Casey Harper By Barbara Sisney Daniel
Dr. Randal Mullings article in the August issue of Guidepost wrote that addiciton to substances is a disease of isolation. Friends and family are hurt and bewildered by their addicted loved ones self-focused and self-destructive behavior.
Alcohol and other drugs cause changes in the brain that severely impair a person’s ability to relate to others. They are so self-absorbed, they enter a world they become lost in, which causes them to fall into a black hole of despair. The hole becomes deeper and deeper. Their desire is a selfish focus. Not caring about the cash to support their own habit, nor the pain to families left helpless that have to see a loved one sucked down the path of despair or self-destruction.
There are several reasons for suicide. Physical and emotional, strain of war, can eventually break a person’s will. [This cause has gone among the human race and is related to murder, since Cain killed Abel, and Judas then hung himself after betraying Jesus, all because of a selfish desire.] That consumes the mind of lust or hopelessness.
I have seen the repercussion of both in human behavior. I have seen the heartache of families left with guilt or feelings of such great loss of teenagers or older children, victims of suicide or alcohol.
I know a father who had an alcoholic son that lost his life to alcohol. A sensitive man. Casey Harper loved horses. Casey’s father is a kind gentleman and remembered his son’s love for nature. Casey’s body was cremated. He lived in another state. His father went to get Casey’s ashes but wasn’t sure what do do with them. Bert Harper brought them home with him. He decided to find someone with a horse ranch and scatter Casey‘s ashes over the ranch. Bert found what he needed at Buffalo, Missouri and was happy to find the place he needed.
Bert contacted the rancher and the man was agreeable to Bert’s wishes. He and the rancher went out to the pasture where the horses were grazing. Casey’s father started scattering his son’s ashes when an unusual occurrence started with the behavior among the horses which the rancher had never seen before.
The horses started running and acting wild like the wind.
The rancher looked at Casey’s father and pointed to a horse he had named Casey Harper long before he ever knew that a man who loved horses would have his ashes scattered over the ranch.
Today, there is a wooden plaque hanging on the rancher’s fence with Bert Harper’s sons’ name, Casey Harper. The rancher was honored to have Bert’s son resting at his ranch, because Casey loved horses as much as the rancher.
The horses now run with the wind and God preformed a miracle for Bert Harper when he found the horse ranch.
No one knows the mind of God. “The prayers of the righteous avails much.”
And the wind will blow where it wills.
