by Donna Poole

The little girl had a perfectly heart shaped face, long, dark brown braids, and almost black eyes. She watched, brown eyes dancing with excitement, as I opened my Christmas gift from her, one she’d saved pennies, nickels, and dimes to buy me. I was a year older, and she knew I wanted gold colored doll-sized silverware.

There it was in my hands, the silverware I’d longed for but never really expected to have. I looked at her happy smile, and then I did something so unbelievably cruel tears still sting my eyes when I remember. We’d been fighting, some little girl sister argument over something now long forgotten.

“I don’t want this stupid stuff,” I said to Mary. “You keep it.”

She didn’t say a word, but her face. Oh, that sweet face. Her lips trembled. Tears spilled out of those dark eyes and ran down her cheeks. I did love the gift. I was sorry for the words the minute I said them. It was a lesson it would take me a lifetime to learn; there is no taking back cruel words once said.

Mom grabbed the gift from my hands and gave it to Mary. “Donna, you will never touch these as long as you live. Do you hear me? Never.”

And I never did.

Many years later I finally apologized, and Mary forgave me, but the memory lingers of a wonderful gift rejected and the sweet giver deeply hurt. 

***

I’m getting familiar with my pattern now. I get chemotherapy and a trial drug on Tuesday. By Thursday my five “sick as a dog” days begin.

Someone first wrote the phrase “sick as a dog” in 1705, so it has been around for awhile now! Back then dogs were often stray creatures, usually sick, and left to die unaided in the streets. People didn’t value their lives the way we do now.

I feel for those dogs, lying sick in the streets during my sick as a dog days, Thursday through Monday. I’m too sick to appreciate the beautiful gift of life; I just survive. By late Monday afternoon I start to rejoin the land of the living just in time to drag myself to the hospital for Tuesday’s injection of the trial drug. But! That Tuesday I get just the trial drug and any thing else I need depending on blood counts, NO chemotherapy. On the way home God wipes a film from my eyes and once again I see.

Remember being a kid, swinging high, lying back in the swing. and looking at life from upside down? Breathtaking, wasn’t it? It’s like that when I once again see.

I reach for John’s hand, and he smiles at me. I love how boyish his smile still is, and the way he jokes about driving Miss Donna and never complains about the many hours he spends in the car. I think about how lovely my care team is, doctors, nurses, the lady who schedules everything, and the phlebotomists, especially the one who finds me every week, no matter where I am, and gives me a Bible verse to help me through the day. I picture home and know it will be spotless when I get there, because our daughter, Kimmee, not only cooks gourmet meals, but she also cleans, gardens, and does a hundred other things.

We pull out of the parking lot and ease our way into traffic, and I grin at how young the pedestrian traffic is, students and hospital employees, riding bikes, walking fast, jogging, and running, ponytails swinging side to side. Live kids, live! The world needs your youth, your energy, your enthusiasm.

When we get out of the city, I catch my breath at the beauty of nature’s bounty. It has rained, and June is green with hope. So many different shades of green combine to make one glorious watercolor wash. Flowers brighten the landscape. I’m a tree hugger from way back. If I only had the energy, I’d ask John to stop the car so I could get out and throw my arms around the rough bark of one and thank God for its Creator.

I’ll feel better for a few days now until its time for chemo again Tuesday.

Last Sunday I curled up in bed barely alert, only awake enough to know I was sicker than a dog. This Sunday Kimmee will take me to parking lot church. I might even put my hand over my heart and try to sing if I don’t run out of breath. I know I’ll cry; I seldom make it through a parking lot church service without grateful tears. And Kimmee won’t laugh or roll her eyes. She’ll just hug me or touch my arm and ask if I’m okay.

Later that day we’ll finally celebrate Easter with our kids and grandkids. We’ll watch the grandkids hunt for eggs in the grass at our son and daughter in law’s house and give them their Easter baskets. We’ll take off our masks long enough to eat together. Our son or daughter-in-law will probably build a fire, and we’ll sit around it and laugh and talk and love every minute together until the last ember.

Can we ever cherish the gift of life too much? If we take it for granted, if we let our trials rub off the shine until only the gray remains, are we throwing the gift back at its Creator? “I don’t want this stupid stuff. You keep it.”

In our dog days we may be incapable of loving life; everyone has those survival mode days. But when we can, let’s hug the people we love and the trees too; let’s laugh and sing and put our hands over our hearts and cry. Because life is good. Oh, what a wonderful gift!

by Donna Poole

There once was a whaler from Pompeii,

            Who went ashore to sashay,

            But instead went to church,

            And was forced there to perch

            For a two hour long flowery homily that went neither fore nor aft and said nothing.

            The kind old whaler probably not from Pompeii,

            Wished he had gone to sashay.

            Looked around church sooner.

            Rig was a bark not schooner.

            Its grand tonnage was packed but most of its cargo was sleeping.

            The wise old whaler definitely not from Pompeii,

            Almost stood to sashay.

