Kimmee, our youngest daughter, knows how much I usually love springtime. Just as she has done every year since she was a little girl, she took me outside and pointed out all the first signs of spring. I nodded. I smiled.
And I felt nothing.
The cold numbness encasing my heart frightened me. What’s wrong with me? Where’s my usual springtime joy, my delight in the warm breezes, the birds calling to their mates, the first flowers turning adoring faces to the sun?
I felt even more afraid when I realized I didn’t feel much emotional response to anything. Me! Donna! The person who, had I been born a punctuation mark, would have been the exclamation point! Now I was just the ellipsis, the dot dot dot, the yawn, the nothing.
I. Felt. Nothing.
Perhaps the open brain surgery I’d had a few months before had changed me forever; I’d never be my exuberant self again. I took myself back inside and had a serious sit-down with me, myself, and I. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt emotionally numb, was it? My wounded brain struggled back through its maze of memories. I’d felt this way other times, after great emotional pain and loss. Joyful feelings had eventually returned, though in a more chastened, less exuberant form, making a quieter, gentler, and perhaps more compassionate me. I’d heal from this brain surgery. The ice around my heart would melt. And the ice did melt, but not that spring.
Cancer treatment has sometimes left me feeling wintery too. I understand aggressive cancer requires aggressive chemo, but …I’ll just leave the ellipsis, the dot dot dot, and you can fill in the blanks.
Life’s blows hurt and may make us wonder if spring will ever return. Nothing wounds the heart more than the death of a loved one. As a dear friend says, “For a Christian, death is a defeated enemy, but make no mistake; it is still the enemy.
From the depths of physical suffering or of emotional grief, God’s children cry out, “Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime!”
If you, through faith in Jesus Christ, are one of God’s crying children, I can’t promise you the ice will melt in this life, but I can promise the ice will melt. An eternal spring is coming. When it does, a north wind will never again freeze a tear on your cheek. Love will never again frame the bitter word, “Goodbye.”
I wish I could describe God’s eternal spring to you, but I don’t know much myself. God tells us only a little about it, but the little is enough to give us a sturdy hope no ice storm is strong enough to kill.
“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” –Revelation 21:3-4
Songs of the Spring Days
“A gentle wind, of western birth
On some far summer sea,
Wakes daises in the wintry earth,
Wakes hope in wintry me.
“The sun is low; the paths are wet,
And dance with frolic hail;
The trees—their springtime is not yet—
Swing sighing in the gale.
“Young gleams of sunshine peep and play;
Clouds shoulder in between;
I scarce believe one coming day
The earth will all be green.
“The north wind blows, and blasts, and raves,
And flaps his snowy wing;
Back! Toss thy bergs on arctic waves;
Thou cans’t not bar our spring.” –George MacDonald
See you in the spring, my friend. Don’t pack your winter coat; you won’t be needing it!
That’s our affectionate term for our family who lives south of the Mason Dixon line. We use the term as in, “The Southerns are coming!”
Three of our Southerns came for a visit this past weekend, and with efforts rivaling that of a professional contortionist, our Michigan kids and grandkids were able to arrange schedules so we could spend two whole days together. One Michigan family couldn’t come because they have a wonderful new baby—and a terrible stomach flu. We missed the nine of them, but the other eighteen of us ate enough Kimmee desserts to last us through the month of April. We shared burdens, and between all our extended families, there are some seriously heavy ones. Two have cancer. One is moving into assisted living. A few of us have memory problems. Everyone is dealing with stress and loss of some kind. We had some quiet conversations, a few tears, and some silent prayers.
We shared meals together, and you don’t realize what a sweet joy that is until circumstances and distance make that possible only every few years. Eating together has a deeper significance than we may realize at the time. At our first meal this weekend, my heart hummed the old song, “Let us break bread together on our knees; let us break bread together on our knees; when I fall down on my knees; with my face to the rising sun; O Lord, have mercy on me.”
O Lord, have mercy on everyone I love, for they are many. O Lord, bless everyone who made this gathering possible, especially Kimmee who worked so hard.
We ate meals here and at two other houses because our kids opened their homes too. Wherever we were, I heard the quiet hum of conversation punctuated by laughter, and I was happy. Deeply happy. In the laughter of loved ones, I heard the echo of heaven.
We laughed like carefree kids in the kingdom of our God. We played, “Doggie, doggie, where’s your bone?” Even the youngest grandkids quickly learned to disguise their voices and sound like opera singers or Kermit the Frog. We tried “Big Bootie, Big Bootie,” a clapping game, but discovered some of us didn’t have enough rhythm for that one. The kids played Limbo. We used a broom for a couple of fun games, and no, none of us flew on it. We told a story where each person added a sentence as soon as he or she could stop laughing long enough to get the words out.
Leg wrestling was the most fun to watch. Our strong fireman son found himself flipped by his slender female cousin in less than three seconds, and I’m still grinning when I remember the shocked look on his face. He laughed so hard. Now he calls it “the game of humiliation.”
Laughter is one of God’s sweetest gifts. It’s a promise. I can almost hear the ringing laughter around the Big Table in heaven. Listen! Can you hear it too? It sounds as clear as bells, doesn’t it? That’s because there’s no minor key accompaniment of tears to laughter’s song in heaven.
After our last meal together, we looked at old slides our patriarch, John’s dad, had taken, smiled at the memories, and laughed at the clothing styles. I don’t think I was the only one whose eyes stung a few times to see a smiling face looking back at me that has been in heaven for many years.
All too soon the slide show ended; someone turned off the old machine’s light and silenced its whirring noise. It was time to say goodbye.
It was hard. We hugged like it was the last time because we never know when it might be. We whispered prayers and words of love and encouragement. We cried, wiped our tears, and went out to our cars.
