January 28, 2001
CYBERCOLUMN:
Life passes quickly
___By John Duncan
___I am sitting here under the old tree thinking snow. I wish January would drop a blanket of snow on Texas. The cold wind blows and the sun rises high here by the tree. Snow drifts through my mind.
___I think of Trudy, the ninety-something sweetheart whose head was draped with gray. 'Your hair looks like snow,' a child once muttered to her grandmother. Trudy's snow depicted wisdom and laughter which flowed from her lips.
___I first met Trudy at the 'XYZ' club. 'XYZ' stands for 'extra years of zest.' The delightful Trudy , wearing a plaid shirt with a little bow, grinned and began her typical story or joke, 'Preacher, did you hear the one about....' Trudy, never one to be shy, once announced, 'I'm a clothes hors
JOHN DUNCAN e. I buy all the clothes I want at Goodwill.' Ah, that Trudy!
___She told stories like this:
___Did you hear the one about the old man and woman who went to the restaurant? They sat down and ordered their food from the menu. The waitress took their order and returned later with their plates of food. She placed a plate of food in the front of the woman and in front of the man. The waitress returned to her station and watched, waiting to see if the couple would need tea refills and enjoy their tasty food. The man began to eat while the woman sat with her arms folded, staring at her husband.
___The waitress watched the woman stare at her husband. She noticed the woman was not eating her food. The waitress walked to the table and spoke to the lady, 'Is everything okay?'
___'Sure,' the elderly woman replied.
___Again the waitress returned to her station. She studied the woman as she continued to fold her arms and watch her husband eat while her food sat in front of her.
___Finally, knowing the woman was not eating her food, the waitress marched over to the woman and pleaded, 'Is something wrong with your food? I can take it back if something is wrong with the food.'
___ 'Ah, no,' replied the elderly woman, 'we've only got one set of dentures and he gets to eat first!'
___ Oh Trudy, life of the party always telling jokes, who several years ago invited me to her ninetieth birthday party where they could not find a cake big enough for all those candles! For Trudy the joy of the Lord was her strength (Nehemiah 8:10). The strength of the Lord produced uproarious laughter. Like Peter and the first Christians at the nine o'clock in the morning hour in Jerusalem at Pentecost, Trudy possessed the joy that Pentecost critics once mocked, 'They are full of new wine (Acts 2:13).' For Trudy, Jesus filled her with laughter. Jesus filled her with laughter.
___ Laughter subsided at the end of the year, on the last day of the year of our Lord, 2001. I visited Trudy one day. I grabbed a chair and sat down beside her bed. I quizzed, 'Trudy, tell me what you're thinking.'
___Her face drawn up and radiant, her lips pursed yet trying to smile, she looked off at a distance as if she were looking at a picture on the wall. The glaze in her eyes lit up as she whispered through her raspy voice, the voice of a woman who was a true pioneer, the voice of a woman who had lived through the depression and lived to laugh about it, 'I just want to go home.'
___And she did go home at age 93. And so the woman who walked railroad tracks while wearing blue jean overalls in her youth to make tank parts for military equipment, the seamstress who sewed holes in pants into her dying days, Trudy went home to Jesus. And heaven was full of joy and laughter.
___Trudy met Jesus and kissed him on the cheek and bowed down. Then before long Trudy's death, yet Trudy's day of eternal life, also became the day she met Allison Marie Wakeman, or Alli, as friends called her.
___I echo the immortal words of Jesus in the shadow of death, 'Let not your heart be troubled you believe in God believe also in me (John 14:1). I hear the words of the Presbyterian preacher George Buttrick rattling in my ears, 'Life is essentially a series of events to be borne and lived through, rather than a series of intellectual riddles to be played with and solved.'
___ When Trudy met Alli I choked down tears of sorrow and wailings of joy. Life cannot be solved for death keeps stalking and arriving on the door steps of life. Intellectual riddles cannot be played with because abundant life keeps calling cards with names attached. Life can only be lived through, a roller coaster of events and emotions, of highs and lows, of laughter and sorrow, mixed together in a bucket of tears.
___On Dec. 16, 2001, an early morning phone call shocked me. A strained voice on the phone line muttered, 'John, Alli's been in a car wreck.' I do not remember the rest of the conversation, except a simple, 'I'm on my way.' Trauma erases the memory.
