I’m glad I never had a job where I had to estimate anything; I’d have been fired.
I can’t estimate distance; I can’t pass a car if I even see another one coming because I’m not sure I can do it safely. I don’t estimate time well either. Things take longer than I plan, and I always think I can get more done than is humanly possible, at least for this human. And when it comes to life? Forget it. I overestimate the positive and underestimate the negative.
Being an incurable optimist is a blessing. And a curse. Take last Saturday for an example. Please, someone, take it!
With the recent addition of steroids to my cancer treatments I’m now sometimes strong enough to help with kitchen duty. Last Saturday we were preparing for a family gathering, a celebration of three birthdays. I’ve always loved family times, and I do even more now when I realize, as we all should, the bittersweet shortness of time. Strong on my steroids, I’d made several pans of lasagna and decided to help our daughter, Kimmee, with the desserts.
Kimmee wins blue ribbons by the handfuls for her desserts at the county fair. Not only do they taste amazing, they look beautiful. She cares a lot about them because, as she says: “If you’ve known me for any period of time, you’ve probably picked up on that one of my primary ways of showing my friends and family I love them is by baking and/or cooking for them.”
She was making time consuming desserts for the birthday people: a cinnamon roll apple pie, a pumpkin swirl cheesecake with spiced whipped cream, and a triple chocolate mousse cake. Kimmee appreciated my help washing dishes and getting out ingredients. Then I decided to take the pie crust out of the oven for her.
I still don’t know what happened. One minute the pie was in my hands. The next the glass pan was hitting the open oven door, my leg, and the floor. I didn’t get hurt; the pan didn’t break, but I couldn’t believe how many tiny pieces a pie crust can shatter into. The mess was horrific. And I knew Kimmee had everything timed so she could get it all done.
I just stared at the mess.
“Mom! Don’t cry! Are you okay?”
There wasn’t a word of rebuke, not a groan of how in the world am I going to finish this now.
Obviously, I’d underestimated the chemo-induced neuropathy in my hands and overestimated my steroid strength. I felt terrible for the extra time and work I’d caused our daughter on such a busy day. But that’s life, isn’t it? We mess up. And if we’re blessed, we have people in our lives who understand and forgive us.
I really did feel horrible, but even with tears in my eyes I started grinning. A song or a quote seems to pop into my brain on many occasions. I barely managed to keep from singing the words, “Bye-bye, Miss American Pie!”
That pie was a goner, but the next was even more beautiful and tasty. I did not offer to take it out of the oven.
Our family enjoyed the lasagna and loved the desserts. It was wonderful being together. After everyone left and I snuggled, tired and happy in bed, I was still humming “Bye-bye, Miss American Pie!”
And then I remembered a quote I’d read somewhere about estimating. It said something about the two things hardest for people to grasp are the shortness of time and the length of eternity.
Now that’s something I don’t want to mess up, and I don’t suppose you do either.
Photo and dessert by Kimmee Kiefer Photo and dessert by Kimmee KieferPhoto and dessert by Kimmee Kiefer
I followed you home down the winding gravel roads for the last time and watched you through my dusty windshield.
You’d never know to look at you that you were at the end of your days, and this was your last trip home. As you navigated those backroads home with ease, I thought about all those other roads you’d traveled and the sights you’d seen I’ll never see.
You were quite the boss truck back in your day, all muscle and no fluff, a 1999 Ford F-350 diesel. You could haul! When my sister, Eve, and my brother-in-law, Bruce owned you, you pulled their fifth wheel many times from Michigan to Florida, New York, Maine, Texas, and the epitome of trips, up the Alaskan highway. You did it all with ease and modesty.
No thanks needed here, folks, just doing my job.
***
Eve and Bruce loved camping, and they loved serving others. Many of their trips were to work with Wycliffe Missions. Whether for fun or ministry, they could always count on their truck.
And then Eve got sick. In the early years of her cancer, she could still go camping, but then she became too weak. And then God took Eve home to heaven. Without Eve the camper was just an empty shell of bittersweet memories; Bruce sold the fifth wheel and the truck.
We bought the truck. I wished we’d named her, but we always just called her “Old Truck.”
It was love at first sight; my husband, John, had always wanted a truck. Just about everyone has one in the farming community where he’s a pastor. True, John didn’t need one for the reasons the farmers, contractors, and the electrician in our church did, but he wanted one. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget the joy on his face the first time he drove that five on the floor stick shift.
Old Truck pulled Old Bertha, our 1988 fifth wheel, on our many camping adventures. Our two favorite places were Brown Country State Park in Indiana, and the channel campground in Muskegon, Michigan. Old Truck did many other things for us too, hauled lumber, brought home pipes and other items necessary for home repairs, and made countless trips to the scrap metal place and the dump. This summer she pulled down an old garage the insurance company said had to go.