Our son, daughter-in-law and family came out to wave their goodbye blessings from the porch. A couple of them scooped up our twenty-two-year-old granddaughter and held her in their arms.
And then we laughed.
One of the Southerns jumped out of the car and snapped a picture of the family on the porch who were still waving goodbye, holding their twenty-two-year-old, and laughing.
“Laughter is like a windshield wiper; it doesn’t stop the rain but allows us to keep going.” –Unknown
“Oh, blest be God for love and laughter, today, tomorrow, and hereafter.” –Amy Carmichael
We Piarulli kids heard Mom say that one or a thousand times. Mom was born in March, the lion-lamb month, and she could roar like a lion when the occasion warranted. She didn’t like quitters!
Mom absolutely believed I could do anything if I made up my mind to do it and tried hard enough. Perhaps I should reword that. Mom believed I could do anything if I trusted God and tried hard enough.
Mom was an avid reader; I don’t know, but perhaps she read about Oliver Cromwell and adopted his can-do attitude. You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Trust God and keep your powder dry.” When England invaded Ireland in 1649, Cromwell said to his soldiers, “Put your trust in God, my boys, but keep your powder dry.”
Wet gun powder was useless in battle. The saying has come to mean, “Trust God, but do your part!” Proverbs 21:31 combines the same two ideas: “The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the LORD.”
Mom was a huge proponent of faith. But had I dared tell her I hadn’t studied my spelling words for a test but had instead prayed and trusted God, she would have knocked me into the middle of next week. (Mom sometimes threatened to do just that, and being a curious child, I often wondered if the middle of next week might be more fun than present circumstances.)
Mom taught us well. We Piarulli girls don’t give up easily. Some might say we share a streak of stubbornness a mile wide, but I prefer to call it our can-do attitude. I’ve seen all my sisters face adversity with a daunting combination of determination and faith.
And I suppose we sisters can all be a bit stubborn about everything, the others more than I. Funny, something just made me choke.
But can even the stubborn Piarulli girls really do anything we make up our minds to do?
Let me tell you about my piano lessons. There was a time, back in the day, when we needed a piano player at church. Every other pastor’s wife I knew could play the piano, so God must want me to learn, right? I tackled those lessons with determination, enthusiasm, faith, and prayer. No matter how busy I was or how I felt, I practiced the piano. If the teacher said practice thirty minutes five days a week, I practiced forty-five minutes to an hour seven days a week.
I took to the piano like the proverbial fish takes to water; it was glorious. My concentration was borderline obsessive.
Once, when I was practicing, John said, “I’m going to town now, honey. Love you.”
I intended to say, “Okay, honey, love you too.” Instead, as I kept staring at my music and playing, I said, “Okay, 2,3,4.”
John still laughs when he remembers how I called him “2,3,4.”
I took to the piano, but the piano did not take to me. I think it actually hated me. My first piano teacher is now in glory, and no, I didn’t drive her to an early grave, but my second teacher is still alive. You can ask Lois Pettit how hard I tried and how miserably I failed at learning to play the piano. After three years I finally… I, gulp, can barely write the word—sorry, Mom—I QUIT!
Some things take more than determination. I admire the tiny snowdrops that push up through last years leaves and this year’s melting snow to announce spring is coming even here to Michigan where March is at her lion-lamb best. To me snowdrops are a metaphor for a can-do attitude. But are they really? They don’t do their work alone. They push up through our heavy clay soil because of sunshine and God’s grace.
So many things require grace. My best efforts won’t get me to heaven. I can’t get to heaven by doing good deeds or being a good person. Sorry, but neither can you. God says all our self-made righteousness is like a filthy rag. –Isaiah 64:6
True, we might be better people than a serial killer, but here’s the thing. Trying to get to heaven by a can-do attitude is like trying to jump the Atlantic. You can jump farther than I because I’ve been unable to jump since brain surgery nine years ago. Tajay Gayle can jump farther than you. He holds the record for the long jump. On September 28, 2019, he won the World Championship in Doha, Qatar, with a jump of 28 feet 6 inches. That’s impressive!
But even a Tajay Gayle jump won’t get you far if your goal is to jump across the ocean.
I can’t get to heaven by being good and thank God I don’t have to. I’d be really tired of even trying by now. Jesus, God’s Son, lived the perfect life I can’t, died on the cross for my sin, and rose again. All that’s left for me to do is accept God’s grace freely offered.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” –Ephesians 2:8-9
Do my sisters and I still have our can-do attitudes? That attitude got me into a lot of trouble when I was a kid. Once Mom said we could ride our bikes for fifteen minutes before supper. I convinced Mary we could ride fifteen miles to a store and be back in fifteen minutes. It didn’t end well. No grace was extended.
I remember a sister who shall remain unnamed who determined with her can-do attitude she could eat a dozen potato pies, each one half the size of a dinner plate. She did it. Her name wasn’t Mary. Her name wasn’t Eve either.
Perhaps we sisters have learned to temper our can-do attitudes with a bit of common sense. The last time we were together we ordered take-out from Little Venice, our favorite Italian restaurant. We ate. And we ate. And we ate. Then someone said the “can’t” word. None of us finished our meals.
When it comes to life, though, we may be old, battle-scarred soldiers, but I think Mom would be happy. One sister finished her fight and is in heaven, but the three of us who remain are still trusting God and keeping our powder dry.
I noticed the other day how white his hair looks in the sunshine, almost as white as mine. I caught my breath. Oh John, dear John, how did we arrive so quickly to the years of the long goodbye?
So much of what we do now is bittersweet because we wonder if this time may be the last time.
I cried when we left our campsite in Nashville, Indiana eighteen months ago. It was a chilly fall day, and my head, bald from chemotherapy, was cold. My heart shivered too. I pulled my beanie down over my ears.