            Knew the Cap’n wasn’t heard,

            Didn’t even know windward,

            He for sure didn’t have a harpoon onboard and if you aim at nothing you hit it. Always.

By me with apologies to all real poets

So, what did I see from where I sat in the hospital room last week? Once I stopped feeling like a snail too weak to pull its hinder parts back into its shell—that’s not entirely allegorical; don’t ask, I could think. I remembered a story I read early in our ministry and laughed. A whaler did go to church on shore leave and listened to a similar homily described above. As the whaler tried to slip out of church, the clergyman stopped him and asked what he thought of the sermon. Being a kind man, he wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, he responded.

“Well, matey, you had fine words, but you had no harpoon on board.”

Would you believe that story has, perhaps more than anything, shaped John’s preaching ministry and my writing? When John first graduated from college and became John Poole, BA in theology, and ThB in Bible and theology, his sermons were more informational.

When he asked me what I thought after an unusually information-only packed sermon, I’d ask him, “What was your harpoon, matey?”

I sometimes regret that question now when the harpoon touches me! And he never gets behind the pulpit without a harpoon onboard.

The same is true in my writing. Informational writing is fine if that is the writer’s goal. What’s my goal when I write? If I don’t know my goal, I’m wasting my time and yours.

So, I grinned when I thought of that story in the hospital and looked around for harpoons for you and for me. I could find some for me, but I guess you’ll have to find your own!

I found my first harpoon. It had “Jesus” written on the side. Sometimes I forget that Jesus is the hub of the wheel of my life.

I promise I’m not digressing. We saw a twelve-year old on the news who just graduated from high school and college at the same time. He’s quite the goal-driven kid!

I told John, “When I was twelve my goal was to get my cards to stay on the spokes of my bike with clip clothes pins because they made the coolest sound.”

Obviously, I was not the goal-driven kid on the news.

I loved riding my bike. But what if the hub of my bike had been off center so some spokes were longer and some shorter? You can imagine how well that tire would go around! When Jesus is the center of my life, the spokes are even. I don’t mean my life is easy or perfect. I mean things are more balanced.

So, I try to keep the main thing the main thing. Many other things matter dearly to me: family, church family, friends, my writing, my readers, finding joy, and so much more. These are my harpoons in life, my goals, the things that matter. Cancer is my great reminder that we don’t have earth-time forever, and now is when I better polish up my harpoons and stop getting tangled in the million and one nets that don’t matter.

I said you had to find your own harpoons, and so you do. But here’s what I see from where I sat in the hospital room. I see a harpoon with your name on it, because if you’re someone in my life, or just someone who reads what I write, you matter to me. That harpoon may be the most important thing I ever give you because it will prepare you for this life, and for eternity. Next to your name it has the name Jesus and John 3:16: “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.”

Notice it doesn’t say get eternal life by being a good person, or being a good Catholic, or a Baptist. There are only two names on that harpoon, your name and His. Those two are more than enough for here and forever. And that’s what I saw from where I sat.  

by Donna Poole

Just a few blocks from the hospital the busy traffic narrowed its way into one lane. The huge CAT machine in the other lane hit the road pavement repeatedly with ear splitting noise, breaking it into huge chunks, scooping them into its bucket, raising them high, and dumping them with satisfyingly loud thumps into a waiting semi.

She watched fascinated as the CAT yanked up a big piece of road and dumped it. “Look! It got Morticia! She’s gone.”

He laughed and kept driving.

She prayed in her heart the rest of the way to the hospital. “Make it so, Lord. Let this treatment be the one that works. Yank Morticia out and dump her in a semi somewhere. But I’ll love and bless you either way.”

She’d had been so sick since the last treatment. She hadn’t known if she’d be able to get here today. But God and her medical team had helped her, and here she was, a few blocks from the hospital, where there would be another chance to whisper, “Die, Morticia, die you stubborn lung tumor.”

***

They were camping, the two old lovers. They agreed, silly people that they were, that they much preferred camping in Old Bertha, their 1988 fifth wheel with her perpetual problems, to a cruise, or a trip to Cancun, or Hawaii. Not that they could afford any of those camping alternatives, but even if they could, they’d still pick Bertha.

It had been a satisfying day of short hikes. They were slower on the trails now than they used to be, far slower, but with the health problems they’d both overcome, they thanked God they could still hike at all. They held hands whenever possible. Young lovers should remember life is too short not to hold hands.

They had cooked supper together over the fire in their favorite spot at Brown County State Park, a remote section where it was quiet, and they could be alone. Now they were sitting at a campfire, listening to its love language. A campfire always has words for those who listen.

She was tired and started dozing in her chair.

“It’s getting late, honey, do you want to go inside and go to sleep?”

“Oh, please, no. Let’s stay here until the last ember burns out.”

And so, they did. They kept moving their chairs closer to the fire to share its last warmth, remembering old times, and dreaming new dreams. The stars came out. Finally, shivering but with hearts full of contented gratitude, they put away the camp chairs and went to bed, sleeping the deep sleep that held the promise of many tomorrows together.