And then our trusted mechanic told us Old Truck could no longer pull Bertha; the frame and spring mount were too rusted. Our hearts sank. I don’t suppose anyone likes camping more than we do. I think we could still manage tent camping; John doesn’t agree. We took Old Truck for a second opinion, and then a third. And that’s when we found out she wasn’t safe to even drive anymore. The steering has rusted parts, and the right front wheel is about ready to fall off.
And so, we began her last slow trip home down the back roads, John driving Old Truck, and me following in the car. A few younger, stronger, more attractive trucks gunned it and roared by us as we slowly babied the old lady home. But they don’t know her history. They don’t know all she’s done and seen; the joy she’s brought to her owners.
I imagined Old Truck wistfully watching the landscape we slowly passed, corn ready to be harvested, bean fields already empty, the sky a brilliant blue, and a few trees still bright with color.
And then I cried.
I knew I was crying about more than Old Truck. Rust, decay, loss, death; they are such foreign intruders, aren’t they? The enemies! We weren’t created for them. We weren’t made to age and die. God made us to live eternally young in a garden where even the bean plants never rusted.
And yet there is hope.
For God’s children, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there will one day be a new heaven—and a new earth!
Hold on a while longer, dear friends. Joy comes in the morning! –Psalm 30:5
Young Again
by Donna Poole
“I hate being old,” I heard her
eighty-seven years say.
Why? Why do we mourn the
passing of our youth,
The prune-ing, rasin-ing,
Sagging
Bagging
Freckling
Veining
Of our skin when graying
happens to us all?
Our spirits sigh protest.
Dreams of ocean breeze and
morning dew and worship of a
newborn’s skin all whisper
The same truth.
We were not born to age—
To creak
To stoop
To slow
To stop.
Eden birthed us to eternal youth.
When young eyes hungered for
poison fruit
Sin and Satan stole the
Breathless freshness of our
treasure.
A cloud hid the shamed face of’
the sun,
And earth wept and grew her
first gray hair.
The lost will be found.
Our earth—
And we, her children, will yet be
young again.
Gloriously
Goldenly
Sweetly
Young again
In the newborn kingdom of our
God.
And who knows? Maybe in that new earth there will be a boss truck, all muscle and no fluff, a 1999 Ford F-350 diesel for an old preacher, now young again, to drive. If not that, something far better waits for him, I know.
But for now, I follow John down the dirt road. I can see the back of his head with his gray hair; I can’t see his face. But I know he’s sad because he’s driving Old Truck for the last time.
Her first three daughters looked enough alike to have been triplets.
“What do you have, some kind of mold and you just keep turning out look-alikes?” her friends teased.
The girls all took after the Scandinavian side of the family. Tall, quiet, straight blond hair; their mother almost always knew what her blue-eyed beauties were thinking. They were well mannered children and so predictable. Her friends were envious.
Not that her girls were perfect; they fussed a bit when teething, and one of the three protested a bit at potty training, but all of them sailed through the terrible twos as though it had no meaning for them. The mother often marveled at her good fortune.
The relatives adored the girls, called them “sweetheart,” “honey,” and “doll baby.”
And then came daughter number four. Had the mother not just gone through twenty-nine hours, fifty-three minutes, and forty-nine seconds of agonizing labor—the first three had been easy births—she would have sworn someone had switched babies and given her someone else’s child.
She blinked hard twice when a nurse showed her the new baby. Red faced, short, chubby, and squalling, the infant had a head full of dark curls.
The nurse had to shout to be heard over the babies screams.
“I guess she didn’t much like being disturbed from her comfy, warm home and doesn’t think much of this big world. What will you name her?”
The baby’s older sisters who had all come into the world without protest and had calmly surveyed the world around them had Scandinavian names: Astrid, Agnes, and Annika. This one was to have been Alma, but she didn’t look at all like an Alma.
The mother wished she could ask the baby’s dad, but this child had chosen to be born two weeks early and he was out of town on a business trip. She fell back on the pillow, exhausted.
“Name? I have no idea.”
Someone put her still screaming little infant in her arms. She laughed.
“Do most newborns cry this loudly?” she asked. “My first three didn’t.”
“Most don’t make quite that much noise.” The doctor laughed. “Maybe you have a drama queen on your hands.”
Waving her tiny fists in the air, the baby looked more furious by the second. The mom kissed her on the forehead. It did nothing to stop the noise.
“With those dark curls you certainly look like your father’s Italian grandma, my little drama queen,” she said. “I’m going to name you Sophia.”
“You look exhausted,” a nurse said sympathetically. “Don’t worry; she’ll fall asleep soon. All newborns do. And then you can get some sleep. Or do you want us to take her to the nursery?”
The mom shook her head. “I always keep my newborns with me. You’re right. I know she’ll sleep soon. All my others did.”
Sophia did not sleep soon. By the time the mother fell into an exhausted sleep she hoped for sweet dreams. She didn’t get them.
