WEEPING FOR BENNY

A true story by Dick Carmack

The author is a retired Independent Baptist preacher who lives with his wife of 58 years in a small village in rural New Mexico. Carmack was saved at age 51, was called to preach 9 years later and founded two churches where he preached for 20 years. The first was Storehouse Baptist near Durango, Colorado, the 2^nd  was Little Brown Church north of Aztec, NM. Dick and Vernie Carmack have 5 daughters, 5 sons-in-law, 35 grandchildren and about 20 great grandchildren.

WEEPING FOR BENNY LOWDERMILK

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Dick was freckled-faced, five years old, and full of curiosity about what was going on up by the pond. His bare head showed black hair and his bib overalls, with their periodic lengthening of straps, had plenty of pockets in which to hide his hands along with a few other things. Things like some good rocks and a penny he had found and was saving, an old knife with one broken blade and in a big front pocket a frog that was no longer wet that kept trying to crawl out. Dick kept pushing him back down into the recesses of his britches. He had plans for that frog ‘cause it was the biggest one he had caught so far that spring.

As he strained, looking at all the excitement across the fence by the road, he saw a lot of box bed trucks parking along with men standing around talking, kicking the dust and spitting. A little farther up at the top of the hill that led out of the big curve, more huge trucks were grinding slowly down toward the pond, leaving a cloud of dust that seemed to hang there forever before gradually settling back down on the road. Many of those trucks had hulks of machinery on the back and it looked like they were all headed for a spot just outside Dick’s back yard. He sure wanted to see ‘em up close but caution held him back.

His back yard was the north side of the 200+ acre farm that his dad had leased from Rocky Farrow a rich man that lived up on the Yellow Jacket on the road to Pagosa Springs. The north and wooded side of the farm was almost a half-mile long up against the road with the farmable acreage stretching up and down the valley on the south. That’s where Dad Carmack made his living for Lena and the 7 out of 12 children that were still at home. He and the boys worked hard farming this fertile patch of earth that was mainly in Beaver Creek Valley, 3 miles east of Bayfield, Colorado.

The year was 1936 and the road from Bayfield to Pagosa Springs needed major repair. Potholes and broken shoulders (and broken tires) reigned supreme and the Model A’s, a few V8 Fords and other vintage flivvers would sigh with relief if they could ever run 50 yards without shaking off the fenders.

The next day, as soon as breakfast was over when Dad and the big boys had come back from the milk route and headed for the field, Dick hightailed it up the hill past the ice-house, through the brush and woods and up to the bank of the pond where he found a good place to sit and watch the goings on.

Now trailer houses were maneuvering for good spots to set up in and cars were parking along side with women unloading armloads of stuff they were carrying into the trailers. One trailer in particular stood out. It was bigger than the others and the woman that obviously lived there also had a small boy by her side. He seemed about Dick’s age but was so blond he looked like a yellow jumping-jack in a moving canvass of green grass, brown ditch banks and a road of dust and dirt that seemed to smother the men working around the machines.

It was maybe an hour before Dick had worked up enough courage to slip off the bank of the pond and make his way under the barbed wire fence, across the road right-of-way and up to the trailer where the blond boy had gone into the trailer along with his mother. When he came out Dick asked:

“What’s yer name?”

“Benny” came the reply.

“What’s the rest of it?”

“Lowdermilk.”

“You gonna live here in that trailer?”

“Yeah, what’s your name?”

“Dick. You got a dog?”

“No, Dad said I couldn’t ‘til we get outta the trailer.”

“I got one. His name is Ring and you can play with him if you wanta.”

“OK. What’s the rest of it?”

“My name? Carmack.”

It took perhaps all of five minutes before the two boys were well enough acquainted for Benny to ask his mother for permission to go play with Dick. So off they went with Ol’ Ring, meandering up and down the “bar ditch” picking up rocks and throwing them at imagined “varmits” like squirrels and rabbits and skunks. Getting as close to the machines as they dared, Benny proceeded to educate Dick on what the name of each one was and more or less what it did. He seemed to be an expert, and he should have been, ‘cause his dad was the superintendent of the crew on the highway construction job and was obviously the most important man working there. Maybe he even owned the company.

As the days of spring turned into summer with Ol’ Ring tagging along and often leading the way, great adventures were often experienced like the time they treed a porcupine and used beanie shooters to send rocks at it in a vain attempt to knock the animal down to the ground. Failing, they finally gave up and went back to their respective homes for supper. Another time they tried to catch a bear cub that proceeded to climb his tree and hang there about 20 feet up on the lowest limb, where he mocked the two young hunters at the bottom. If they had seen or heard mama bear a little sooner, they would’ve run quicker and wouldn’t have had the false bravery scared out of them quite so bad. All that was in addition to throwing rocks at skunks and then running for life.

Another time they rigged up a bucket of water and perched it precariously inside and above a door of an old cabin with a prop that would get knocked down if anyone opened the door. It worked fine and after loading the trap with water the boys climbed out a window and then waited for someone to come along and get an unexpected bath. Most of the summer had gone by before they climbed back through the window to see if anyone had knocked down the bucket. Sadly, the water had evaporated causing the main and wet part of the trap to vanish into thin air. Ol’ Ring waited patiently outside then led the way back toward the pond.

The most fascinating adventure however was the day when Dick’s older brother Harold had a bear cub trapped on one of the two trees that stood closely side by side on the south edge of the pond. In a futile attempt to catch the cub, up one tree Harold would go and when he got close enough to the cub to think twice about going farther, the desperate young animal would panic and swing over to change trees. So down the tree would come Harold, switching over and climbing the second one while the cub mocked him from above only to pull the same exit maneuver again when necessary.