***

“Donna, are you still doing okay?” The kind nurse smiled as he looked around the curtain.

“Thank you, Bryant. I’m fine. I guess I fell asleep.”

“That’s okay! You’re here so many hours today. Sleep all you can. Can I get anything for you?”

“No thank you. I’m really fine.”

And she was. Because God would be with her until the last ember burned out, hopefully after many more years of wandering down these backroads, and then a future more beautiful than any dream would begin and never end.

by Donna Poole

Miracles happen every day especially in the month of May.

When I was a child, we folded triangular pieces of construction paper into cones at school to make May baskets we could fill with flowers we found on the way home. We were delighted to discover violets but were happy even with dandelions. We’d hang a basket on a doorknob, often our own, knock or ring a bell, and run, hide, and watch to see the happy reaction the gift brought. Bless moms and grandmas everywhere for expressing joy over dandelions!

We moved from southern New York State to the northern part after I finished fourth grade. Those were my happiest childhood years, but spring crept slowly into that snow belt land. There was never even a dandelion in sight on May first, so there were no May baskets.

I do remember a teacher constructed a beautiful maypole for us with colored streamers. We sang a song to welcome spring and “danced” around the maypole, weaving the streamers together. It was like side-stepping into another world, squinting up into the blue sunlit sky and watching those streamers weave together; I caught my breath at the magical beauty of being part of it.

It was great fun until my mother, who opposed dancing in all its forms, found out about it. She insisted not only was a maypole wrong because it included dancing, but it was a pagan tradition, and I, who had been often forbidden to dance at school, knew better.

I suppose I did know better, but I didn’t regret it even after Mom’s punishment. I was an incorrigible child who seldom repented of a “crime” if there had been any fun involved. And that maypole had been more than fun; it had been a miracle of celebration and community I felt but only vaguely understood at the time.

Isn’t May a month of miracles? Though our late April snow and freeze killed the bleeding hearts, we’re welcoming May with lilacs dancing and weaving for joy. The lily of the valley, our ground cover, will bloom with abandon this month too, as will many other perennials. If children on our backroads want to fill May baskets, they have many flowers to choose from. Just yesterday we passed a field that looked like someone had planted dandelions; it was acres of sunshine.

Sunshine, fresh air, family, friendships old and new, the fragrance of flowers and freshly cut grass are all gifts to me, new from the hand of God who, miracle of miracles, loves even me, His sometimes still incorrigible child.

I don’t like every event of my life, but my Lord, with loving, nail-pierced hands, weaves them together like streamers on a maypole, and when I squint up into the blue, sunlit sky, I catch my breath at the magical beauty of what I can see.

A college friend died of cancer this past year. As he fought his cancer, he told his family, “Now is the time to practice our theology.”

Now John and I say that to each other. My cancer is a bitter life ingredient, and we don’t like how it tastes, but do we still believe God is good and loving? That’s our theology, isn’t it? Yes, we do believe it, despite fluctuating daily feelings, because we long ago learned to judge God’s love by one thing only: the cross. It was there He proved His love for us. It was there He took our sins into His heart, felt the guilt and shame of each one, and suffered and died for us. And then came another miracle; He rose again.

I know Easter didn’t happen in May, but each year May seems like a resurrection of joy to me. I’m glad I’m here to see it, to rejoice in its beauty, and to celebrate its hope, its many miracles. I’m glad for the miracle of the support and love of community. We’re here to walk, to dance each other Home, to weave our maypole streamers together into something better than ourselves.

I’m expecting my own personal miracle any day now. After a week of less than fun tests that aren’t on anyone’s bucket list, I’m hoping to hear I’m accepted into a clinical drug trial at University of Michigan Hospital. They’ve already set up an appointment for me to get my first dose of the drug on Tuesday. We’re just waiting for the drug company’s final approval.

So what if my balance is off and somedays my walk looks more like a stumble? Does anyone know where there is a maypole? Point me to it; I’ll dance! Do you want to meet me there? And Mom, now in heaven and probably dancing for joy herself, will understand.

by Donna Poole

“Go to your room. Stay there. Don’t let anyone in. Don’t come out. Don’t walk in your yard. Don’t go to parks.”

I’m under house arrest without the ankle tether!

Mom often sent me to my room but never without a spanking first. Back in the day there was no cut off age for spankings. Moms didn’t seem to realize that if spankings hadn’t worked by a certain age, they weren’t likely to work at all. So, if you were a member of my family, you got spanked right up to high school graduation.

I knew a man who was engaged when his dad ordered him to lie over the hood of the car. He did as he was told; the dad took off his belt and gave his son what he thought he deserved.

We may shudder now, but that was not all that uncommon back in the day.

I never told Mom how much I loved being sent to my room. Blessed peace and quietness, not to mention I always had a book somewhere in my room, often under my pillow. And even if Mom ordered me not to read, I did anyway. I had a conscience as a child; it just wasn’t terribly active.