“Don’t cry, honey.” John hugged me. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid this is our last time camping here.”
I couldn’t say more words, but my mind was seeing the miles of trails we’d hiked, the scores of campfires we’d coaxed to light, and the thousands of quiet conversations we’d enjoyed there in Brown County State Park during our many years of camping there.
“This isn’t our last time, honey. We’ll be back.”
As we drove the beautiful curving road through the park one last time, I tried to memorize it all, the steep ravines, the hills aflame with color, the hundreds of acres of uninhabited wilderness—all made by the extravagant hand of God. The falling leaves were saying goodbye too, but they weren’t crying like me. They seemed to be dancing their way down with joyful abandon. It was time to go, so why not celebrate with one last dance praising their Creator? Once again, God spoke to me through His creation.
We haven’t been back. Our old truck informed us in no uncertain terms it was done hauling Bertha, our ancient camper.
I don’t know if we’ll ever camp again in Brown County or in Muskegon State Park or at Goose Lake or in any of the other campgrounds I’ve loved so through the years.
We never know, do we, when the last time is the last time. There have been too many funerals lately. We never guessed the last time we smiled, hugged, laughed, waved, or texted an “I love you” it would be the last time.
I sent our beautiful, brilliant granddaughter, Megan, a text with a photo the other day. “Hillsdale Academy Colts won the trophy tonight! Six years ago today! Look how cute!”
Megan texted back, “There’s no way! Wasn’t that yesterday?”
“It WAS yesterday,” I replied, “so cherish today, dear Megan. Hug your parents and siblings, yes, ALL of them. I’ll hug you when I see you! Love you forever and like you for always!”
“Ah man!! If I have to! 😊 Hopefully I’ll see you AND hug you tomorrow night! Love you forever and like you for always!”
The tomorrow night didn’t happen; plans were postponed, but I’ll hug the stuffins out of her when I see her because I always do. And I never know when the last time will be the last time.
Today is all we have.
Today is a good day to live, to love, to laugh.
Today is a good day to sigh, to grieve, to cry.
And today is a good day to remember we don’t walk these backroads alone. Others need our love and prayers. Now is the time to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
Tears often fall on our paths as we ramble these backroads, but perhaps a violet to cheer the next traveler grows from every teardrop that falls. Life is a gift; even when it crushes us like a grape sweetness may come from our hearts to encourage others and to show them the way Home to heaven. The directions Home aren’t complicated; even a child can follow them. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” –John 3:16
John and I feel we’ve entered the years of the long goodbye, the bittersweet season of our journey together, but the reality is the years of the long goodbye began with the first breath we took as newborns. It’s just that age and loss are good teachers. They are teaching us the shortness of life and the length of eternity.
Life is a gift, and I’m going to take a lesson from the leaves. I too want to celebrate with abandon, praising my creator, dancing in my heart until my last breath.
Oh, and all those girls in the photo are cute, so in case you wonder which one our Megan is, she’s sitting on the floor, the last one on the right as you look at the picture. And she’s probably going to move me to her list of least favorite relatives for sharing this information! But I’ll still love her forever and like her for always!
At the wise old age of sixteen I ran the refund and exchange desk at Grand Union. That store was kind enough to give me a job, but I was too young to run a register or even work the lunch counter, so returns and exchanges it was.
If it wasn’t tough enough to let disgruntled customers take their angst out on me as though I had personally manufactured the faulty item, I also managed the Kiddy Korner at the same time. Kiddy Korners, thankfully, are a relic of the distant past, so I’ll have to elaborate. A parent opened a half-door, shoved seven screaming, snotty nosed offspring into my cubicle, left to blissfully shop for seven hours, and then relaxed with a hamburger and a cup of coffee at the lunch counter. Already in my cubicle were an assortment of other screaming, fighting, playing, children. Some clung to my legs terrified to be there while I said, “Yes, sir,” and “No, ma’am,” to the aforementioned disgruntled refund and exchange customers. Oh, and the Kiddy Korner had only half-walls. Stock boys threw heaps of boxes behind the walls. More than one adventurous child managed to climb over a half-wall and disappear into the boxes, and I had to dive over myself and retrieve escaped prisoners.
Now, here’s the funny part about my job. I loved it. Honestly, I did. At sixteen, who isn’t up for a challenge? I aimed to make the angry customers smile, calm the crazy littles, and comfort the terrified ones. When I turned seventeen, the store promoted me to the lunch counter and dismantled the Kiddy Korner. Even though I’d never lost a child, I think someone with a brain realized Kiddy Korners might equal insurance liability.
That job taught me to be considerate of weary clerks running return and exchange counters. Yesterday, when we were both twenty-something-young, I went with Lonnie, my sister-in-law, to return a gift at a store in Ithaca, New York. Think of the kindest, nicest person you know, multiply that by ten, and you may come close to imagining Lonnie. She held her return in her arms and stood quite a distance back from the next person in line. Leaving a considerable distance between yourself and the person in front of you in a line must be a family trait, because my husband, John, does the same thing his sister Lonnie does. Not me. I’m Italian. We don’t mind close.
Lonnie stood so far back that other people, many of them, cut in front of her. Lonnie didn’t say anything to them. The Italian part of me said things like, “Hey, rude dude! Back off! She was here first!” But I didn’t say anything out loud for two reasons. I was with Lonnie, the nicest human God ever created, and I was shy yesterday, when I was young.
After we’d waited in line about a half hour with people cutting in front of us, I said, “Lonnie, maybe we should move up closer. I don’t think the other people realize you’re waiting in this line.”
“Oh, you don’t think they know I’m waiting?”
Actually, I did think they knew. They were just being rude and taking advantage because that’s what some people do, but I didn’t want to tell Lonnie that. She was too nice to hear it.
