Walking Stan Home by Bob Mitchley Bringing in the Sheaves bringing in the Sheaves we shall all rejoice, bringing in the Sheaves? Amen and amen! Church is over, people file out of the sanctuary, but there sits Stan, nobody to help him home. I guess it takes too much time out of a saint’s day; So, I volunteered. Walking Stan home became both a duty and a pleasure for me. Stan lived just a parking lot distance away from the church. Stan is long gone to his heavenly reward now. But I use to ask him, “how old are you Stan” I’d have to almost shout into his good ear for him to hear anything that I was talking to him about; even with his hearing aid turned all the way up. He’d reply, “I’m 92, but I feel 102 today.” We usually talked about sports. Stan’s favorite team was the New York Mets, or as I called them, the door Mets, cause they had a losing record that year, again. But I would never say that to him, even in jest. Slow, slow, uneven steps, that were our walk. We’d talk about life and its pit-falls. How things which seemed innocent enough could somehow reach out and grab you by the throat, and squeeze the shame from your senses. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I agreed just the same. Then a loud high pitched ring, it hurt my ears! It was his hearing aid, then he’d reset it, again. “Must be the bad weather,” he’d say, “or maybe the battery.” Slow, slow steps for a fragile life, in a fast paced world… I shouldered Stan over the rough, raised side walk cracks, where a foot could easily slip, shattering a faultless lie. But Stan knew that I’d be there to catch him if he were to misstep or fall… and in a greater sense he’d already done that for me.