Trust Me!

     On a beautiful fall day in November 1975, our family took a Sunday afternoon drive to Orchardville, Illinois, where we often went to visit family and friends. This was an unusually warm, beautiful day for the middle of November. People were out-of-doors visiting neighbors. Some were doing their last-minute jobs in preparation for winter.

      We had stopped at a local gathering place for a Coke and to visit with some friends when a man came in with shocking news. There was a terrible accident in front of the grade school. It was a head-on-collision between two cars which involved six members of our family. We had talked to some of them just moments before. Someone called for an ambulance, and we hurried to the scene of the accident.

      Before the accident, leaves were being burned in ditches on both sides of the main road. Apparently the two drivers had not seen each other. The road where the accident happened is narrow; most people drive down the center except for passing another car. Orchardville is located twenty-five miles from any town large enough for a hospital. It has the population of about seventy people. Everyone in this tiny rural community knows each other, their business, and even their pet’s name if they happen to have one. 

      By the time we arrived at the scene of the accident, several people were already there to help. It was as though we were all characters in a nightmare, with people running everywhere in a panic. The smoke from the burning leaves was hanging in the air. I was trying to find someone to relay a message for my sister-in-law who had been badly injured in the accident when someone grabbed my arm. They said, “Here is her cousin! She can hold the baby!” I ended up in the back of an ambulance holding Darren, the nine-month-old son of my cousin and her husband. The three of them had been in one of the cars involved in the accident. I could not see a bruise or cut on the little one, and he was breathing. I assumed he was asleep. After traveling about twenty miles, Darren stopped breathing. I also noticed a small stream of blood trickling out of his left ear. I tried to remain calm because both injured parents were in the ambulance with us. I told the driver that the baby had stopped breathing. I then began to give the baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but was unable to revive him. The next few minutes were the strangest that I had ever experienced--I could actually FEEL DEATH.

      After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived at the hospital. The doctors examined Darren only to inform us that the baby had received a bad skull fracture resulting from the impact and nothing could have saved him.

      The next few days I just wanted to wake up from the nightmare and find that the whole ordeal was only a bad dream. I had trouble sleeping or functioning at all. I could not face the baby’s parents. We had not caused the accident, but I was the last one to hold Darren. Doris was not only my first cousin, but we were born on the same day. Our husbands had been good friends growing up, and we were both married the same week. After nine years of marriage, my husband and I had easily borne three children; but it had taken my cousin and her husband nine years to have this much wanted child. Now he was gone!

      The day of Darren’s funeral I did not know what was about to happen to me would change my life forever. The funeral was held at the Frank Funeral Home in Flora, Illinois. As we drove the twenty-five miles from Salem to Flora, my entire body literally shook. My weak knees could hardly carry me to the door of the funeral home. However, once I stepped inside the funeral home, the fear and nervousness melted into complete PEACE--a peace that I had never experienced before in my life. I did not understand what was happening to me. My husband and I walked over to the miniature casket where Darren’s little, lifeless body lay.  Then we proceeded to where his parents were seated and tried to speak words of comfort to them. At that point we turned, walked to the back of the crowded room, and sat down. When I turned around, I saw Jesus standing in the front of the room by a floor lamp, just to the right of the small casket. He was SHINING brighter than any light I have ever seen, yet it did not hurt my eyes. Jesus was holding Darren in his right arm, and he was very much alive. The baby was laughing and picking at Jesus’ thick white beard, as any nine-month-old child would do. It felt as though Jesus was radiating LOVE to me, and He began to speak to me through his piercing eyes. He spoke these words to me, “Darren is with me now. He will always be with me, and he will always be happy."< body="">