I haven’t been to a store’s refund or exchange department in years. I’m all for supporting local businesses, but because my oncologist sealed me in a bubble, I haven’t been in a store for two years. I’ve discovered the ease of Amazon. (Please, small businesses, don’t hate me.) I love Amazon’s return and exchange policy. You notify them you’re returning an item and send it back. There’s no long waiting in line.
I’ve used another even easier exchange department for years. I remember well the day I discovered it. I was sitting in the rock garden at the little house we used to live in next door. The tiny white lilies of the valley were in bloom. I breathed in their beautiful fragrance. Gentle, peaceful, patient, trusting, beautiful—I thought how unlike them I was. Unloving, selfish, impatient me—definitely not beautiful or fragrant.
Exchange what you are for what I’m waiting to give you.
The thought came suddenly and with joy. I could do that, couldn’t I!
What was that Amy Carmichael had written? “Love through me, Love of God; /Make me like thy clear air/Through which, unhindered, colors pass/As though it were not there.” And this? “Think through me, thoughts of God, /And let my own thoughts be/Lost like the sand-pools on the shore/Of the eternal sea.”
What a wonderful God, willing to pour His love, His life, His thoughts through me! So, I gave it a try, right there in the rock garden, among the lilies of the valley.
Lord, here’s my selfishness. I’d like to exchange it for your love. Love through me! Here’s my impatience; please, may I exchange it for your patience?
I prayed a long time in the rock garden that day. Did I leave with saintly behavior? Not exactly; ask those who live with me! God takes His time making us like Jesus. But now I pray often, “Love through me, love of God; think through me thoughts of God, live through me life of God.”
When a nasty attitude creeps in, I know just where to take it. I march right up to the exchange department; Jesus accepts it with a smile and gives me His own sweetness. I trade despair for courage, criticism for compassion, and harshness for tenderness. Often, I trade fear for faith.
I’m sure there must be lines a million miles long at His desk, but I never see another person. Why? Because, as someone said, “God loves each one of us as if there were only one to love.”
So, no long waiting in line for me. There’s no one to cut in front of us at God’s exchange department, Lonnie, although I’m sure you need to visit it far less often than I do!
I wonder what happened to all my refund and exchange customers and those children who bounced off and over the walls in my Kiddie Korner. I haven’t thought about them in a long time. Bless them, Lord, bless them all.
I heard that often when I was a child. I’m still trying to decide on my answer!
I didn’t want to be president. Talk about a thankless, stressful job! Why would anyone want to be president of the United States? It’s a reasonable question to ask on President’s Day. Your answer depends on whether you’re a cynic, an optimist, a psychiatrist, or a combination of all three! A cynic says a candidate is in it only for money and power. An optimist objects: no, it’s altruism; the person really cares about the country. The psychiatrist may say whatever the motive, the individual must be crazy!
I had no aspirations to be president. I did think it would be fun to be Queen Elizabeth so I could use the editorial “we” when speaking of only myself, as in, “We are not amused.” My sister Mary and I thought that phrase was hysterical and used it at every opportunity; Mom was not amused.
I remember for a time wanting to be an Amelia Earhart and fly solo across the Atlantic, an ambition my family laughed at because I’d been getting lost since pre-school days. At a young age I got angry with my parents about something and informed them I was running away.
They shrugged. “Go ahead.”
We lived in town at the time. I marched out of the house, and my anger dissipated into delight in my newfound freedom as blocks passed. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. Dad! I hadn’t been free; he’d been following me!
“Time to go home.”
I was furious. “You said I could run away!”
“Now I’m saying it’s time to go home. Where were you going anyway?”
“Aunt Virginia and Uncle Tom’s!”
He laughed. “Well, you were going the wrong way.”
Our family was visiting Aunt Virginia and Uncle Tom when I was a little older. They lived in a charming row house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was an outdoor girl, a tomboy, and I got restless and probably rambunctious. Someone told me to go outside and play.
I had so much fun running up and down the block in front of their house getting rid of the excess energy accumulated from spending too much time indoors. It took a while, but I got tired. Time to go inside. That proved to be a problem. Row houses all look alike. I wandered aimlessly, up the block, down the block. What to do?
At last, I saw a familiar figure standing in front of one of the houses. Uncle Tom! I ran to him, trying to keep relief from showing.
He chuckled. “You got lost, didn’t you? Your secret’s safe with me.”
I’ve outgrown many things in my life, but I still have zero since of direction. Once I started driving the few short miles to our Michigan church and ended up hopelessly lost in Ohio. My tales of getting lost could fill a tome. Let’s just say some of my back road wanderings have been unintentional.
It’s a family trait this getting lost. My older sister Eve and I were supposed to serve the food at our baby sister Ginny’s wedding reception, so we left the wedding as soon as the ceremony ended to get things ready. By the time we got to the reception almost everyone was gone. Our husbands had served the food. They looked cute in aprons.
I gave up on flying solo across the Atlantic. I remember wanting to be a detective like Nancy Drew. I also wanted to be an airline stewardess. That’s what they called them back in the fifties; there were no positions for men.
Dad worked for an airline, and he dashed my hopes.
“Honey, there’s a height requirement to be a stewardess. You’ll never be tall enough. And you must be able to see fairly well without your glasses; you’re legally blind without yours. And besides, those stewardesses are glamorous!
What are you saying, Dad? I can be glamorous! Just let me get out of these jeans and wash my face a few times!
After I thought about it, glamor didn’t appeal to me, so I discarded that ambition too.
I was pretty shocked when we were newly weds and John said he thought God was calling him to be a pastor. Wait! That would make me a…pastor’s wife? God hadn’t said a word to me about that! Weren’t pastor’s wives everything I wasn’t? As a joke I went and put on the most old-lady looking outfit I could find and wound my long hair into a severe bun. I came back into the room, stood pigeon-toed, and tried to look saintly.
