Bikes and Batteries

by Donna Poole

We wouldn’t have been caught off guard if we’d just looked under the hood. She gave us fair warning.

But we didn’t look.

Follow closely. This gets complicated.

Kimmee was second shooter for a wedding last Saturday; that’s second photographer for you uninitiated. John had agreed to drop her off. He was running a bit late, but they still had time to make it—barely. John and Kimmee loaded all her equipment into our 2000 Toyota Avalon, a gift from dear friends. We love that car. It’s always dependable. They jumped in, turned the key…click… silence. They reloaded everything into our not so dependable 2009 Chevy Uplander and raced out of our driveway.

Here’s where it gets complicated. Sunday comes after Saturday. Wait, no, that’s not the complicated part.

If you’ve followed my blog perhaps you remember that John is a pastor, and my oncologist hasn’t allowed me to go inside our church for two years. Kimmee drives me to what we call parking lot church. Our church transmits services over the radio, but the signal reaches only as far as the parking lot. That’s not the complicated part either.

Here’s the complicated part. Our vehicles are too old to pick up the signal; at best we get static and an occasional muttering voice that sounds like someone speaking in tongues. We know it’s definitely not coming from our quiet, country, Baptist church. We can tune in a great country music station though! To solve the problem of no signal, Drew takes our Avalon to work, and Kimmee drives me to church in their Kia. We can hear the sermon just fine, and we only switch to the country music station if we’re bored. Just kidding; we’re much too spiritual to do that, or maybe we don’t switch because Kimmee hates country music.

Perhaps because it was made it Canada, I don’t know, but the Uplander seat won’t slide back far enough to accommodate Drew’s very long legs. He’d have to drive their Kia to work on Sunday.

I looked mournfully at the Avalon. “It was kind of you to break down right here in the driveway instead of leaving someone stranded far from home, but did you have to pick Saturday?”

It wouldn’t kill me to miss church the next day, but I really wanted to go.

John returned from taking Kimmee to work and drove into the driveway much slower than he’d driven out of it. He checked under the hood, looked at the Avalon’s battery, and laughed.

“It says ‘five-year battery.’ And it’s dated June 2017.”

Well! We couldn’t say the old girl hadn’t warned us. The battery worked right up to its expiration date. Five years to the month.

“I’m going to town to see if I can find a new battery,” John said. “I’m pretty sure that’s all that’s wrong with this car.”

And off he went to the auto parts store.

John hooked up the new battery, and Sweet Avalon hummed her way to life. Vacation over, she took Drew to work on Sunday, and I was grateful to go to parking lot church.

I kept thinking about that old, dependable battery. It didn’t quit working in 2021 or even in March or May of 2022. It worked right up to its expiration date, June 2022.

When I turn on my old, dependable hp computer, also a gift from the dear friends who gave us the car, a black and white picture pops up on the screen. A man is riding a mountain bike down a steep, rocky hill and it looks like he’s heading right into the ocean. Doomed. Expiration date any second now. I liked the picture when I first started using the computer. It spoke of courage and adventure. I hated the picture when I was sick and weak from chemotherapy. It spoke of despair and death. I didn’t want to see someone plunge into the ocean to his demise. I enjoy the picture again now. It says adventure once again. I like to imagine there is a path that curves to the left just out of my sight that the cyclist will take when he gets to the bottom of the cliff.

As you may have guessed, I’ve identified a bit with the cyclist, and with the battery and its stamped expiration date. I don’t know my expiration date; you don’t know yours, and we don’t often think of it. But the date is circled on God’s calendar, rather we think of it or not.

Someone said the two things it’s hardest to get people to consider are these: the shortness of time and the length of eternity. Being a cancer patient changes that. I consider it.  

If time is short, and we know it is, and eternity is forever, and the Bible tells me it is, I better be ready.

“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” –Hebrews 9:27

I can either face that judgment on my own or flunk it more royally than I did Latin II, Chemistry, and Missions, or I can let someone else take the exam for me. Thank God, Jesus already took the test and paid for it with His life. On the cross my sin was condemned so that I would never be judged for it. The entire New Testament tells me this is beautifully, breathtakingly true.

I don’t know my expiration date, but because of the love of Jesus, I’m ready. Like the battery, I’d like to stay useful right up to the end. When I can no longer talk, fix a meal, or write a story, perhaps I can still pray. I’ll breathe in a thought of those I love and breathe out a name in prayer. I’d love for my last breath to be a prayer of blessing.

But until then, there’s work to do, and I plan to keep doing it. True, this old battery named me needs a jump start now and then, and the Rogel Cancer Center at the University of Michigan Hospital is doing a good job of keeping me going.

Like the cyclist heading down the rocky cliff, I don’t know what I’ll find at the bottom. If it’s the ocean, I’m not going to be afraid, because the same Jesus who loved me enough to die for me also promised never to leave me to face anything alone.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” –Isaiah 43:2

Will the path curve left and take me down a level path with years of beautiful seashore views?  

I’m hoping for the level path. I’ll take my hands of the handlebars and my feet off the pedals and yell “Wahoo!” like I did when I was a kid.

But I’m thinking that for all of us who are heaven bound there are joys ahead no “Wahoo!” can even come close to expressing. So, let come what may, whatever it be, I’d like to say, let’s keep walking each other down these backroads until we see the lights of home.

I’ll be there for you; you be there for me, and that’s not complicated.