She dreamed of a little girl almost always stubborn and unpredictable. By the time she was eighteen months old she was already the definition of terrible two. Her manners left something to be desired because she was too outspoken. None of the relatives called her “sweetheart” or “honey,” or “doll baby.” They called her “that little spitfire.”
In her dream her friends weren’t envious anymore; they were shocked. They didn’t know quite what to make of the new baby, so different from her sisters. They said to each other, “Have you met the new kid?”
The mother woke to more screams. She looked at Sophia, once again flailing her arms, tiny red fists batting the air, face red with effort. She had a hunch her dream was going to become reality, but she didn’t care. She desperately loved this new baby, so different from her sisters, born October 20, 2022, ready to add her own color to the beautifully colored autumn world waiting for her.
***
My new book baby is very different from my first three books; it had a mind of its own and took some unexpected twists and turns when I was writing it. Meet the new kid: The Lights of Home published October 20, 2022. It’s available on Amazon. I hope you’ll like it. If you do, please leave me a review about the little spitfire.
Long ago our road was just a path the Potawatomi tribe used as they foraged the fields and camped out on Squawfield Road. Pioneers built cabins in our area, and the tribe was friendly to them and helped them through the winters. It was an unspoken understanding that when a native showed up at a cabin with fresh meat he expected to be invited to stay for dinner, especially if he was Chief Baw Beese. And then the government unfairly forced the Potawatomi to leave, and the last moccasin left its print in the dirt on our old country road.
The road was still little more than a cow path when Henry Ford awed Detroit and North America by building his Model T. It didn’t take long before some of his cars showed up on our road and on neighboring backroads. As years went by, soon almost everyone had a gasoline powered vehicle of some sort.
There was one hold out. I remember the story well, but forget his name, so let’s call him Wilbur. Wilbur stuck to his horse and took a lot of good-natured teasing for doing so. As he plodded by, taking forever to get to church or a store, neighbors sometimes hollered, “Get a car, Wilbur!”
Then came the year of the spring rains. Many backroads, ours included, turned to mud. All those lovely Model Ts slid every which way and refused to budge. Along came Wilbur, and graciously pulled out neighbor after neighbor. He didn’t charge a penny, but he got his payment. As he left each grateful farmer, he said, “Get a horse!”
Time passed. The generation of people who told me the stories about the Potawatomi and Wilbur traveled one last time down this old country road. With a swirl of dust, their taillights disappeared in the distance. Now, they are a sweet memory that lingers in the glow of the sun setting over the fields.
I love this dirt road; we’ve lived here forty-eight years. Our oldest daughter was only two when we taught her not to play in the road, lest she get run over by a truck or a tractor. Our other three had their introduction to our road when they bounced down it on their way home from the hospital as newborns.
The road is a metaphor in my mind for our children’s independence. They were thrilled when they could ride their bikes to the corner for the first time without mom and dad. And when they got permission to ride north to the bridge over the St. Joe River, just a slow-moving creek there, that was big stuff.
I remember the kids patiently sitting at the corner, balancing on their bike seats, and looking west down Squawfield Road. They were waiting for their first glimpse of Grandma and Grandpa’s car arriving all the way from New York. As soon as they saw it, they’d pedal home furiously, shouting, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Down that road our children drove to school, to their first jobs, to college, to their own homes. And down that road they come back to visit. When they leave, we watch them go until their taillights disappear. They turn on Squawfield, and they’re gone until the next time. It’s the road to independence, and it’s the road back home.
Fourteen grandchildren travel down that road to visit us, thirteen with their parents, one on her own. That one will be leaving in the spring to get her physician’s assistant training. I’m proud of her; I’ll cry when I see her taillights turn onto Squawfield heading for a different state, but I know something. I know she’ll never forget the road back home to Grandpa and Grandma’s is always open to her, wherever we may live. And I hope all our family remembers that.
Two family members live with us, our married daughter, and her husband, and we’re grateful for them. Without them, we don’t know how we would have gotten through the last two plus years of cancer—tough enough—and the treatments—even worse. I can’t count the number of times our daughter has driven me down our old country road.
I love country roads. Thank You, Lord, for all my years on this one. It’s true that “the lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places.” I could have been happy in the city; I was contented when we lived there, but I’m glad for these years of corn and bean fields, for wide blue skies, and country smiles.
Old road, it’s true you’re sometimes impassable in the winter. You may be a mud bog in the spring and a dust bath in the summer, but oh, you make up for it now. You’re breathtaking in the fall.
Someday, I too will leave you for the last time; my taillights will disappear in a swirl of dust. I hope it’s in the fall.
When I leave for the final time and know there’s no coming back, I’ll take one last look to see you in all your autumn glory. Though the place I’m heading will be far more glorious, I’ll glance in my rearview mirror just for a second and say, “You’ve been good to me. Here’s to you, old country road.”
It happens to all of us if we live long enough—we grow old.