“What are you doing?” Mom Poole asked.
“Practicing. For when I’m a pastor’s wife.”
She was not amused. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit…sacrilegious?”
No, I didn’t. And that’s exactly why I thought God should maybe have given John a different wife if He planned to make him a preacher! But we’ve both survived and thrived these almost forty-eight years in the ministry, and despite more than a few tears, I confess, it’s the life for me. I’ve loved it. I guess God knew what He was doing after all.
My sister Mary remembers when I was a kid, I said I wanted to be a hermit and a writer. Well baby, look at me now! I’m a writer, and my oncologist has enclosed me in a hermit’s bubble for almost two years. I keep trying to connive my way out, but nothing works. I think he’s heard it all before.
I look back at my life with a heart full of joy. I look to the future with anticipation. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Not the president; you’ll never have to call me Madam President. I don’t suppose I’m English enough to qualify to be the queen either; nor was I born into the royal family, and you know what I say to that? We are not amused!
We four sisters sharing a happy day long ago.Baby me excited about life. I still am.
I tried to keep my gnarled hands from trembling when I heard them coming and quickly hid my new MacBook under my sheets.
“It’s G and M,” I whispered to Beth. “Pretend you’re sleeping. I won’t let them hurt you.”
I didn’t feel a bit guilty about calling those night shift nurses Godzilla and Minion. They were monsters, and I had the bruises to prove it. Of course, I kept the marks well hidden from my children. I was relieved G and M had left Beth alone so far. Non-verbal, and paralyzed from the waist down, Beth was far more vulnerable than even I. I weighed only ninety pounds and was helpless myself against the “fun” G and M liked to have with me.
“You should be sleeping, honey,” Godzilla said to me, in a voice silky sweet. “Let me pull you up onto your pillow.”
She grabbed me under my arms and squeezed where she knew it would bruise but not show. She held her grip for a long time, watching my face for a tear I refused to give her, while her minion giggled.
“What have we here?” She yanked my laptop from under the sheets. “I bet your adoring children gave you this for Valentine’s Day. It’s a lot nicer than your old one!”
I clung to the MacBook with every ounce of strength I had.
G sent a smirk M’s way. “We must remember we’re in the presence of a published author. Maybe she’ll even write about us someday.
I might just do that.
“She wouldn’t dare,” Minion said. “She knows what you’d do to her.”
“She won’t write about us because she’s too ashamed of her nickname. Besides, she won’t have a computer to write on. She’s giving me a little gift for Valentine’s Day, aren’t you Warthog?”
That time I couldn’t hide the pain in my eyes. Godzilla had probed out all my weak points soon after she’d come to work at the care home. Sociopaths are geniuses at that. At my age there weren’t many things that troubled me about my personal appearance, but my warts did. I’d long been sensitive about them, especially the one on my nose. When I’d been a teen, my mother had tried to comfort me by telling me that even important people had warts; Oliver Cromwell had a huge one on his large very red nose. Her pep talk hadn’t helped my feelings.
“Thanks, Mom,” I’d said. “We just learned in history that Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, and people are still talking about his red nose and his warts? I really don’t want these stupid warts to be part of my legacy!”
Well, I’m not dead yet, but I’m eighty and people are still mocking my warts. At least Godzilla is. She’s right; I’m ashamed of that nickname, and I do hope no one ever finds out.
Godzilla snatched the MacBook from my hands. “Oh, thank you, Warthog. I knew you loved me. I’ll remember this gift forever.”
“Give it back. You’re not getting it.”
She dropped the computer on my toes, leaned over me, gripped my arms just above my elbows and squeezed. A tiny moan escaped.
“I don’t care what you do to me. You’re not getting my MacBook. You’re right; t’s a gift from my children. And let go of me, or I’ll tell.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard nastier laughs than came from G and M.
“And just who you gonna tell, Warthog?” Godzilla jeered. “You gonna tell your kids? They’d yank you out of here so fast you wouldn’t have time to say no. And I know you don’t want to live with them.”
She was right. She knew too much about me. I didn’t want to live with my children because I loved them. I’d cared for my own mother and had loved doing it, but the strain on my family had been tough. I didn’t want to add to my kids’ burdens. People told me I was robbing them of a blessing. Maybe so, but I can be stubborn, and I wasn’t giving in on this.
Godzilla let go of me and my skinny arms dropped to the bed. I wanted to slap her, but I was too weak to raise a hand, and I didn’t want to sink to her level. I prayed for her instead. She studied me, thinking.
Then she headed for Beth. “She never has any family who visits, does she?” she asked Minion. “If I’m careful where I bruise her, the bath aides will never notice, or they’ll think they did it themselves lifting her.”
“No!” My voice could have been heard rooms away.
“Shut the door.” Godzilla said to Minion.
She came back to me, a crafty look on her face. “Now, if you were to give me the gift you know I want….”
I sighed, more tired than I’d ever been. “How much time would it buy Beth?”
“Oh, I’d never touch her, unless you happen to get another gift you might need to be persuaded to give me, you know, because you appreciate me so much.”
I opened the MacBook to delete my files.
“Oh no you don’t.” Godzilla yanked it from my hands. “It’s slow tonight. The two of us need something to laugh at to keep us from dying of boredom. Your stories might amuse us, Warthog. What’s your password?”
They left the room, laughing.
Beth looked at me, tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes saying all she couldn’t.
I eased myself out of bed and wiped her face with a tissue. “It’s okay, Beth. Sleep now. I promise, I’ll never let them hurt you. Don’t be sad; it was only a laptop.”
