You were taken away in the darkness of night,
Without a hug or a kiss goodbye;
Nothing before to prepare me,
That my baby, Julie, would die.
A car pulled up in the driveway,
Someone came to the door;
The words that she spoke told me,
You'd be coming home nevermore.
There is never a day or a moment,
That your memory isn't ever so near;
Sometimes it seems it never happened,
And at times as though you were here.
In a dream I watched you ascend,
To a place somewhere in the sky;
You said your body was crushed, you had to leave it,
You hugged me, then in my arms did die.
Long sleepless nights since you left me,
Empty days that creep slowly by;
I ask, "Lord, why did this happen?"
That I'm left here, without you, to cry.
Why was my child taken from me,
Will my path here ever grow light?
Why has the God I loved left me,
To the stillness and darkness of night.
I can only pray someday we'll be together again,
In a land where there cometh no night,
Where there will be no more partings or heartaches,
A land of eternal light.
Composed by Isabelle Barton (Julie's grandmother)
And Bonnie (Barton) Johnson Skaggs (Julie's mother)
July, 1994
I started composing the above poem when I returned home from our BAKER family reunion in Metropolis, IL, August, 1993. As time went on, I would write down other thoughts as they came to me.
My mother, Isabelle Barton, took the first lines of this poem that I had started and my "other thoughts," and composed a poem, finishing it July 21, 1994. After receiving the finished poem from her, I read it over and over and prayed that the right words would come to me to get the poem the way I wanted it. Sunday night, July 24th, about 12 midnight, the thought came to me to just go to the computer and start typing the poem in. I did so and about 2 o'clock a.m. thus this finished poem. When I had almost finished the poem, the 5th verse suddenly came to me and pulled the poem all together. I just started crying, that my prayer had been answered.
Bonnie (Barton) Johnson Skaggs