Alone in my room I could lose myself in The Five Little Peppers, a world where the mom struggled to provide for her five beloved children and never used a belt on any of them.

Or, I could be Jo in Little Women, the outspoken tomboy who loved to write. Her mother didn’t spank her or her three sisters. They called her Marmee. I thought my three sisters and I could use a mother more like that. I managed to ignore the fact that the children in my book world behaved much better than I did in my real world and weren’t driving their Marmee crazy.

Despite the frequent spankings, I loved my real world every bit as much as my book world. We had many wonderful adventures growing up, and not all of them were against the rules!

I still love retreating to my room to read, write, or watch a movie. “Go to your room!” isn’t a punishment for me, but it has been a few years since I’ve heard it, like maybe fifty-five? So, I chuckled when I read it in my patient portal.

“Go to your room. Stay there. Don’t let anyone in. Don’t come out. Tell someone to slide food under your door. Don’t walk in your yard. Don’t go to parks.” That may be a loose translation.

After yesterday’s bone marrow biopsy and Covid test, the doctors want me to isolate so I’m healthy for tomorrow’s bronchoscopy when they will go into my lungs and grab pieces of Morticia for study purposes. They can only take a few small pieces of her for this biopsy, but who knows? Maybe they’ll get her heart, and it will be a fatal wound. Won’t miss you a bit, MorTish!

Immediately after the lung biopsy I’ll have a PET scan. They scheduled a brain CT for Friday. As you may have guessed, I’m in the process of qualifying for the clinical trial! The trial will involve 130 people in the United States and Europe including five from University of Michigan Hospital.

You want the big medical terms for the clinical trial? No? Skip this paragraph. It’s arm five of an “open-label trial to assess the safety and preliminary efficacy of Epcoritamab in combination with other agents in subjects with B cell non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.”

Epcoritamab has two strong arms; it grabs a T-cell and a cancer cell and hauls them close together.

Then the T-cell says, “Ah ha! I see you now, oh my enemy, you lurking no-good scoundrel! So your name is Morticia? Prepare to die!” And the fight is on.

The trial lasts a year, and I will need to visit the hospital so many times that I’m going to love going to my room at home. John says he loves driving Miss Daisy, but he’s going to appreciate crashing in our room too!

Do you wonder what the rooms in heaven are like? John 14:2 says, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Other translations say, “many rooms.”

Will we each have our own room? I doubt we’ll feel the need to retreat from each other the way we do here, but there is something special about a place of one’s own to reflect, to read, to create.

I think we’ll each have our own rooms and be free to go there whenever we want. Perhaps we’ll visit each other’s rooms, unless the “No Visitors, Please,” sign is out.

I’ll find Mom’s room and tell her how much I love her and how grateful I am for all the times she said, “Go to your room!”

by Donna Poole

Our adorable four-year-old granddaughter, Ruby, hurried to meet John and me as we carried our chairs to the bonfire. She glanced back at our car and asked about missing family members. We explained.

Ruby looked at the people already gathered in the yard and asked, “Is this all that’s coming?”

We nodded.

“Well, that’s a short number.” Ruby thought for a minute and added, “But if we all end up going inside, it won’t feel like a short number!”

We laughed. No, Ruby, if we had ended up inside the seven adults and five kids would have felt like a much longer number!

I’ve been grinning about that “short number” all week, ever since last Monday night’s wonderful meal and bonfire at our son and daughter-in-law’s house. They agreed to wear masks even outside so I could come.

“We’ll wear hazmat suits if we have to to see you,” our son said.

The two C’s, Covid and cancer, and my team of doctors have grounded me for a year, and I used to think my mother was strict!

You don’t even want to hear the list of my restrictions, but I’ll just say this. Even now, fully immunized against Covid, I’m only allowed to see family and even they must mask up. In my world the inside of churches, stores, and restaurants no longer exists, and I miss my friends so much I feel a physical ache.

My body imposes its own restrictions on me. You’re going to clean, cook, converse, write, read, watch a movie, and make phone calls today? Good luck with that! Have fun waking up! And then I sleep another twenty hour stretch and hope for a Rip Van Winkle reprieve the next day.

If I let myself think that way, life could feel like a “short number” right now. But it isn’t. It’s still a long number.

Have you noticed how many things are a matter of perspective? I know the optimism thing can get a bit ridiculous, like one of my favorite jokes. Before I share it, I must digress.

I was telling family my memorial service wishes the other day, for two months from now or twenty years later down these rambling back roads.

“I don’t want a traditional funeral, just a memorial service. Maybe there could be coffee and donuts on the back table at church, just like there used to be at the church services I loved so much. Sing lots of songs about heaven. No long sermon, just have someone talk about how to know Jesus. John, I don’t want you to feel you must do it; it might be too hard. I’d love to have our church board members oversee my memorial service. I love them, and they know and love me. Do you think they would do it?”

John hugged me. “You could ask them.”

