Dead Woman On The Lawn

Always Be Ready To Meet the Maker

She’d prayed relentlessly for rain. Every day. “Please God, please,” she’d beg. The extreme drought was getting tough.

Dottie the Dalmation woke her up around 12:15 a.m. from a deep dream, as the dog often did. But this time, the dog rang the bells hanging on the front door knob. That meant she needed to go outside.

Maybe a false alarm, Deb hoped. She dragged herself out of bed, gently to not disturb her husband. She shuffled past the front door and straight to the guest room bed, crawled in, covered herself with the sheet and hoped the dog wouldn’t ring the bell again.

Dottie didn’t. She jumped into bed and laid close to Deb.

Thunder was in the distance. Deb listened. There was a chance for rain.

BOOM! Right over the house.

She and Dottie raced for the master bedroom. The motion sensor light outside it had turned on, very brightly. They jumped in bed with her husband. The rain began, heavily.

The cat jumped in bed also and all four of them sought safety and comfort in each other. The dog and cat were face to face between the humans. It was lovely.

But it could’ve been so much different!

Had Deb decided to take Dottie out, pulled on pants she’d draped over the clothes hamper, put on her heavy white robe and her Tractor Store boots with the farm animals printed on, put the choker and leash on Dottie and gone outside, half asleep from the sleep aide she took, the timing was perfect for them to have been outside when the lighting struck.

Imagine: There she lay, woman in her white robe and rubber boots, smoking from the lighting strike that instantly killed her. No goodbyes to anyone, no “I love you,” no “Jesus come and get me,” just dead.

The dog’s leash was on her wrist and the flashlight in her hand, under her body.

Then the rain burst out of the clouds and came down in torrents, drenching Dottie immediately. She pulled on the leash until Deb’s arm was pulled straight and the leash came off.

The rain extinguished the smoking body. The dog ran to the front door, barking her loud, strong bark. And she barked and she barked. The neighbors heard, but Deb’s husband was oblivious, or chose to be oblivious because he wore ear plugs every night. Deb had always answered the dog’s bells and gotten up for anything else in the night the entire time they lived there, nine years.

Tonight, Deb didn’t get up for anything anymore. Finally, John rolled over and looked to Deb but her side of the bed was empty. He got up, which wasn’t easy, he being 83 and a very old 83. Old, no dancing in the living room with Deb for him. He walked like the tin man in need of oil, his rheumatoid arthritis making life more difficult by the day, and the night.

“Dottie! You’re soaking” he said, letting her in. He saw the white robed dead gal on the lawn. He rushed out past the soaked dog, letting her shake water where she would, into the rain to his wife and knew right away she was dead. Gone. He didn’t tamper with the body, knowing better from his security guard days and all the Columbo murder mysteries he watched.

He called the ambulance. They came post haste.

They called the police.

“The lightening must’ve struck her,” one of the neighbors who’d gathered, who saw the emergency lights and thought it was John.

The sheriff looked at her. Of course didn’t say a word. It was, but there was a second hole.

It was a gunshot hole. Blood soaked the white robe and into the grass where she lay.

What had happened was this: Deb and Dottie went outside. The killer had the gun drawn and was talking to Deb when the lighting struck. The killer fired the gun, using the noise to blend in with the crime. It all happened so fast. The killer was so intent on shooting, and then fell back from the lightening, and then got up and ran off, didn’t know the lightening actually struck Deb.

“Knock on every door, and ask if they’d seen anything” the Sheriff said. “Be quick, and look for wet footprints on their doormat.”

The Sheriff came back with someone in handcuffs.

“Why?”

“What?” The person, ears still hurting from the lighting strike noise, asked.

“Why?” the Sheriff and John yelled.

“She wasn’t nice to me. She hated it here so much I heard she wanted to die. I was just doing her a favor.”

“That’s an expensive favor. She was born again and will be in heaven this night, but you will go to prison for a lifetime,” John said. “I’ll see to that.”

God was using her trials and tribulations to make her a stronger, better person. It wasn’t up to a human to decide when she lived or died.

“I thought I could get away with it.”

“They all do,” the Sheriff said. Remember, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Keep your mouth shut. You just never know how things will go. Be ready at all times.

What no one knew was that when she was getting ready for bed and her head was busy with voices, one had said, “God will take it from you.” No one knew she believed the Bible verse, “If you have the faith as big/small as this mustard seed, you can tell that mountain to move and it will move,” and that evening she called on her faith and told the rain clouds to come right over her house!

She didn’t know if it was her marriage, her husband, her house, her life, her dog, her story… but didn’t like to listen to the voices in her head. They were usually liars, usually demons in her air space. Maybe it was a demon who orchestrated the shooting, put the idea in the shooter’s head, and the lightening was truly an act of God that just happened to coincide. Maybe got permitted it. She was in heaven. She didn’t care anymore about anything on earth.

Choose this day whom you will serve: God or the enemy of God. Please choose good.

The story could be changed to take out the shooter and shooting. It could just be lightening.

One thing is for sure, we are all one day closer to heaven or hell, one day closer to where our spirits will go when we pass.