Super Bowl Sunday

On Super Bowl Sunday, celebrating the most powerful NFL teams in our country, the most powerful words I heard were from my oldest son to his 89-year-old grandmother, who is recovering slowly from a devastating fall:  “Nana, I know you’re feeling emotionally low right now, but physically you’re growing stronger every day.” Those were the last words she heard before she went to sleep; hopefully, those were the words she thought about all night long for the long nights are the hardest for her to endure.

I certainly thought about his powerful words even though they weren’t intended for me. I thought about them because they reminded me that it’s the genuine concern and love and encouragement behind the words that make them powerful enough to affect someone else’s life.  Words that are felt, not just said. That’s the real power of words, words appropriate for more than just a Super Bowl Sunday.    

What's his last name?

Grasping my cold hands in his even colder ones, Roy’s  warm eyes held my gaze as they sparkled with curiosity undampened by his eighty years. He wanted to know who I was and why I was here; and he listened, intently, nodding while I explained my injured mother-in-law’s condition. Gazing into his peaceful blue eyes, completely at odds with his surroundings,  I was mesmerized.  His eyes sparkled, no, they twinkled – even twinkled doesn’t quite capture their sparkle – but his shining eyes completely captured my attention. I remember thinking to myself, “My mom’s got to meet Roy! He’s a catch!”  

As we visited, he told me about the other women in his life. One was a dark red-haired woman with nails to match who passed by while we chatted. He immediately grasped her hand, telling her how beautiful she was, which immediately brought a smile to her face, a smile which matched the one he seemed to wear at all times. A smile that radiated from his eyes. A smile people seemed to feel even when they could not see. And many couldn’t see well in this place.

The red-head talked a mile a minute, didn’t say much, but Roy listened to every word. And he always told her she was beautiful. And that was enough for her to make it through another day. Smiling. Sort of. Her eyes glistened with tears held back, while his eyes glimmered with encouragement. She needed to talk, and he knew how to listen.  

I knew Roy had listened to her a lot because he told me a lot about her. How she cried when she first came. How she kept to herself. How she wouldn’t socialize. But now – after Roy’s gift of listening -- she seemed more at peace with this place, not crying as much even though she was still angry and distraught for ending up in the last place she wanted to be. But at least she was at peace enough to smile at Roy as he took her hand and told her, I have no doubt for the gazillionth time, that she was beautiful. As she wheeled on, much happier now, he continued to smile and continued to scan the room, probably looking for someone else to encourage. Roy seemed to have found purpose in this place. He was an encourager. And with a twinkle in his eyes, he wheeled away with that purpose.  

Several hours later when we left to go home, I saw Roy focusing intently on a crossword puzzle in the living room.  I called, “Bye, Roy!” But he didn’t look up. I doubt he could hear me. But, oh, can he listen!

I thought about him on the drive home.

I thought about him when I woke up this morning.

I’m looking forward to seeing him again. I want to know his last name. I want to know more about this special man with the shining blue eyes. When I asked the other residents where they were from, they told me Houston or Katy or El Campo.  When I asked Roy where he was from, he told me, “Well, I live right here now.” I’m hoping Roy will be right there when I return to visit Nana. I like knowing he’s there. That the place is better because he’s there, caring about the people around him.  A man who knows how to listen. A man who has figured out how to have God’s peace in a place full of anxiety and sadness and distress.

And I still want my mom to meet Roy! My mom’s a red-head, too!  

Dropped Dead at Her Feet

All we know is that she was a 41-year-old physical therapist. Still young -- a baby, really -- especially compared to the men and women she was helping, elderly people in their eighties and nineties who were recuperating from fractures and paralysis and falls. People who needed her help to learn, once more, how to walk, how to move, how to live life. She was a young woman half their age. A young woman without their experiences, without their wisdom, without their years. But at a time in their lives when they were without many things -- their physical prowess, their ability to live on their own, and for some, the capacity to make their own decisions -- they had something she didn’t have: a long life.   

While helping those who had fallen, she fell. Simply dropped down to the ground, and was dead. Practically at my mother-in-law’s feet.

How odd that we wonder more about her now than we did when she was alive. Who was she? What did she like to do when she wasn’t working? Who loved her? Whom did she love?

We don’t know, and we probably never will. All we know is that she had a heart attack and died.

But many were impacted by her death. Many wonder about her, think about her, wish for her. Some are curious, many are upset. Some are confused, many are sad. Some don’t understand, but many try.

Life, which we try so hard to control, can’t always be controlled. Life, which we try so hard to understand, can’t always be understood. Life, which we try so hard to live to the fullest, can’t always be lived long.

These are things only God knows.  

A Pretty Cool Story

Fifty-seven years ago, a young couple desperately desired a baby. Since the wife was unable to bear a child, they made the decision to adopt, thus beginning what seemed like endless waiting before the time came when their dream would be fulfilled. One day they were out of town visiting some friends and, of course, the topic of adoption was the center of the discussion. And when their friends told them they knew a doctor who worked with parents who wanted to adopt children, they were excited and hopeful that they had found some help.  And help they most definitely found for two days later that young couple brought me home from a Galveston hospital.