The circus went on long enough that neighbors and people heard about it by telephone and drove out from town to see the goings on. Indeed, even Doc Ochsner from Durango (23 miles away) was able to get there and record the last part with his movie camera. That was remarkable because in those days it probably took close to an hour to make the drive and when he arrived the show was still going on.

Benny and Dick and part of the construction crew had a ringside seat, watching in fascination until finally, Harold (even with brother Jack’s help) gave up in disgust and walked away leaving the cub safely up the tree. Waiting it out, the cub climbed down on its own when the crowd had dispersed or perhaps when Mama Bear decided to bring it all to a halt.

In early summer Dad Carmack and Mr. Lowdermilk got acquainted and before long the construction Super with his wife and boy were dining at the Carmack table once or twice a month. That helped cement the friendship between the boys and soon they looked upon each other like brothers instead of just friends.

The long summer days gradually morphed into fall as leaves fell and the road started taking shape with more and more men and equipment being added as they were needed, until one day in late fall Dick headed up to Benny’s house to find instead of going to work, all the men were loading up their machines and beginning to move them down the road heading southwest.

“Where ya goin?”

“Texas,” Benny answered, “Dad’s got a big job down there that we’re goin’ to do this winter.”

“Oh,” came the disappointed reply. “You comin’ back?”

“I think so, prob’ly will, sometime next spring.”

“Well, OK, see ya then.”

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As the winter months came with their snow and cold and the long brown stockings that Mom insisted all the kids wear, Dick missed Benny and asked his dad on a more or less regular basis, “When they comin’ back?”

“Just be patient son, they’ll be back before you know it.”

That day finally arrived with the trucks and trailers and machinery moving noisily into their respective places and the dust had hardly settled before Dick was knocking on the door of the Lowdermilk trailer and asking, “Can Benny come out and play?”

A shocked look of infinite sorrow spread instantly across the face of Mrs. Lowdermilk before settling deep in her pale blue eyes. Fighting to hold back the tears she stepped out of the trailer, knelt down and put her arms around Dick, holding him close she whispered, “Benny’s not here Dick. Benny died last winter.”

It seemed like the universe had come apart and the sky had fallen to earth. With incredulous unbelief, Dick stared at the ground till finally with tears and great reluctance he shook his head, turned away and trudged his way back down the hill, past the pond, through the trees and past the ice house, into the house and his bedroom where he sat in stunned silence trying to process what he had been told.

Many years have passed since that day, as Dick grew up and served a tour with the Army Engineers in Korea, his mind often went back to that day when the reality and presence of death intruded violently into his young world. Thankfully the thoughts grew dimmer as the years went by. He later married Vernie and over time became the father of five daughters, who in turn found their husbands and formed their own homes.

As Dick grew older, as it often is with old men, some of the memories of childhood come back and gradually came alive again, as it was when his thoughts returned over and over again to his blond friend he had played with that summer so many years before. How did Benny die? What caused his death? Was it an accident or maybe polio? Dick never knew the answer because on the day he found out about it he was so devastated he was too numb to ask.

But it hurt so deep. How could it be? How could he just die? He had heard a little about God but not enough to understand or believe. If there was a God who could do anything and if He was good like they said He was why would He kill Benny? Or why did He just let him die? It hurt too much to think about it.

Then came a day in 1982 when Dick came face to face with his own mortality and made the decision to surrender his life to Jesus Christ. From that day forward his life slowly began to change and over time Dick grew in his faith. As the message of the Cross gradually settled in and became more and more understandable, the decision to just believe and take God at His word became the backbone of his faith and his life. With the decision to just believe and trust, came the peace and understanding that believers are secure and no matter what happens, not only will it work to our eventual good but that God will also give us the strength needed to pass through and to overcome any trials we encounter.

Romans 8:28 tells us ALL things for together for good if we love God.

But what about Benny? He wasn’t a Christian. He died too soon. He probably, like Dick at that age, never understood about Jesus even if he heard the stories. What about Benny? Was he in hell or heaven? How do we know, and will friends meet again?

The Scriptures are also clear as to the destination of little ones who die before they can make a moral decision. Matthew 18:10 and Hebrews 1:14 assure us of the fact little ones have an angel that is always in the presence of God and it beholds His face in heaven. “Little ones” are those who are too young to understand the fact and importance of the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross to pay for the sin of the world. Those that die young may have been aborted before they ever saw this world, or they may have died at an age when they were like Benny, still small children and without comprehension of sin and its consequences. How they died or what was their understanding has no bearing on their destination because God treats all the little ones as if they had no sin.

Both logically and Scripturally, Dick now understood when Benny died his soul was instantly transported to heaven to be with Jesus. Though his body still lies in the earth, on the day of resurrection all the molecules and atoms will come back together as his soul and body are reunited. Then, we are assured in Revelation 20, during the thousand year period we call the millennium, Benny will have his opportunity to make a formal declaration of faith in the Savior.

Should we weep for Benny because he mostly missed out on the joys and trials, the laughter and tears of this present world? Or should we rejoice that he has been with our Lord these many years and one day soon Benny and Dick will be reunited in friendship to remember that summer of long ago? On that future day they will begin the process of eternity where many more adventures await.

We will trust God’s Word that He loves us with an infinite love and is not willing that any should perish. Benny is safe and Dick will see him again.