This year nature is doing a lovely job of growing old. From the earliest slant of the eastern sun until the last rays in the west highlight their glory, the leaves glow breathtakingly beautiful in every light. I catch my breath with wonder; I can’t see them often enough. Too soon, they will be gone.
The past two Sundays, instead of going straight home from church, Kimmee, our daughter drove me around the block on our own color tour. Out here on the backroads “around the block” is a four-mile glorious drive on mostly dirt roads. We encountered very little traffic, maybe a car or truck or two. Kimmee stopped and took photos often, so it took a while to get home. But it didn’t take long enough.
The combination of age and a stubborn cancer has opened my eyes and heart to so many things. A half hour bouncing down dirt roads viewing autumn leaves with our daughter is as amazing to me as a trip to Hawaii might be to some people.
So many “ordinary” things are beautiful now. On Saturday we celebrated our oldest daughter’s fiftieth birthday and our brother-in-law’s seventieth. It was a combination effort; I made the basic food; my sister brought a delicious macaroni salad, brownies, and chips, and Kimmee did what Kimmee does—the fancy desserts, the charcuterie boards, the beautiful table decorations, a hot chocolate/coffee/tea/hot cider bar complete with new mugs to take home, and so many other loving touches.
Love ruled that evening. We’re all getting a little older. We all know life is passing faster than we expected it would.
When it was time for the regretful goodbyes, I got up from the couch easier than I usually do; I’m on steroids to counteract side effects of treatment. I can’t sleep, but oh, it’s wonderful to feel half-way normal for a few days. But even medicated I don’t stand as quickly as I once did. Our tiny granddaughter, Ruby, hurried over to me and slipped her little hand in mind.
“I don’t want you to fall,” Ruby said to me.
She smiled. Ruby’s smile would make the loveliest maple in all its autumn glory jealous.
“I won’t, honey,” I promised.
Oh, but I will. We all will, won’t we?
I don’t expect to die from cancer. It will probably be something far more ignominious and laughable.
Once, a few years ago, I tripped outside and fell hard, landing with my head in the hosta plants. My alarmed family rushed to see if I’d hurt myself. I was laughing too hard to get up. That’s the kind of thing that will take me out.
“Seventy-four-year-old woman dies laughing after falling head-first into the hostas.”
I even have my obituary written. Four simple words. “That’s All She Wrote.”
I hope I haven’t offended anyone, but gallows humor and laughter seem to run in our family.
There was a lot of sweet laughter at our family gathering. John and I went outside to wave goodbye to the last who were leaving and watched the taillights disappear down the road.
When will we all get together again? Will it ever happen?
Life wasn’t as sad when we were younger, but neither was it as sweet. We didn’t delight as much in family gatherings because it never seemed then that “the last time might be the last time.” Now, so many family members are in heaven. Now, we know better. We cherish the moments.
There is something beautiful about aging. I listened for a minute to the crickets and the rustle of the leaves before I went back inside.
There’s a secret to growing old joyfully, I think. For me, it began when I was a child and put my hand in God’s and trusted Him to take me safely Home, no matter what storms might come up on the way. Jesus lived the perfect life I couldn’t live and died to remove my sins from me as far as the east is from the west. Because Jesus is my Savior, God says to me, “You can trust me. The journey might not be easy, but I’ll get you there.”
I’m discovering another secret to joy. It’s how to grow young.
It seems I’ve knitted life’s scarf wrong and now I’m unraveling it. I’ve learned too many things that have made my spirit old. Now I’m unlearning them all and growing younger. I want everything but love stripped away from my heart—and, oh, there’s a long way to go. Anything unloving in my thoughts blocks the sun; I can’t see the simple beauty of love, family, friendship. I can’t catch my breath at the glory of the sun turning the reds and yellows of leaves transparent if I’m burdened with bitterness, hurt, worry, or—you get it. You don’t need the whole long list.
In the end all I want is to be a Ruby. A person who comes along, takes your hand, and says, “I don’t want you to fall.”
And then we’ll go for a ride together, worship the Artist of the leaves, and think how beautiful it can be to grow old.
It was a chilly fall day at Lake Huron, rainy too. It wasn’t an ideal day to eat lunch on a balcony, but that’s what we were doing.
I hate wasting a second of watching the water when we’re on vacation. I mean, you can be warm and dry when you aren’t on a holiday, right? I coaxed a reluctant John into eating on the balcony with me.
We were enjoying baked pasta with amazing meatballs and a side of garlic bread. The seagulls on the sand three floors below us began congregating.
“They’re staring at us,” John said. “I think they’re used to people tossing food to them.”
“If they want this food, I’m pretty sure they’re Italian seagulls.” I laughed.
The helpful gulls had no intention of letting too almost elderly people eat more pasta than was good for them.
“Let’s help them,” the seagull leader called.
With answering squawks, screeches, and shrieks his tribe obeyed. They rose as one from the sand and circled our balcony. A few of the braver ones dive-bombed us, desperate for some good Italian food.
