V E R S E 1

Things were still good on Ridgeway Avenue

even after all the poison and the fight

Kathryn was healing slow from what they took from her

I worked out the garage to keep the bills in sight

Ran into that coward once, picking up a wreck

He said, “You leave me alone, I’ll do the same”

I looked him in the eye and answered quietly

“Lucky for you,” and he just walked away

V E R S E 2

Our landlord Jerry was a decent man at first

Verbal deal to buy, so I poured sweat into that garage

But money talked louder when those big homes rose behind us

He jacked the price fifty percent, rent through the roof

I told him Kathryn’s sick, we’re barely hanging on

He didn’t care, said take it or leave

So we packed up Ridgeway, left that dream in the dust

Jerry died a couple years later, his wife told me he grieved

C H O R U S

It felt like a fall from grace

one more door slammed in our face

unnecessary knife, a needless pain

a tumble down the stairs in the pouring, freezing rain

We wondered why the Good Lord let it be

but grace was waiting underneath

Grace caught us when we fell

V E R S E 3

New place on Yarker, cheap rent but no shop

Money tight, but we still laughed somehow

Picked up her records driving to the new house

she read out loud - no cancer found

Just normal bleeding after birth

they cut her open wide for nothing at all

That January Night, snow piling high

She fainted at the top, fell hard down them stairs

V E R S E 4

Ambulance lost in the storm, took forever to come

She woke up whispering, “I can’t feel my legs”

Doctors said the swelling cut the blood to the nerves

Might never walk again — those words hung like death

She stared at the ceiling, faith cracking wide

from the abuse of her childhood to this

Thought God had finally turned His back

She said, “All I wanted was a family and peace.”

B R I D G E

But people came out of nowhere

Churches we’d never stepped in, strangers with open hands

Bibles on the coffee table three nights a week

Prayers in every tongue, love we didn’t understand

Money on the table, meals at the door

folks of every faith just showing up to care

something shifted in her eyes one night

She whispered, “maybe Jesus never left”

C H O R U S

It felt like a fall from grace

but grace was woven through the pain

Settlement came from that needless knife

Wheelchair and braces became her fight

day by day, step by shaky step

faith and persistence did the rest

‘till she walked free — no braces, no help

Grace caught when we fell

O U T R O

Yeah, we lost a house on Ridgeway

Lost some trust in folks we knew

but we found a bigger truth on Yarker Avenue

when everything natural said, “give up and die”

the supernatural showed up every time

thank you, Lord for the fall

Thank you more for the rise

and thank you for that woman

who taught me faith with her eyes