But Beth was sad. She knew what that laptop had meant to me. Writing was what kept me sane in this place.
A few days later Lacey was our day nurse. When she came in the room she went straight to Beth’s bed. It was the first smile I’d seen on Beth’s face since the night G and M had taken my laptop. I smiled too. We residents called Lacey an earth angel. When she walked in a door, it was as though God came with her.
Beth signaled for Lacey to raise her bed to a sitting position. Sadly, no one had ever taught Beth ASL, or she could have had a way to communicate. Beth held one hand flat like a piece of paper and pretended she was writing on it with a pen.
“Do you want to write me a note, Beth?” Beth nodded vigorously.
“I didn’t know you could communicate that way!”
Lacey looked at me. “Do you have any paper?”
“I have about ten yellow legal tablets in the top drawer there. I use them to outline my stories.”
“Hey, why aren’t you hard at work on your new MacBook?”
Oh boy, here it came. What was I going to tell her? And what story could I make up that my kids would buy the next weekend when they came to visit? Maybe I’d die before then. I half wished I would.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer Lacey’s question. She was distracted by Beth’s scribbling. Lacey waited several minutes. She chuckled. “I see this is going to take a while. I’ll go help a few other patients and come back, is that okay, Beth?”
Beth nodded without looking up.
When Lacey returned a half hour later, Beth had filled a few pages. Lacey read them, her face growing red, then a tear ran down one cheek.
I was puzzled. What had Beth written?
Lacey turned to me. “Is this true, dear? Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me this has been happening? There are laws to protect you! Elder abuse isn’t tolerated in this home, or this state. Those two will be going to prison!”
She handed me what Beth had written. Beth must have a near perfect memory. She’d written down every instance of my abuse, even ones I’d forgotten. She’d recorded the verbal abuse and the nickname of “Warthog.” She’d told about the theft of my new computer.
Lacey hugged me. “I wondered about that MacBook on the shelf in the nurses station. I didn’t open it because I thought it was none of my business, but it is now.”
In a few minutes Lacey returned. “Is this yours?”
I typed in my password and all my files were still there.
I tried to thank Lacey but couldn’t get the words out.
“It’s okay, honey. I know what it means to you. And my supervisor called the police. They’ll be in to talk to both of you later. Do you want to go down for breakfast?”
Beth nodded. I shook my head.
“I have something I want to write.”
Why had I let this happen to me without speaking up? What if I hadn’t been here to protect Beth? And how many others had G and M hurt? Were there people like them at other homes? Were there patients like me who weren’t being honest with their families and so enabling the abusers to keep hurting others?
Soon the room was quiet, and the only sound was my favorite one, fingers tapping the keyboard. I typed the title of my story, “They Called Me Warthog.”
The meteorologists had been predicting the giant snowstorm for days, so John went to the store to stock up on a few things just in case we couldn’t get out for a few days. He did a good job of getting almost everything on the list and bought something not on the list he finds it intolerable to be without.
Mustard.
It didn’t matter that we already had two other containers of mustard; what it the snow trapped us inside for, oh, I don’t know, a year or so, and we ran out of mustard? What then? People might die from mustard shortage!
When I was a child, I didn’t worry about running out of anything in a storm, especially mustard. Looking back, perhaps I should have been concerned because we never had much food in the cupboards. Mom and Dad shopped once a week when he got paid and bought only enough to last until the next paycheck. They didn’t have enough money to buy more.
I’m sure Dad was concerned when blizzards came. Sometimes the pipes under our house trailer froze, and he had to thaw them without burning down our dwelling place. Snow piled up by the foot when we lived in snow country in Taberg, New York, and Dad had to shovel it off the trailer roof. He also had to put chains on the car tires and try to get to work whenever possible.
But I was a kid. When blizzard winds howled, and sleet and snow pellets hit my bedroom window at night, I smiled and snuggled deeper under my blankets. This was going to be fun!
When morning came, I yelled, “Wahoo, no school!” collected a sister or two, and headed for the sledding hill. Storms were fun.
As I got older storms showed me the other side of their face. We lived in Maine, New York, when I was a teenager, and I was trying to navigate my nemesis, my untrustworthy fifty-dollar Renault, down Twist Run Road in an ice storm. That little car slid first one way then another. Finally, I managed to pull into someone’s driveway. A sweet older lady let me use her phone.
“Dad, please come get me. I’m on Twist Run Road, and I can’t drive this car home. It’s too icy.”
I refused to listen to any of Dad’s calm logic on how I could manage to drive home, and frustrated with me, he finally agreed to bring someone with him and get me home. In the amount of time it took him to get to me, it warmed up, and the ice melted. I didn’t realize it until we headed home on clear roads. It took me a long time to hear the end of that!
I’ve never gone hungry in a storm, although in the blizzard of 1978 we ran out of everything except the wonderful half a beef a kind church family had put in our freezer a month before. We ate beef three meals a day.
Our Angie voiced a complaint I’d never heard before and haven’t heard since, “I’m tired of steak! I want a casserole!”
Ready or not, storms will come, and often they blindside us. It’s then the things we’ve stockpiled help us survive.
You guessed it; I’m about to get all metaphorical on you. Along with God, the family and friends I’ve “stockpiled” through the years are my shelter in life’s storms. I know they’re praying for me. The Scripture I’ve read and learned by heart comes to my aid too.
As blind Fanny Crosby said shortly before she died, holding a Bible close to her heart, “This book has nurtured my entire life.”
I love to read and have saved hundreds, probably thousands of quotes on three by five cards I keep organized by subject in my antique library card cabinet. I’ve memorized so many of them, and they help me.
Quotes like this give me courage: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
We had a college professor who said “G.I.G.O.” ad nauseum, but guess what? I still remember it; so, he achieved his goal, at least with one of us. It stood for Garbage In, Garbage Out.