Four years later that same doctor called my parents and told them he was going to deliver another baby who needed a home. I still remember the drive from Bellville to Fort Worth, Texas to pick up my sister Janie.  I remember because my daddy, oops our daddy, held her the entire way home, and I was jealous. Ironically, in an old suitcase, my mom recently found a song that a sweet friend had written for the baby shower the church gave her, and the song included a line that read, “Becky wouldn’t be jealous of the new baby.” The reality was anybody that got my Daddy’s attention besides me was in trouble, even a cute baby sister!

When our parents decided it was time to tell us we were adopted, they did everything right. I remember sitting on my bed in my little pink bedroom in the green house on Concordia Drive. I remember how special they made me feel. In fact, I ran outside later and informed the neighborhood kids their parents were stuck with them and my parents got to pick me! I also remember my mother telling me that it would probably be better if I didn’t say that to my friends.

Yesterday was my birthday, and my husband and I celebrated in Galveston, where I enjoy special status as a BOI, born on the island. Rarely does a birthday go by that I don’t tell my pretty cool story, a story that reminds me how much God is involved in the details of our lives, working a plan that goes far beyond what any of us can imagine. God put the desire for a child in the hearts of my parents, and God also gave my birth mother special courage to do what she did for without her bravery, I would not be here now. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

As I celebrated my birthday yesterday,  my pretty cool story reminded me, again, that God chose, loved, and adopted all his children. And because he did, we are all part of the greatest story ever told.  

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16

The Stalker in the Waiting Room

Waiting for my sister Janie, who was having surgery on her broken leg, I looked around at the other people in the dull waiting room, a room filled, by the way, with anything but dull-looking people, and wondered what their stories were. Some were alone, and some were with friends or relatives; some looked worried and some looked preoccupied and anxious. Some seemed tired, while others seemed restless and irritable. Only one was smiling – at me, of course – because I was making goofy faces at her. She was maybe five years old. A doll with black curls in a royal blue dress and the cutest dimples in the world! And now her mom seems worried more about me, the potential stalker in the waiting room, than the reason she was there in the first place! Ah! Epiphany! Maybe that was my calling today. To take that mom’s mind off of whatever brought her to the hospital in the first place! Or not. I decided to direct my attention elsewhere and leave that poor mom alone.

What about that lady in grey, all by herself, leaning against the cold glass pane of the mini-blind window? She’s there one minute, and when I look back up from writing about her, she’s gone! Where did she go? Raptured? No, the little kid is still there! But that woman disappeared in a flash. I never saw her leave, but she looked so pained. Oops! Forgive the painful pun. Wonder if I scared her, too. Maybe I’m living up to my calling for today! 

What’s the story with the frowning man with the grey mustache, wrinkled brown shirt with two pockets, one tucked in and one sticking out at an odd angle? The same man who is now walking toward me! The very same man who’s now at the coffee pot, directly behind me, where I can’t see him; and if I can’t see him how am I going to write about him? Maybe he realized I was writing about him and he’s coming over to see for himself! Now that would be embarrassing! Okay. So now I’m paranoid, but for crying out loud, I’m going to have to stop writing if he keeps standing there! Yikes! Is he going to demand I stop? Demand that I erase what I’ve written? Turn me in? To whom? Is there a law about writing about people who are waiting in a hospital? Will I be known as the stalker in the hospital waiting room?  Going to stop now just in case. For a little while anyway. 

But I can’t completely stop for now I’m obsessed with wondering about these people waiting in this dreary room. All ages and races. Different heights and sizes.  And all types of haircuts and colors. Who are they? What are their stories? Why are they here? Surgery? Physical therapy? Are they getting good news? Bad news? Are their lives being changed forever today? And where will they go when they leave? What will happen to them then?

All of them are passing through my life at this one particular moment and chances are I’ll never see any of them again. But if I did, would  I recognize them? Would they recognize me? Am I looking closely enough at them? Am I looking too closely?

I’m the stalker in the waiting room who simply wanted to pass the time while waiting for my sister’s surgery to be over, and then I found myself  intrigued by the people who inhabited the same space as me at this one moment in my life, an exact moment that will never happen again. Not with these same people and in this same situation.

What does this one moment in my life really mean? Am I a lover of books who sees a mystery behind every face? Am I a woman whose imagination runs on overtime? Or am I a writer who needs to stop writing this rambling nonsense before the coffee pot man really does read this and…..who knows what he’ll do?

I thanked God today for breathing. That was my daily thank-you note to my creator. I started reading the story about the lawyer who wrote a thank you note every day for a year, and I decided to write mine every day to God. My note for the day was thanking God for the incredible, complex, amazing process that allows me to breath. Thanking him for another day to be breathing on the earth he created.  But now I’ve added to my thank-you note, also thanking God for the amazing people in this room and asking him to bless their lives.

And hopefully I provided at least a little comic relief for some of them. Or maybe helped direct their attention elsewhere like the mom worried about her daughter. Maybe this experience will even save her daughter’s life one day for she might lecture her daughter on strangers!

But it’s time now to stop my rambling. My sister’s surgery was successful. She was certainly worth the wait!