From today's Times and News-Star
Momma
took our dear 90-something friend Maw – years ago she made the quilt I sleep
under each night -- to get a prescription refilled the other day, or to the
doctor, or one of those sorts of things. Momma often takes her on short trips
away from the retirement home.
Unfortunately,
on this day, their wait – it was supposed to be 10 minutes – was more like two
hours.
At
some point around the 90-minute mark, Maw looked at my mother and said, “Remember
when I asked you a long time ago why God’s left me here and hasn’t taken me
yet?”
Momma
remembered.
“Well
I think finally have the answer,” Maw said. “He left me here to worry the hell
outta you.”
A
good bit of time passed before my mom was able to stop laughing at that one. It’s
another classic line – in a rather long list -- from Maw.
The
truth is, it’s not always easy to help someone. Helping is more a matter of
will than anything else. It can’t be timing, because each of us could always be
doing something else.
“I
can’t help anyone,” I read this week, usually means “I can’t help anyone
without burdening myself, cutting in to how I live my life.”
It
takes going against the selfishness in us all to do something for someone who
can never pay us back. If it’s been a while, you might have forgotten what a
smile, gesture, kind words or groceries might mean to someone. My friend Scout
reminded me this week.
“Long
story short,” Scout said. “As a volunteer with Grace Home, I see this
particular woman once a week. She is 93, has Alzheimer’s, smiles, babbles, and
is very pleasant. Pleasant but she can't really say anything that makes
sense. Sometimes I leave and wonder if God really wants me there, you know,
‘Am I making a difference?’ I guess I am guilty of wanting instant
gratification. Last visit I was running my fingers through Bernice's hair
and singing ‘Isn’t He.’”
(Begin ital.)
Isn’t He
beautiful? Beautiful, isn’t He? Prince of peace, Son of God, isn’t He?...
(End ital.)
“She
smiled mightily,” Scout said, “and something in her eyes made me melt. When I
got ready to leave, she said, ‘Thanks, hon.’ Yes, God wants me there. I doubt I
will ever hear anything more beautiful for a long while.”
All
of us are, at our base, bums in disguise. Maybe beggar is a better word. It’s
been pointed out to me that in “beggar,” there is “an echo of humble, earnest
supplication, as if one asks for an act of grace – as in, ‘I beg your pardon.’”
We’re
all beggars, begging to be loved, heard and understood, but not as quick to love,
hear and understand. We want someone, at least figuratively, to run their
fingers through our hair. Best to pay it forward. And to remember where the
gift of each breath comes from.
My
favorite line from my favorite musical (so far, as I have not seen many!),
comes when Annie and the cowboy Frank are semi-arguing in the final scene of “Annie
Get Your Gun.” Frank offers Annie his own rifle in a shooting contest between
the two because hers is messed up.
Annie:
“I don’t need no favors!”
And
Frank says to her, “Annie, everybody needs a favor sometimes.”
No
matter how big a hotshot we are or think we are, we all need a favor sometimes.
Which is just about every day.
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