“They can say whatever they want, and anyone else there can too. Maybe someone can tell my favorite jokes.”

“Mom! Your favorite jokes?” Kimmee looked startled.

Now I’ll stop digressing and tell you my favorite optimist joke. An optimist fell out of a nineteenth story window. As he passed the ninth-floor window, on the way to the ground, people heard him shouting, “So far, so good!”

We laugh at that joke. We laugh because it’s ridiculous, absurd, and wonderful.

Life might look like a short number for me right now, but I’m shouting, “So far, so good!”

I’m blessed with a super abundance of caring family and friends who pray me and help me through every day.

The bonfire was perfect. I sat there watching the leaping flames, loving the faces of our family, hearing the kids laughing and playing on the lighted trail in the woods, and feeling the warmth of the fire on my face. I wanted to stay forever because I knew what we should all remember; every time may be the last time, and life is too short for anything but love.

We had to say goodbye and go our separate ways, but we have the blessing of that memory to cherish forever, and we have something even more precious than that.

When John Wesley, the great circuit riding preacher was dying, he said, “Best of all, God is with us.”

Because God is with us, life is never a short number.

Eli Part Three

by Donna Poole

Should she call a physician? The boy refused to eat, drink, or sleep. He’d sat in that corner since Friday afternoon, over twenty-four hours now, not crying, not speaking, staring straight ahead. Sometimes he banged his head into the wall over and over until she thought he’d damage his brain, if he had any left after that terrible sight he’d seen of his king, the man he loved, beaten, tortured, and dying on a cross. It was enough to drive a grown man mad, let alone a seven-year-old boy.

The grandmother tried to comfort him by telling him what she had heard.

“Eli, his brave friends, Joseph, and Nicodemus took his body from the cross and put it in Joseph’s new tomb in a beautiful garden. They wrapped it in linen with seventy-five pounds of costly myrrh and aloes that Nicodemus bought. Seventy-five pounds, Eli! Normal burials use five pounds; only royal burials use seventy-five.  Perhaps Nicodemus agrees with you that your Jesus of Nazareth was a king.”

The boy moaned and started banging his head into the wall again.

“Eli, please, stop that and listen! They rolled a huge stone in front of the tomb so no grave robbers or wild animals could get inside!”

Eli made an animal like sound himself and banged his head more furiously.

What could she do? The grandmother felt like banging her head into a wall herself. She had tried everything, offering Eli his favorite foods, telling him stories he usually loved, singing him psalms. Nothing worked.

I don’t think the child even sees me, and I shudder to think what he is seeing.

When it came time to lie on their sleeping mats Eli did just as he had done Friday night, sat in the corner, knees up to his chin, arms wrapped around his legs, and refused to move. She and the ancient one went to their mats, but she doubted either of them would sleep any better than they had the night before.

Hours passed, and Eli did not make a sound. At least the head banging had stopped. Could he be sleeping?

She almost jumped when the ancient one recited a phrase from a psalm, “He gives his beloved sleep.”

Shocked, she heard Eli stumble toward the ancient one’s sleeping mat. She could picture him curled up next to his great-grandfather, seeking comfort. Eli said nothing, but finally the tears came, man sized sobs, terrible to hear from such a small child.

“I know, boy. I know,” the quavering voice of the ancient one said. “Let it out.”

It seemed Eli would never stop sobbing. The grandmother too had a psalm. She cried it aloud as a prayer. “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Before sunrise, the grandmother felt Eli shaking her. “It is almost morning, Bubbe. What joy? What joy is coming today?”

Now what do I say? I don’t want him going back to that corner again.

“Go back to sleep, Eli. It is not morning yet.”

“No.” His voice was stubborn. “There is something I must do, Bubbe. I am going to the garden tomb.”

“What do you intend to do there? Do you know the Roman soldiers are guarding that tomb? Will you provoke them again? You barely escaped with your life the last time!”

“No, I do not know why, but I am not angry with the soldiers anymore. But I must go to the garden tomb. You stay here with the ancient one. I will be fine. I am almost a man now, Bubbe.”

She agreed that sadly the last few days had advanced him toward manhood far quicker than she would have wished, but he was far from grown.

“We will go together. Quiet, now; do not wake the ancient one.”

The sky was getting lighter as they neared the garden. She could see Eli’s matted hair and tear- streaked face now, and she felt a physical pain in her heart.

“What is it you need to do here, Eli?”

But the boy was once again silent.

The grandmother had never in all her years seen such a garden. The sun just lifting over the hills shined through the flowers that reflected the colors of heaven. The air smelled sweeter than a dream.

Eli shrugged out of his little white coat and ran toward the tomb.

Where does he think he is going? If those soldiers see him!

But there were no soldiers.

Eli looked at her and pointed at the huge stone rolled back from the tomb’s entrance.

“Eli, do not go in there!”

“But that is why I came, Bubbe. I want to cover the feet of the king with my coat, so he won’t be cold.”