We retreated inside.
“Rats,” I complained to John. “I wish I’d gotten a photo. I’ll try to get one when we eat breakfast outside tomorrow.”
“We’re eating breakfast outside tomorrow?”
“Sure! Maybe it will be warmer. Maybe it will quit raining.”
It wasn’t and it didn’t. But we took our breakfast outside. There were as many gulls as the day before, but they showed no interest in our bread spread with peanut butter, not even when I held it over the side of the balcony.
“Told you they were Italian,” I said to John.”
I’ve been thinking about those gulls. I watched a video of aggressive gulls chasing a terrified child down a beach trying to get her chicken nugget. Poor kid. I didn’t blame her for being afraid. I’d been scared of them too when they’d dive-bombed us. I hadn’t feared their claws or talons, but I was seriously afraid they might poop on my food!
Seagulls aren’t naturally aggressive. People make them that way by feeding them. I read an article titled, “For the Love of God, stop Feeding the Seagulls and Here’s Why”. The article basically said don’t feed them for two reasons:
It’s bad for them; they wait for easy handouts of unhealthy food and no longer work to get fish and insects that are good for them.
It’s bad for us. When we feed seagulls, they can become overly aggressive. Think Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, “The Birds.”
My dad enjoyed feeding birds. When my siblings and I were young he took us to Stewart Park in Ithaca, New York, where we fed ducks and swans. When Dad grew old and lived alone after Mom died, he fed crows.
We discovered his crow-feeding hobby by accident when we drove from Michigan to New York State to visit Dad. There, in his immaculate, weed-free yard, we saw a heap of spaghetti noodles. I looked twice to be sure that’s what it was.
I asked Dad if some garbage had spilled and told him we’d clean it up for him.
Dad chuckled. “That’s still there? They must not have been too hungry yesterday.”
My Italian dad ate pasta fazool and spaghetti quite often and shared the cooked, plain pasta with the crows.
He explained. “I go outside and call, ‘crows, crows,’ and they come. Then I toss the spaghetti up in the air. They dive for it and get some of it before it hits the ground!”
You can bet a buck or a billion of them Dad wouldn’t have been doing that if Mom had still been alive. Again, think Hitchcock and “The Birds”.
Seagulls and crows might look graceful flying in the distance, but I don’t want them dive-bombing me, screaming their raucous cries in my ear, or pooping in my hair.
Those birds remind me of worry. That’s what worry does—spoils a good Italian lunch eaten on a balcony with a beautiful view we can enjoy only for a limited time. Worry distracts us from fully experiencing a quiet walk on the beach.
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a murder of crows following me down a meandering backroad and cawing for my next plate of pasta.
The solution is simple; for the love of peace stop feeding the birds. An old saying: “You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”
So, what do you say we stop feeding worry. Let’s not give it even one more crumb of garlic bread. When worry starts its raucous cries overhead we can nudge that crow or seagull over God’s way. We can do it something like this: “God, this (insert worry) is troubling me. I don’t want to feed it by brooding about it. I know You’re a good God and good and what You do, so I’m leaving this with You. Show me what, if anything, You want me to do.”
Then watch the crows and seagulls fly away. They’ll go where someone else will feed them. Oh, they’ll be back, and we’ll have to nudge them God’s way again, but for now, bye bye, birdie, bye bye.
We all have them—hometown heroes. People who overcome adversity and make the world a brighter place.
We met hometown heroes on our last day of our long weekend getaway. It was cold, raining, and the wind was whipping off an angry looking Lake Huron. We had to park across the road from the restaurant, and I was shivering when we finally got inside.
The host, a slightly built man, noticed my slow gait. “I know what it is to have mobility issues,” he said, glancing at me sympathetically. He tapped his right leg. We could tell by the sound it was a prosthetic. “I’m sitting you close to the buffet, so you won’t have far to walk.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“She has cancer,” John explained.
“I’m sorry!” He said it like he meant it. He understood. Suffering, of whatever kind, creates a bond of compassion.
Then he told us our server’s name and hustled off to seat other customers. And hustle is the correct verb. He walked fast with barely a limp.
John and I were grateful no one else was within sneezing distance. I’ve only recently been allowed back into the GP—general population. I try to obey my oncology team’s rules lest I get thrown back into solitary confinement, and I’ve had quite enough of that; thank you very much!
Some of my rules:
Always wear a mask.
Stay a good distance away from other people.
Don’t go into auditoriums—church or school.
I can occasionally go into a restaurant or a store if I keep about two hundred feet between me and the next person and yell, “Unclean! Unclean!”
Don’t eat at buffets.
But I eyed this buffet. Nothing was out in the open. Everything was behind high Plexiglass, even the dishes. The servers, also behind Plexiglas, filled plates and handed them to the customers.
It looked perfectly safe to me, and no one else was in line. I made a mad dash. Okay, to be honest, I made a slow limp for the line.
