REFLECTIONS                 BY: EARNEST WILLIS About 3:00 o'clock one morning in March of 1955 I was alone on the bow of a ship straining to see the first flicker of lights from the shores of home. The long wait game me time to think about the two years just past and the 18 years before that. I had time to think about all the events of my life up to that time, about the future that faced me as I left the Army and began a life of my own. I knew I was lucky because I had missed war time and I was nearing home. I could sense that every event in my life had been timed to prepare me for the next hard to face event and this was no different. I was very lucky. Or, was it luck? In that few hours alone, leaning over the handrails on the bow of a ship approaching the Statue of Liberty and searching for the first lights of home I felt the need to commit the affairs of my life to some higher purpose. I couldn't define that purpose yet, but again an event came just in time to cause me to make a proper decision. Was it luck?  Just a few years earlier, at the age of 11, I was a sensitive little boy, easy to bring to tears. I had a pet four week old chicken. He would stand in my hand and eat and seem at ease. As I walked through the chicken yard, he would follow me. While feeding the chickens one day I stepped back and accidently stepped on him and crushed the life from him. I held him in my hands and cried and prayed that God would bring him back to life. I cried for forgiveness for my carelessness in stepping on him. He was so little. That day, I grew up a little, became a little stronger and harder while learning about the hard realities of life and death. Then when I was 18 years old, my mother, who had been hospitalized for a long time, passed away. It was so hard for me. Again, I cried and prayed and just couldn't understand. Finally I realized that I was strong enough to bear the grief and to continue on and that I was lucky to have had events in my life to somewhat prepare me for this the most heartbreaking event of all. Since that morning on the bow of the ship my luck has been such that I have had another 45 years so full of living that I am spilling over with the joy of it. A wonderful marriage, two very special daughters, three of the grandest of grand children, two son-in-laws that are the champions of that title and a life work that allowed us to retire with dignity are my legacy. I have really been lucky.  Or, would you call it luck. God has been with me all the way, just as my mom and dad prayed so many that he would.