“Eli El-Bethel, Martha El-Bethel, come to me, my children.”

Stunned, the grandmother looked at the man sitting on the garden bench. He held out his arms, and she saw nail prints in his palms. How could this be? She remembered Mary’s words, “He is my son, and the son of God.”

She hesitated, but Eli ran into the man’s arms. Both the man and the boy were laughing and crying tears of joy.

“King, why did you let them nail you to that cross?”

“I died for a greater kingdom than you can imagine. I died for the sin of every person ever born or ever yet to be born. I took sin into my heart, there on the cross, accepted its punishment, and made it not to be. Do you believe me, Eli?”

“It is true, then?” the grandmother asked. “You are the son of God?”

“Yes,” Jesus smiled. “Come to set you free and make you new just as you prayed, Martha El-Bethel. Do you believe me?”

The old one and the child both became new that day.

“Go now,” Jesus said to Eli, “and be a strong soldier in my kingdom. You have a weapon so strong nothing can stand against it.”

“I do?”

Jesus smiled at him. “You have love. You will live love, and you will teach love. Your Bubbe will be your first pupil.”

Eli clung to him. “I do not want to leave you.”

“I will be with you always, but we both have our work to do now.”

Eli and Grandmother turned to leave.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jesus held out his arm and Eli laid his little white coat across it.

Jesus touched the coat gently. “Thank you, my son.”

He looked deeply into the grandmother’s eyes.

“I will,” she promised.

“You will what, Bubbe?” Eli asked.

But she just smiled.

That night, after Eli and the ancient one were sleeping, the grandmother began making two coats, a little one for Eli, and a bigger one to help the ancient one feel warm and loved. For the first time in her life, Martha El-Bethel felt warm, loved, and not alone. She remembered the king’s words, “I will be with you always.” It was true. He was with her, in her heart, smiling with her at each loving movement she made.  

Eli Part Two of Three

by Donna Poole

“Bubbe, what do you think the king is doing?” the child asked a hundred times a day.

The old one tried to be patient. She remembered the words of the man they’d met on Sunday, the one Eli insisted was king, the Messiah come to free Israel from Roman Rule. The man had leaned down from his donkey and had spoken to her about Eli:

“Martha El-Bethel, God will use this lad in His kingdom. You have loved him well, but fewer ear boxings and more hugs would please the Father.”

She had boxed Eli’s ears only once since that Sunday. Not only had she boxed Eli’s ears, but she had also cuffed the ears of the ancient one, her own father. She shuddered and covered her face with her wrinkled hands, remembering.

Eli had begged to put the ancient one at the table with them instead of at the little table where she usually sat him. His hands shook so; he spilled every other bite, and watching him eat destroyed her appetite. For years he’d eaten at his own table in silence.

What had come over Eli that he insisted the ancient one sit next to him at their table? She still didn’t know.

She gave in, tied the ancient one’s bib around his neck, and helped him to a chair. She avoided looking at him eat, but she could hear his noisy chewing with the few teeth he had left, and it was driving her mad; still, she said nothing. But when the ancient one’s trembling hands knocked the cruet of goat’s milk into the loaf of bread she had worked so hard making, something snapped. She screamed at both him and Eli, slapped Eli’s face, and ears, and then turned her rage on her own father, doing the same to him.

Even as she beat the ancient one’s face, she remembered words from the Law about honoring one’s parents, but they did not stop her. Eli’s crying, pulling her robe, and begging her to beat him instead of the ancient one did not stop her. What finally stopped her were the tears of despair running down the wrinkles in her father’s swarthy cheeks and his prayer to Jehovah.

“Let me die, merciful One,” he begged. “Let me die.”

She paused fist raised and cried out to Jehovah herself, “Let me die too, or make me a new woman. I despise this person I have become.”

She bathed both their faces with a cloth dipped into warm water as her tears dripped down over her hands. Now they both ducked when she raised a hand to fix their hair, a gesture that cut her to the heart, but one she knew she deserved.

Eli stopped sleeping on his own mat. Each night when he thought Bubbe was sleeping he crept to the ancient one’s mat and curled up close to him. Grandmother heard him talking about the king.

“He is going to free us from the Romans, I know he is! And I think he is going to do more than that. I think he is going to change people. Maybe he will make even Bubbe kind, and then your life will be better. Do not cry! Are you cold? Let me cover you with my robe. I do not need it. Little boys do not get as cold as old ones.”

Grandmother half expected Eli to refuse when she asked if he wanted to go to market with her on Friday.

“Will the ancient one be alright alone, Bubbe? He has been sleeping a lot lately.”

“He will be fine. He has happy dreams of better days when he sleeps. Perhaps he dreams of your king.”

“I will come to the market! Maybe we will see the king again! I only saw him once, Bubbe, but I love him with all my heart!”

Eli slipped his hand in his grandmother’s as they walked, and for the second time that week, she felt something she had not felt in more years than she could count. She’d felt it when the man Eli called king looked at her. It was hope.