The opposite is true too. Good In, Good Out. Let’s stockpile our souls with all good things that can come out to sustain us when we face the blizzards of life, because oh, my friend, we will face them. If we’re prepared, we can be like the “householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” –Matthew 13:52
Don’t despair if you haven’t put many good things into your cupboards and your spiritual pantry is bare. It’s never too late to start. I have a wonderful promise for you to stockpile, and it’s one that will carry you through all of life’s storms and into eternity: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” –Romans 10:9-10
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, our promised storm did come. And we didn’t run out of mustard.
There she was, just a tiny field mouse curled up in a bag in the garden. Kimmee found her and told us the mouse was grieving the loss of her family, and everything in the bag smelled like her loved ones and was making her life intolerable.
“Let’s put this in the bag.” John pulled out of his pocket a facemask he’d worn to the doctor. “It will smell different to the mouse and cover the old scents. She can build a new nest in the mask and be happy again.”
Kimmee nodded. “Okay, Dad. We could try that.”
I objected. “Honey, the poor mouse will think she lives in a hospital, and what kind of life is that? She’ll be even more miserable than she is now!”
Then I woke up.
The dream reminded me of another mouse tale. When I was younger, and our kids were small I was push mowing our yard. A scurrying movement caught my attention, and I stopped the small mower just in time. A trembling mouse stood on her back legs looking at me, front paws folded like she was praying. Her whiskers and the rest of her trembled in fright. Why, I wondered, wasn’t she running away?
Then I saw them, tiny, pink, hairless mouse babies. I called the kids to come see them. Even with the kids crowding close Mama mouse stood there, looking at us. Then she picked up one baby by the back of its neck, the way a mother cat carries a kitten, and ran off with it.
“Will she come back?” one of the kids asked.
“I bet she will. Let’s watch and see.”
A few minutes passed, and Mama mouse, still shaking with fear, came back for baby number two. I think there were five babies. It took her awhile to move them all, but Mama mouse saved every pink baby from us giant people and the monster mower. A mother’s love turned her mousey heart into a lion.
John and I both are rather mousey, at least regarding confrontation. We’d rather walk away. Though, when the occasion calls for firmness, we have what it takes, or rather, God gives it to us.
Mess with our kids and these two mice become lions.
When Johnnie and Danny were in grade school, two school bullies, we’ll call them “Billy” and “Larry” picked on them mercilessly. One day, John had all he could take.
He did something no parent could get away with now. He went to school when the boys were in gym class.
“May I help you, Pastor Poole?” the gym teacher asked.
“I need to talk to Billy and Larry,” John said.
The teacher sent the two boys to the rear of the gym, where they stood, backs against the wall.
“My boys are a lot smaller than you, aren’t they?” John asked.
Billy and Larry looked at each other. They knew exactly where this was going. They nodded.
“And I’m a lot bigger than you, right?” John asked.
More nods.
“I’ll tell you what. The next time you feel like picking a fight with someone, you call me. I’ll come right over.”
“Everything okay back there, Pastor Poole?” the gym teacher called.
“It is now,” John replied. “You can have these two back.”
Our sons were embarrassed because their dad went to school to fight their battles, but it worked.
Until brain surgery left me without a filter—you know—that thing that says, “Stop! Don’t say it,” I was terribly shy. I never confronted anyone about anything, especially not at church, until that one day. When I needed my lion’s heart, I found it, just like the little mouse in our yard.
Kimmee was about five years old when one of her little friends got into trouble with her mother and told her Kimmee had done it. Kimmee told the woman she hadn’t done it.
I entered the room just in time to hear the end of the conversation, or rather, just in time to end it. The woman was screaming at Kimmee, calling her a liar. Kimmee’s eyes were huge, and she was shaking so hard she could barely stand.
“Whoa!” I pushed myself between the two of them. “You do not ever, ever scream at my daughter!”
She muttered something and stomped off. I expected to hear more about it later, but I never did.
When our kids are grown, they no longer need our protection, or do they?
After our four were adults, I kept having the same nightmare. They were all little again, and I could see a tornado coming across the fields. I’d get one child safely in the basement, and just as I was taking two more down, that one would laugh, run by me, and escape outside. The kids made it into a game and ignored my warnings.
One day I told our daughter-in-law, Mindy, about the dream.
“I know why you’re dreaming that,” she said. “You’re afraid you can’t protect them anymore now that all of them are grown up.”
Everyone should have a Mindy. She’s pretty wonderful and quite wise. Her dream interpretation must have been right because I never had that nightmare again.
It’s an illusion, isn’t it, thinking we can keep our kids safe no matter what age they are? Like Mama mouse, we’ll grow a lion’s heart and risk anything to try to protect them, but so much of life is beyond our control. We couldn’t protect any of ours from the near-death experiences and accidents they had. Nor could we protect them from sorrow. And we still can’t, no matter how lion-like our mousey hearts grow.
What can we do for our family and friends, for all our loved ones? We can take them to God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
Oh God, who mends and uses broken things,
I don’t beg you spare my beloved the pain life brings.
I know they must travel a broken road,
Because that’s the only path there is, or so I’m told.
May tears show them the shortness of time.
Please, teach them to trust when life has no reason or rhyme.
Let heartaches make them tender to the weak
And more careful of any scornful word they might speak.
Please, give their hearts overflowing love to share,
Let nothing unloving feel comfortable there.
Hold them closely on these backroads of life,
And give them joy for the journey despite the strife.
I can’t always be here when things get tough,
But I know you’ll always be for them more than enough.
When life starts to crumble and fall apart,
Give them lion-like courage from your own strong heart.