The food was amazing, especially the fresh fruit.
While I ate, I kept noticing the host. He had a smile and a cheerful greeting for everyone. We heard him exclaim with joy when he discovered he and a customer had attended the same high school, years apart, and knew several of the same people. I heard him laugh. I never heard a sigh or saw a frown.
It was still pouring outside, but it was warm and sunny in that restaurant. I don’t think my oncology team needs to worry; the only thing contagious in that place was friendliness. (Or that’s what I’m telling myself.)
Our waiter, a young man with dreadlocks to his shoulders and a gorgeous smile stopped to chat with us. He lives in Utah but was visiting his uncle in Michigan and working to make money to continue his college education in financial analysis.
His face glowed as he talked about expectations for his future.
“You’ll be good at it,” I said. “You have a great personality.”
He asked where we lived, and we told him. “You have a long drive home.” He looked at us and smiled. “You two are beautiful!” he said.
I don’t suppose many young men in their early twenties can look past wrinkles and old age spots and see the beauty of lifetime love. But he could.
John asked him if we should leave a tip on the table or if it would be included in our bill.
He shook his head. “People leave tips on the table here, but I don’t want a tip from you. I’ll give you a tip instead. You two take care of each other, you hear?”
We told him we would. And we left at tip on the table.
We headed out, and John paid our bill. I noticed our host standing still for once. He looked at me and smiled.
“You mentioned your leg?” I asked.
He nodded. “07 in Afghanistan. I was a medic transporter. It was my job to get the wounded onto the helicopter. I’d just gotten off the helicopter when someone fired an RPG—you know—one of those big shoulder rockets. Took out about my whole right side.”
He lifted his shirt to show me a wide white band around his waist.
“Broke my back and my shoulder. Took my entire leg. But I’m okay! I’m fine!”
I thanked him.
“Anytime, sweetheart,” he said. “Anytime.”
Head down against the wind, John and I returned to our car. We drove and parked to say goodbye to the lake, the bridge, and our short vacation. We talked about the hometown hero and the great sacrifice he’d made.
“John,” I said, “that young man who waited on our table? He said his college is in Utah, right? And he’s going back home as soon as he gets enough money?”
John nodded.
“It’s the end of September. He’s missing this semester. He must not have made enough money over the summer.”
But we’d heard no “poor me” in his voice, only a hope for good things coming.
Our server and our host had something in common. Life wasn’t all about them. It was about others.
One was a hero in a big, dramatic way, overcoming adversity most of us can’t even begin to imagine. The other was a hero in a quiet way, overcoming adversity of an everyday variety.
It’s 9:40 in the morning, and I’m sad. The world seems an emptier place just now, especially at this hour. I don’t know if anyone is praying for me. Before this, I always knew.
Maynard Belt was an important and well-known man. He did major things in his lifetime of eighty-one years, pastored four churches, served as the State Representative for the Michigan Association of Regular Baptist Churches, and did many other things. His last area of service was president of The Fellowship of Missions. I think that was his secret; he didn’t care a thing about positions or titles; he just wanted to serve.
To me, Maynard was something invaluable; he was a friend who prayed. A few years ago, he messaged me, “Donna, I have my watch alarm set for 9:40 a.m. every day to pray specifically for you.”
He didn’t pray just for me at 9:40; Maynard and his wife Ann prayed for John too.
He sent encouraging words, uplifting songs, Bible verses, and funny memes. One meme showed two clothes pins, one dressed as a bride, the other as a groom. They were kissing. The caption read, “They met online.”
With so many friends and responsibilities, I don’t know how he made time for us, but somehow, he did. Maynard kept tract of us, of my cancer treatments, of John’s heart catheterization.
When Maynard was reading R.C. Sproul’s biography he messaged,” I love biographies whether I agree with everything or not. One statement has stuck with me, ‘Right now counts forever!’ Many blessings your way and please let’s keep in touch.”
Maybe that’s how he made time to pray for so many people; he made his “right nows” count forever. As soon as possible after a difficult surgery he returned to teaching his Sunday school class, something he loved. In addition to everything else he did, Maynard wrote books. I don’t know how many. I know he wrote a book on affliction and books of poetry too.
In one of our last chats on Facebook messenger I thanked him for his prayers. I told him, “I wish for just a second we could see the heavenly network of prayers. You should write a poem about that!”
He replied, “Maybe after this conference.”
He was getting ready for the Fellowship of Missions Conference. Maynard, Ann, and one of their daughters flew there. The plan was for Maynard to retire after serving as twelve years as president.
But he didn’t retire. He got promoted instead.
Maynard developed breathing problems on the flight and a few days later, on a Sunday morning, he went to see the Lord he’d loved and served so many years. He never wrote the poem I suggested. He didn’t write the books he still planned to write. He didn’t get to enjoy retirement years with Ann.