Eli heard the faint shouting and jeers before his grandmother did.

“King! King! King!”

Eli cried, “That’s coming from Golgotha! Bubbe, I think they have crucified the king!”

He started running.

“Eli! That hill is no place for a child! You will never unsee what you see there. Return to me at once!”

But Eli ignored her, and her old legs could not keep up with those of a seven-year-old.

As they got closer, they could hear the words of the crowd.

“He said he was the king. Let him come down from the cross. We’ll believe him then.”

“Look at him! He saved others, but he cannot save himself!”

“If you really are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”

By the time the grandmother reached the top of the hill she found a cluster of sobbing women comforting her little grandson who lay in a heap on the ground.

She reached down and touched him. “Eli! Come! We must leave this terrible place!”

The stench of blood and sweat was making her sick, and the laughter from those close to the three crosses sounded like a chorus of devils.

Eli jumped to his feet. Sobbing, he pointed at the middle cross. “Look, Bubbe! Look what they did to our king!”

Unwillingly she looked at a man who no longer seemed human; his flesh was so torn and beaten. A crown of thorns had been pushed deep into his head. Huge spikes pinned his hands to the cross, and to get a single breath of air he had to push up with his feet that had also been nailed to the wood. She had never imagined such a nightmare of suffering.

“Eli, that man looks nothing like the king you saw on the donkey. Perhaps he is another man. They only crucify criminals.”

“Bubbe, look at the sign!”

She read the sign nailed over the man’s head: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

“Eli, surely he is someone else.”

One of the crying women who had been comforting Eli gently touched her arm. “The lad is not mistaken. They have rejected and crucified their Messiah. I know it is him; he is my son.”

“Your son?”

She looked into the woman’s eyes.

“Yes, my son, and the son of God.”

Bubbe’s head swam. She could not have heard those words.

She looked around for Eli. She heard more laughter at the foot of the cross where Roman soldiers surrounded a small lad who was shouting at them.

Heart sinking, the grandmother hobbled as quickly as she could toward the boy.

“You Roman swine! You are killing the best man who ever lived. I hate you! When I grow up, I will find you, and I will kill you!”

The soldiers shoved him back and forth between them like he was a toy, laughing and mocking.

“Oh, we tremble with fear, you small Jewish zealot. Do you want to end up like this man, your king?”

The tallest soldier picked him up and held him high over his head so he could see the face of Jesus.

The soldier threw Eli to the ground. Not going into battle, the man wore no greaves to protect his legs. Furious, Eli wrapped his arms around a leg and bit until blood filled his mouth.

“Why you little son of Neptune!”

He shook Eli loose and drew back his foot to kick him in the head with murderous force, but two things happened.

Bubbe threw herself at the soldier, holding him and begging, “Please, no; he is but a lad.”

And a voice strong and sweet came from the middle cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

The soldier gently disentangled the old woman and said, “Take the lad home.”

Then that soldier stepped back, stared long at the middle cross, and thumped his heart once with his fist.

by Donna Poole

Eli tugged on the old one’s hand. “Listen, Bubbe! Do you hear all the shouting? Can we go see what is happening?”

“I will never finish at the market at this rate,” the old one grumbled. But his grandmother’s eyes looked as curious as Eli’s did. “I wonder what the commotion is. Pontius Pilate has already arrived in Jerusalem with his army of soldiers showing his strength lest we revolt during Passover.”

The old one pushed her tongue into her cheek as a sign of contempt and spat on the dirt, then looked fearfully around hoping none of the Roman governor’s men had seen her.

Eli was not afraid. “I wish we would revolt!” he shouted as only a seven-year-old can, stomping his foot. “This is God’s land and should be ruled by God’s people, the Jews, not by the Romans. I hate the Romans!”

“Hush, child! Do you learn that Zealot talk at synagogue school? I will forbid you to go if I hear any more!”

The old one cuffed his ears before he could get his hands up to protect them. She was furious because she was afraid for him, he knew. But hadn’t the holy Scriptures promised a Messiah, someone who would free them from foreign oppression? He wished he were big enough. He would fight those Romans!

The noise of the crowd was getting louder.

“Please, Bubbe, can we go see?” he begged.

“We will go. But do not get that coat dirty.”

With her rough hand she smoothed the white coat she had made for the boy. She expressed her love with blows, not hugs, but she’d burned candles many nights spinning wool for the coat for this boy she loved more than life itself.

Soon the two found themselves in a huge crowd that moved them forward. It stopped occasionally as people cut branches from the palm trees. They waved the branches in the air and shouted, “Hosanna! Save us now! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel!”

Eli caught his breath. “Bubbe! Do you hear? It is the Messiah, come to set us free! Now those Roman scoundrels will run for the hills! I want to see our king!”

Eli jumped up and down, trying to see over the heads of the adults packed in around him. The old one is tall. What is she seeing?

“He is no king,” his grandmother scoffed. “He is riding on a donkey’s colt and has not even one weapon.”