___ Life presents surprising contrasts. I found myself reflecting in the next forty-eight hours on strange things. Snow, not the white-capped top of an elderly woman longing to go home, but the snow of Wolf Creek Pass. A blizzard or a white out ensued for a few hours in the Spring of 1991. Randall Wakeman, Alli's father, and I were snow skiing in knee deep powder after the snow storm calmed. The knee-deep powder provided an afternoon of delight. Randall and I fought the thick powder on high mountain trails. Randall followed me until suddenly he disappeared, falling into a hole of snow that covered him up. I sat in the snow, laughing and hearing his voice, climbing my way up about twenty feet to help dig Randall out of the snow.
___ We made it down the mountain that day and still laugh about the powder experience. Randall made me a wall plaque:
___""To Dr. J., The Black Powder & Tree Trail King of Wolf Creek Pass. --Waist Deep Wakeman"
___ I remembered Alli playing in a camper in the Wakeman's backyard. Frederick Buechner speaks of a room called 'Remember' in our minds. I walked through that room. I remembered Carrie, Alli's mother, and the many times my wife Judy and my three girls shopped. I remembered little girls with bows in the hair playing on swing sets and on the wooden fort in the Wakeman's back yard.
___ Life passes quickly. One day you're chewing a pacifier and the next day you turn 'Sweet Sixteen' while parading around a restaurant while the crowd sings 'Happy Birthday.' One day you learn to ride a bike and the next day you learn to drive a car. One day your mother takes a bow and ties it in your hair and the next day the bathroom overloads with curling irons, blow dryers, lip gloss, make-up, and colorful hair bows. One day you wish for braces and the next day your smile gleams with the glitter of silver. One day you cheer and the next day you tear. Life races. And so we must walk into a room called 'Remember' and cherish life's basics: relationships and the people we love. Umberto Eco says, 'Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as does love.' The apostle Paul summarizes love, 'Love never fails.'
___ I reflected on life's rooms where Alli moved and lived: the youth room at church, the gymnastic room, the living room watching rented movies, the cheerleader's room, the school room, the family room, the hospital room.
___ I arrived at the hospital cold December night, greeting Randall and Carrie in a storm of uncertainty. A hopeless feeling washes over pastors in times of deep crisis. As I hugged Randall and Carrie I sensed that feeling, yet clung to the hope of Christ. As we went into the hospital room to see Alli, I knew that we were back in Wolf Creek Pass, knee-deep in a hole, waist deep in the valley of the shadow. Love never fails.
___ For the next several hours we prayed, watched, and waited. Alli passed from this life into the next. Alli entered heaven and kissed Jesus on the cheek. Heaven added a new smile and rooms race through my mind, rooms with pictures: cheerleaders, four year old girls sliding down the slide a Chuck-E-Cheese, waxed-crayon-pictures on refrigerator doors, and hope of wedding dresses and wedding bells where, I, Alli's pastor, would do the honors. Now, though, we're waist deep in grief: Randall, Carrie, Andy, her brother, family, friends, my family (my three girls with so many rooms to remember), and our church family.
___ Oh, George Buttrick, solve the riddle: Why? Oh saint in the shadow of grief: Live through the series of events. Love never fails.
___ I'm here under the old oak tree. The sun shines high. I wish for snow. I am walking a room called 'Remember.' Love never fails, but no one ever said that love does not hurt. I'm sitting here in a shadow. Life hurts. Love hurts. I'm thinking of the day that Trudy met Alli. I'm laughing...Goodwill shirts draped with little bows and...dentures! That Trudy! I'm crying...hair bows and glittering braces! That Alli! I'm just a pastor, but I'm on a wild roller coaster ride. I'm gripping the stabilizer bar Jesus in a world of riddles and events. My tears fall in a bucket. I am waist deep. Inspiration comes:
___ I tied a little a bow one morn,
______ 'I looked and said, 'Life starts today, rejoice, you're born.'
___I tied a little bow one day,
______ I patted a blond head and said, 'Go play.'
___I tied a little bow at first,
______ 'It's off to school and a tear did burst.'
___I tied a little bow one eve,
______ I said, 'Be cool, you see.
______ Watch out for boys.
______ Have fun. Enjoy!'
___ I tied a little bow before,
______ A birthday gift, I gave, Oh Lord,
______ Oh to have seen,
______ She was sweet sixteen.
___I tied a little bow at noon,
______ I prayed, 'Dear God, it seems to soon
______ To call your child home.
______ But God whispered, 'Come.'
______ And come she did.
___ A girl waltzed into heaven with a big, bright smile-
______ 'Here's your bow, dear angel, tie it neatly
______ And shine for a while!'
___ A cool breeze blows here under the old oak tree. It's a world of bows and breezes, of laughter and tears, of sun and snow. When riddles cannot be solved and events cannot find answers laugh, cry, and walk the room called remember: Love never fails. Jesus never fails. Jesus always loves.
___John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines.
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