In May of 2020 we were talking about wanting to hear God say, “Well done!” not “Nine-tenths well done.”
Maynard said, “9-10’s will not be sufficient. So we will go ALL the way for the Lord for He went ALL the way for us. Blessings!”
On September 11, 2022, Maynard Belt heard God say, “Well done!” because he was a man who knew how to make right now count forever. I’m happy for him, but sad for his family.
As I’m writing this his memorial service is just an hour away. I can’t be there, but I’ll watch on live stream.
When 9:40 a.m. comes around tomorrow, I don’t want that prayer slot to be empty. So, I’m going to try to remember to fill it with the neediest person God suggests to me. And the network of prayer will continue to grow until it fills the sky with an intricate pattern too lovely for poetry to describe.
Though their offspring now range in age from fifty down to thirty-three, they will always be “the kids” to them.
“Sit down, kids; sit down.” And so, they tell the kids every dark, dismal, detail of each procedure and test, his heart and kidney problems, her cancer. Poor kids, they hear it all, over and over, ad nauseum, terms like EGFR, occluded circumflex, stent, chemotherapy, clinical trial, abnormal EKG, PET scan, CT.
***
A phone buzzes.
“It’s another text from Mom.”
“You look.”
“No, you look.”
“I can’t. I’m trying to have a good day.”
***
But they don’t tell the kids everything.
“Have we told the kids we’re having a contest to see which of us can scare them the most?” she asks.
“I think they know it.” He grins.
“So, what does the winner of the contest get?”
He looks apprehensive. “What did you have in mind?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A trip to the Bahamas would be nice.”
Then he laughs. “I was thinking more like a trip to Osseo.”
Osseo
Distance from home: Maybe six miles
Population: 3,063
Attraction: Post Office
“If all I get is a trip to Osseo than I’m going to quit trying to scare the kids.”
He hugs her. “I wish you would.”
“Honey,” she asks in a voice muffled by his shoulder, “do you think we tell the kids too much?”
“We don’t tell them everything.”
That was true. They didn’t tell them every time he got chest pains while he was preaching. They never shared she couldn’t remember all the grandkids’ names, especially the younger ones. They didn’t confess that when they answered, “How are you feeling” with “Okay,” the word “okay” could mean anything from contented lethargy to tears of pain.
There was that one time when okay meant “fantastic!” They’d never told the kids she felt wonderful that day when she’d taken his pills by mistake. Nor did they speak about the road trip they’d taken to New York and ended up in California. They’d always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean anyway.
There were things they wished they could say to the kids but didn’t know how.
Please, when we’re gone, don’t remember the old parents whose bodies held their own contest to see which part could fail fastest. Don’t recall the mom and dad whose minds might turn to mush before Jesus calls them Home. Remember the young parents who took you tent camping and managed a whole week of fun on just seven dollars. Think about the strong parents who carried you, who took you swimming and sledding and on picnics and on road trips to see grandparents.
It’s late. They’re lying in bed, talking.
“Do you think they know?” she asks him.
“Who knows what?” He’s trying to sleep.
“Our kids and in-law kids and grandkids. Do you think they know how much we love them?”
“I’m sure they do. Try to go to sleep, okay?”
“No, I have to call them. Just in case they don’t know, I want to tell them I might forget later.”
“It’s too late. Wait until morning.”
“It is morning! It’s one minute after midnight.”
And so, she calls, one after another, everyone who has a cell phone.
His face is buried in his pillow and he’s snoring when she finishes. She wakes him up.
“Honey, no one answered. All the calls went right to voice mail.”
“Of course they did. You do know you’re going to get worried call backs the minute they wake up?”
“No, I won’t get any calls. I used your phone.”
“You did WHAT?”
“Yeah, In case they were asleep, I didn’t want them to think I was the one bothering them for something silly in the middle of the night.”
He tries to frown, but he can’t do it.
And then the two of them fall asleep, laughing, and holding hands.
“Honey!” She pokes him. “Remind me to tell the kids getting old isn’t all bad. Sometimes it’s fun.”
He groans. “And sometimes it’s exhausting.”
Moonlight streams in the window. She sees his face, next to her on the pillow. She knows she’s blessed to have him. She prays for those who no longer have a loved one next to them.
Cherish the moments together, she thinks. I have to remember to tell the kids.
Our youngest, Kimmee Joy, spoke in complete sentences at fifteen months of age, and lest you think I’m bragging, read on. The early talking was not always brag-worthy.
Kimmee sat on the lap of a friend of mine she called ‘Grandma.”
“Grandma,” Kimmee said, stroking the woman’s face with her baby hands, “you have a very nice moustache.”
I was potty training Kimmee and had to take her into a bathroom in a store. The stall next to us was occupied.
Kimmee giggled. “That lady go fifty-two gallons!”
I gave her the look. “Shh!”
Trying to atone, she gave a sympathetic nod and said, “Maybe she have diarrhea or something!”
