usual, undisturbed and blithe, in the face of our tragedy. Vaguely, I wondered if others in my family shared the same transcendent thoughts. Now, at twenty, I know they did. Seems to me such self-absorption is common to the grieving. Every act of nature shouts our lossâthe merest drop of rain a tear for the deceased, a stream of sunshine hailing some bright memory.
My family and I huddled together, trembling more in soul than body, as we faced my mama's casket. White and gleaming, it rested on wide strips of green fabric above an open and hungry grave.
“Should we lower it?” the funeral director quietly asked.
No!
Daddy's cheek muscles froze, tears glistening in his red-rimmed eyes. He nodded.
The wizened cemetery worker stretched gnarled hand to metal gear and started cranking.
Chink, chink. Chink, chink.
Slowly, the casket began to descend.
Daddy gripped my shoulder, grief bubbling in his throat. My brother, Robert, age ten, leaned against me, solemn, wooden.
Chink, chink.
Seven-year-old Clarissa clutched her coat around her, as if to wrap herself against the sound. I watched the bottom of the casket disappear, the blunt cliff of earth edge up its side.
Mama,
I cried.
Mama!
Memories pierced me like shards of glass. Saturday morning pancakes. Softball game cheers. Suppertime laughter. The way she hugged Daddy. Our talks of first love.
Cancer. Pain. Dulling eyes. Final words.
Lifeless head on a satin pillow.
Chink, chink.
Grandma Westerdahl wailed for her daughter.
The top of the casket disappeared. Still the man cranked. An errant leaf, brittle and worn, skittered across the ground to snag on his wrist. As if to say,
Stop! Stop your turning; crank the other way, up and up. Turn back time!
He flicked the leaf away.
Chink, chink. Chink, châ
Silence, save for the wind. The man rocked back on his heels, task done.
The ceremony was complete. Time now for us to go home. To leave Mama behind. My mind numbed. I could not grasp itâmy mama's warm brown eyes, her voice, her love, her
life
now stiffened, silenced. Covered by a casket, soon by soil. Her light, her dreams, her energyâa sputtering candle now spent.
We stood, bewildered refugees, staring sightlessly at the open earth.
Grandpa Delham put his arm around Daddy. Grandma Delham reached for Clarissa, but my little sister pulled away. Carefully, she inched to the edge of the grave, then peered down. I can still see Clarissa, her blue coat flapping against lace-topped socks, her weight tilting forward on one foot, neck craned. I knew she had to see the casket, had to have a mental picture to take with her, to remember after dirt covered all.
Grandpa Westerdahl held his sobbing wife.
Clarissa took her time, then sidled back to us, bleary-eyed and pale. Daddy grasped her hand.
I, too, had to see. Approaching the grave as if pulled by an unseen hand, I braced myself and looked down. Expectation did not lessen the shock. The pure white of the casket screamed against black earth. I reminded myself that Mama was not really there. That her soul flew in heaven, hovered at Jesus' feet.
Little comfort the thought gave me.
We had to leave. I had a family to take care ofâa grief-stricken father, siblings who needed a mama.
God
, I cried,
Ican't do this!