What in Case?

by Donna Poole

School uniforms on, faces scrubbed, smiles bright, Angie, Johnnie, and Danny grabbed the lunches I had ready for them and kissed me.

“Bye, Mom!”

“Bye, Mom!”

Make that two kids grabbed their lunches and kissed me. One usually walked right by, thinking of other things and headed out the door.

“Murphy!” his dad said. “Get your lunch. And don’t forget to kiss your mother.”

Johnnie earned the nickname Murphy from a radio commercial about little boys delivering newspapers. A voice barked out commands. “Get up! Brush your teeth! Eat your breakfast! Kiss your mother! Pick up your papers!” It continued with instructions. At the end the voice shouted, “Murphy, go back and start over! You forgot to kiss your mother!”

That was our Murphy. He loved me. He just had many things on his mind, and unless reminded, he forgot his lunch and forgot to kiss his mother.

Once on the road with Dad driving them to school, all three kids had a lot on their minds. Many of their sentences started with, “Daddy, what in case. . .?”

The curvy backroad to school took them through Lost Nations, a game preserve with few homes. One house had chickens that liked the road better than the yard.

“Daddy, what in case we hit one of those chickens?” And one day they did just that.

Sometimes the kids laughingly tried to think up outrageous questions. “Daddy, what in case a plane falls out of the sky and lands on our car?”

Sometimes their questions were serious. “Daddy, what in case you and Mommy die?”

John reassured them that we had no plans to die anytime soon, but if we died, God would take care of them. We probably failed to teach our kids many important lessons, but I hope we taught one important thing, that whatever they face in life, God will be with them.

“Daddy, what in case we’re late to school?” The kids asked that almost every day.

It was a legitimate worry. We lived only seven miles from school, but their Dad usually pulled into the driveway of Freedom Farm Christian school at the last minute.

The kids didn’t want to earn the late demerit; three demerits equaled one detention, and they had a remarkable ability to earn demerits without trying.

“Bye, Daddy!” they’d yell, flying out of the car and into the school, about knocking over anyone in the way.

One day that anyone happened to be a favorite teacher of theirs and a friend of ours, Al Neinas. He sauntered out to the car. “You know, Pastor Poole, there isn’t an award for this.”

John smiled. “An award for what?”

“An award for consistently being the last parent to get his kids here the final second before the late bell rings.”

When John picked the kids up in the afternoon, they didn’t have as many “what in case” questions; they were too busy talking about their day. I sometimes had a few “what in case” questions of my own. It wasn’t unusual for John to call me from school.

“Hey, I’m bringing two extra people home for supper, okay?”

Ten minutes later he’d call again. “Hey, make that six extra people coming home for supper; is that okay?”

What in case I can’t think of what to feed them? I was pretty sure I could though. My friend Kathy said I was the only person she knew who could feed a dozen people with a cup of hamburger.

I thank God for the invention of the casserole! When Danny came home from school and saw a casserole cooking, he always looked at it suspiciously.

“Did you get that out of a cookbook, or did you make it up?”

If I said I’d found the recipe in a cookbook, he relaxed. If I said I’d created it from my imagination, he almost cried. Danny is forty-three now and still suspicious of casseroles. Whenever he looks at a casserole at one of our church potlucks his face says, “What in case I eat that and die?”

Those what in case years passed quickly. When we were forty and our other three teens or almost teens Kimmee joined our family. I don’t think she ever said, “what in case”; she hung around her older siblings enough to know the proper words were “what if.”

Now the four kids are grown; the “baby” just turned thirty-one. They, their spouses, and Megan, our oldest grandchild, face serious “what if?” questions every day, and we do too.

I try not to let any “what in case” questions keep me awake at night. Whatever my family faces, and I know they don’t tell me all of it, I only hope they remember what we taught them, that no matter how hard things get, God will be with them. I hope I remember it too.

Yesterday is gone, why worry? And tomorrow? Well, like Elisabeth Elliot said, “Tomorrow is none of my business.” That just leaves today..

What in case today I remember I am God’s child and just enjoy life in the beautiful backyard of my heavenly Father? What in case you do too!