Never stop asking 'why'

When Ben was just a baby, I took a temporary babysitting job for a little 3-year-old boy while his mom trained for a new job. It was just for three weeks and the extra money was welcome.

His name was Marcus and a more inquisitive little fella you'd be hard-pressed to find. Every other question from his lips was "Why?" He was exceptionally bright for a 3-year-old and received each reply to his "why" question with a nod that indicated it was satisfactory and then he would ask anew, "Why?"

He was intrigued with the whole diaper changing process and really wanted to understand why the baby had to be changed and why so often. Each answer in the sequence of why questions met with yet another "why?"

I tried to treat his "why" questions very seriously, working hard to come up with explanations he could understand, but that didn't trivialize his inquiry.

Poor Marcus. I'm sure his mother had her work cut out for her in trying to undo some of my well-intentioned but convoluted answers.

A dear friend of mine took over Marcus' care a few years later, long after Danny and I had moved back to Colorado, and she found him to still be very inquisitive, very busy, and very focused on whatever activity was at hand. She had little ones of her own by then, and Marcus proved to be a good helper as well.

Not too many years later, when his mom remarried, they moved out to a remote Wyoming ranch. Marcus loved life on that ranch. It was 18 miles out on the hard top to the turn-off and I forget how many miles back to the main house on dirt roads.

By now Marcus was in school and taking the school bus every day, back and forth, riding in with cousins and with the children of the hired hands. The bus ride was long, made longer still by the other stops along the way, and when the school day was over, Marcus was a bundle of energy exploding from the bus, running pell mell for whatever came next.

One day, he burst forth from the school bus to find his mom waiting for him in the old brown pickup, with a flatbed trailer hooked on. He, grabbing the tailgate with one hand, throwing his books into the back of the pickup with the other, gave his mom the signal to go and she started the pickup.

The transmission was already in gear and when the starter turned the engine over, the truck lurched forward, and Marcus lost his grip. He fell to the ground and was crushed when the flatbed trailer rolled over him.

Eight years old. Bright-eyed, living life to the fullest, squeezing all he could into every waking moment, he was suddenly still, lying in his mother's arms, miles from medical help.

Both my friend and I were shocked and heartsick at the news that Marcus had died. Neither one of us lived there any more and were unable to attend the funeral. We were later comforted to know that Jan accepted the comfort God once offered to Rachel, saying, "I gave Marcus to God years ago. I just didn't think he'd take him home so soon."

Marcus' life, short though it was, made a remarkable impression on me. It seems in retrospect that he had a sense that his time was short and he was determined to use it to the fullest. To learn all that he could learn, to find out the answers to as many why questions as he could ask, and to run, pell mell, from whatever was done to whatever came next.

We, whether 8, 18, 48 or 88, can and should take a lesson from Marcus. This life is short, no matter how many years it may take to measure it. Learn all that you can learn. Ask why as often as you wonder. And run pell mell from what's done to what's next.

"Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12

-- Dawn Cribbs has encountered many three-year-olds in the years since meeting Marcus, none of which have come close to matching his "why?" inquiries.