If they must break, hold them, mend them, use them.
dedicated to all my friends who have received difficult news lately and to one dear friend in particular
I’m one tough bird; just ask my mate! I’m a northern cardinal and live in Wisconsin. Surviving these harsh, frigid winters with below zero wind chills and frequent snowstorms isn’t for the faint of heart! I’m used to below zero temperatures in December, January, and February. I must keep my body temperature between 105—108 degrees Fahrenheit to survive. I fluff my feathers and tense my muscles and shiver to stay warm. I can even drop my body temperature a few degrees to survive. My Maker taught me to seek shelter in pine trees, and people often see the brilliant red flash of my mate against the pines in our nesting area.
The other day I left the shelter of the pine where I was cuddling with my mate and flew off to explore. It was lightly snowing but a balmy twenty degrees, so I felt quite warm. I missed my mate; he wanted to sleep in that day, but my Maker is always with me, so I’m never lonely.
I blinked to clear my vision. Surely that couldn’t be what I thought it was, a woman lying in the snow without even a coat or a blanket!
“Maker! Do you see that? Why is she alone; has she no mate? And why is she crying?”
“Her mate died suddenly a few years ago. She’s crying because she just got some very bad news.”
“She shouldn’t be alone! She’ll get sick, lying out here in the snow in the freezing cold. Has she no friends?”
“She is very sick already, the kind of sick that has no recovery. And she has many friends.”
“Why aren’t they here with her? Isn’t that what friends are for?”
“Little Cardinal, will you fly back in time with me? I want to show you something.”
“No, I won’t go with you. I don’t want to leave her alone like this.”
“She won’t be alone. I will be with her.”
“But, Maker, you just said you’d be taking me back in time.”
“I am everywhere. I am in what you call past, present, and future. It is all now to me. I hold it in the palm of my hand.”
I looked at Maker. I had no idea what he was saying but gathered he could somehow be back in time with me, and here with the poor broken woman. I didn’t want to leave her, but what could be so important that Maker wanted me to go?
“Okay, I’ll go with you if it won’t take too long.”
Maker laughed. It sounded like thunder, or waterfalls, or like music coming out of a great cathedral my grandfather told me he’d once heard.
“It will take less than what you call a minute.”
Suddenly we were at a pit, a hole in the ground. I peered down into it and saw an emaciated man sunk in mud up to his waist. His eyes had the glaze of a dying man. He looked reproachfully at Maker, but he said nothing; he didn’t even cry out for help.
“Who is he, Maker? Why is he in that horrible pit?”
“His name is Jeremiah. Wicked men threw him in that pit for preaching the words I told him to say.”
“And you let this happen to him! Why?”
“I would gladly explain, little cardinal, if you could understand. But watch. I brought you here to see something.” He nodded and I looked.
A group of men hurried to the pit. They hollered down, “Jeremiah, we’re throwing down a rope. Put it under your arms so we can pull you up. Pad your arm pits with these old rags we’re sending down, so the rope won’t hurt.”
“That’s what real friends do,” Maker said to me. “They came to rescue him and thought of everything possible for his comfort.”
Suddenly, we were back in the snow. The light snow that had been falling earlier had become a storm now. The woman wasn’t crying anymore, but a tear had frozen on her pale cheek. Her lips and eyelids had turned a pale blue. I knew she was alive though, because she was shivering, the way I do to bring my body temperature up.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it, Maker? She’ll be alright now that she’s shivering.”
He shook his head. “She is getting hypothermia. She will die alone here in the snow if a friend doesn’t come.”
“I don’t understand. You said she has many friends. Why don’t they come help her like Jeremiah’s friends did him?”
“It’s easier to come when you can actually do something to help. Her friends can’t change her diagnosis. They can’t pull her out of her pit. They can’t bring her mate back. They can’t change the fact the time she has left will be very painful for her. They feel helpless and uncomfortable, not knowing what to say or do. They have no idea how much she needs them now. So, they stay away when they could do something to help her today.”
“All of them? Won’t even one come?”
“Watch and see.”
I sat near my Maker, and he sat close to the woman, giving her warmth and comfort she knew nothing of.
Time passed, and I heard footsteps in the snow.
“Emilia, honey, do you want to talk?”
The woman shook her head and sat up. “Talking is the last thing I feel like doing. Go home, Kathryn.”
Kathryn was carrying a thermos and a thick quilt. She poured steaming tea from the thermos, and Emilia drank. She wrapped the quilt around Emilia and tucked her in until every inch of skin was covered.
Kathryn sat in the snow next to Emilia and put her arms around her. She didn’t say a word to her. She just looked at the Maker, and he nodded and smiled at her. I think they were talking silently about Emilia. After a while, Emilia put her head on her friend’s shoulder and slept.
“Go home and back to your mate,” Maker said to me. “Cuddle and enjoy every minute I give to you. Your time will come too, as it has for Emilia. You will count yourself blessed then if you have even one friend who knows how to just suffer silently with you in the snow and pray.”
“But…will they be alright? Emilia and her friend?”
“They will both be more than alright. Their friendship will deepen here and continue forever.”
Cardinals don’t cry, but I hid my head in my wing for a minute.
“Master, when my time comes, will you sit next to me in the snow?”
“You do know who sits beside the dying sparrow, don’t you?”
And then he laughed his beautiful laugh again, Emilia’s friend heard it; her eyes filled with tears, and she smiled a grateful smile. Emilia woke; Kathryn helped her to her feet, and they walked back through the woods to a little house.
I don’t know what happened after that.
I flew home and talked to my mate about how Maker holds past, present, and future in his hand, and how he doesn’t let any of his children suffer alone in the storm. We cuddled and fell asleep counting our blessings, fearing nothing, not the cold, not the storm, and not our time to die in the snow.
Photo Credit: Jenny Bowers, Sycamore Lane Photography