“Then it surely is him, Bubbe!  We learned in school the prophet Zechariah said our king would come riding on a donkey’s colt!”

The old one frowned at him, still skeptical, but hope lit her eyes. What kind of child was this to remember words from a dry prophet who had lived hundreds of years ago?

Now people were throwing palm branches onto the road to make a carpet for the king to ride on. Some were tossing their coats and cloaks on top of the branches to honor their king, their Messiah.

Just for a brief minute the crowd parted, and the man on the donkey looked deep into Eli’s soul and smiled. For the first time the little boy knew what it was to worship, to have so much joy and wonder spill up out of your heart your hands must give what they have. Quickly he shrugged out of his white coat and darted through the crowd. Just as he was ready to throw it down for this wonderful man, this king, he felt his arm wrenched up behind his back.

“What are you doing, you ungrateful wretch of a boy?” The old one snatched his coat from him and boxed an ear. “You will take the coat I went without sleep to make you and throw it in the dirt for this stranger?”

Tears filled Eli’s eyes as he looked up at the king.

The donkey stopped. The man bent down.

“Eli El-Bethel always remember this. What you would do, if you could do, in the eyes of God you have already done. Your heavenly Father thanks you.”

Then the man looked at the old one. “Martha El-Bethel, God will use this lad in His kingdom. You have loved him well, but fewer ear boxings and more hugs would please the Father.”

The donkey moved on. Stunned, Eli and the old one stared at each other.

“Your name is Martha? I did not know that. How did that man know our names? Is he a king? Do you think he is the Messiah? I am sure he is!”

The old one said nothing. She just stared after the man with a look on her face Levi had never seen before. She raised her hand, and Eli ducked, but she merely stroked his cheek. Then she put an arm around his shoulders, and the two of them walked home in silence. Eli didn’t say anything because he couldn’t erase the face of the man from his vision or stop hearing his words, “What you would do, if you could do, in the eyes of God you have already done. Your heavenly Father thanks you.”

Bubbe did not say a word because she was doing something Eli had never seen her do before. She was crying.

Among the weeds, the torn debris

Of strife, of weeping life;

In hearts struck low

A tiny flower grows.

Its name is Hope.

by Donna Poole

I was just a thought of God, four years from being born, when Bing Crosby crooned “Swinging on a Star” in 1944. I loved singing that song as a kid; I especially liked the verse about the pig. I giggled when I sang,

Or would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
And be better off than you are
Or would you rather be a pig?

A pig is an animal with dirt on his face
His shoes are a terrible disgrace
He has no manners when he eats his food
He’s fat and lazy and extremely rude
But if you don’t care a feather or a fig
You may grow up to be a pig.

I little guessed then that when I became an old lady, I’d want to be a pig. . .a guinea pig that is.

A guinea pig isn’t really a pig; it’s a rodent. Though not often used now for scientific experiments, guinea pigs were common subjects from the seventeenth through part of the twentieth centuries. They played an important role in medical research; in 1890 scientists used them to find the antitoxin for diphtheria, and who knows how many millions of lives that spared?

Since 1920 “guinea pig” has been a metaphor for anyone involved in a scientific experiment, and now I hope to be one.

Don’t be alarmed, I’m sane, well as sane as I ever was. I’m not off my rocker yet. That’s another fascinating idiom, don’t you think? It’s been around since the late 1800’s and may have originated with the idea of an older person being so unstable that he or she fell out of the rocking chair.

So, why do I aspire to be a rodent? Doctor K, my chemotherapy oncologist at University of Michigan hospital hopes to get me accepted into a drug trial called BiTE. It’s only in its second phase so the study is far from complete, but it looks promising for people with certain cancers, including lymphoma, that stubbornly resist other treatments.

Doctor K showed me my latest PET scan. He doesn’t think radiation helped; he thinks Morticia, my stubborn lung tumor looks bigger than ever. Since I’m considered chemo and radiation resistant, treatment options are limited.

He told me about the drug trial. “If I were you, I’d go for it,” he said.

I hope they accept me into the trial. I haven’t heard yet. So once again, we wait; we pray, and we live each day God gives us. This is the God who loves each one of us as though He had only one to love, the God who calls each star by name.

I don’t know if this new drug will help me or not; if it doesn’t, maybe my participation will help someone who comes after me who also has a stubborn Morticia.

I’ve done a bit of research about BiTE, and our daughter, Kimmee, and I were discussing some of the not so pleasant side-effects.

“I hope I don’t get the bloat,” I said.

 Kimmee laughed so hard she could barely talk. “Mom! All these horrible side-effects and all you can say is you hope you don’t get the bloat?”

Yep. That’s it. I’d like to swing on a few more stars, be better off than I “are,” see some more beautiful springs, and sit around many more crackling campfires with family and friends. To do that, I’ll be a pig, guinea that is.

But I don’t want the bloat. Said tongue-in-cheek—that idiom you can look up yourself.

Thank you for walking all these backroads with me, and happy spring!