I hurried her outside to her dad and said, “Next time, John, you take her to the bathroom!”
“I can’t take her into the men’s room!”
“Oh yes you can!”
In the interest of full disclosure, Kimmee, now thirty-three, must deal with me. Brain surgery and subsequent seizures did a bit of damage to my right frontal lobe. Have you heard of a filter, that part of your brain that says, “Don’t say that?” Yeah. Mine’s broken. Or dead. To be determined. Now, on occasion, I inadvertently embarrass Kimmee.
The other day I was talking to someone on the phone and didn’t realize I’d said something I shouldn’t have until Kimmee groaned. “Mom!”
Do you wonder what I said? Sorry. My interest in full disclosure doesn’t extend that far.
Because Kimmee talked when she was so young, we soon became aware that compassion was one of her strongest traits.
She and I were waiting in the car while John was in the post office. An elderly gentleman struggled up the steps, one hand gripping the rail, the other clinging to his cane.
Kimmee pulled her pacifier out of her mouth. “Mommy, go help that man.” Her baby face crumpled in compassion.
“Honey, there’s nothing I can do to help him. And he doesn’t even know who I am.”
“Yes, he does know you! You are Donna Poole! Now you go help him!”
I didn’t go. I don’t remember how long it took her to forgive me.
Kimmee’s compassion extended to all God’s creatures, great and small. Except for giant spiders. When she was a little girl, she loved on neighborhood barn cats who came and went by the dozens, and she did shed “fifty-two gallons” of tears with each one who died.
Two dogs and countless cats have burial spots on our property some marked with crosses.
She never outgrew her compassion for animals.
Kimmee, and her husband Drew, live with us. They’ve adopted four stray cats who live inside, three more who live on the porch, and other assorted outside creatures. There was a coon for a while.
Just this summer Kimmee rescued a baby bird, a fledgling, from her cats. It lay almost lifeless in her hand; she brought it inside to show me. After awhile it revived, and she set it free. It hopped off into the weeds. She also saved a few baby bunnies this summer. and a cicada.
Kimmee posted this on her Facebook page early yesterday morning. “Anyone else up at 2:30 a.m. attempting to rescue a wayward katydid who came through a window air conditioner and invaded your bedroom? Just me? Cool, cool, cool.
“Also, I say ‘attempting to rescue’ because I’m only about 50% sure it actually went out the door. It kept flying back in, but I tried.”
That “trying” took more effort than most people would have given a katydid in the middle of the night; she had to carry it down a flight of stairs to open the door and set it free.
I imagine God smiles when Kimmee and her kind care for His creation.
God cares deeply about His creatures. The Bible says God feeds the birds; He notices every tiny sparrow that falls to the ground., and He labels as righteous a man who cares for the life of his beast.
William Cowper wrote,
“I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. …
Ye, therefore, who love mercy,
Teach your sons
To love it too.”
You probably know when God put the rainbow in the sky after the Great Flood He did so as a promise to mankind that He would never again destroy the world with water. But did you know God made that covenant with all the living creatures too? You can read it in Genesis 9:10.
Yes, God made a promise to the animals that day, and He talks to them with every rainbow He puts in the sky. I like to think someday when we talk to the animals, they’ll use words to answer us. I’m only guessing at that, but if Eve wasn’t surprised when the serpent spoke to her in the garden, and Balaam wasn’t shocked out of his sandals when his donkey scolded him; perhaps there was a day when conversation between animals and people was common. And maybe that day will come again.
I know we can learn a lot from God’s creatures even now. Ants teach us not to be lazy—Proverbs 6:6—8. Birds teach us to trust God—Luke 12:24. A crane showed John and me patience as he stood motionless for a long time in the water waiting for a fish.
I’m not preaching vegetarianism, though if that’s your thing, fine. I like a good steak as much as the next guy; I’ll take mine medium well, not the way Mom cooked it to please Dad, charcoal black.
But I’m thinking I’d better enjoy my steaks now, because a wonderful day is coming when I don’t suppose I’ll be eating them anymore. I love these verses from Isaiah 11 about the Kingdom, when Jesus comes to rule on earth:
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.
“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
No hurt? No destruction? Only peace? I’ll give up my steak for that! The same God who made His rainbow promise to us and to the animals gave us the promise of peace too. Kimmee won’t have any more animals to rescue then, but neither will she have to cry fifty-two gallons of tears.
Kimmee’s compassion extends to me. Even though she knows only God can do it, she’s been doing her best to rescue me from the claws of cancer as fiercely as she takes a baby bunny from her cats.
I may get well and strong again here on earth. But I surely will be well and strong enough to dance with joy on that holy mountain! Everyone will be kind there; no one will needlessly step on a worm, and perhaps the animals will talk. And in my imagination a perfect rainbow circles that mountain, a reminder that God always keeps His promises.
I suppose we’ll all know what not to say there, and “Grandma” will no longer have her moustache.
