Almighty Alliteration

 

    He came to change out our Internet service provider, but something went wrong.  "Is he inventing the Internet out there?" I might have wondered, as Bill and the installer were troubleshooting each persnickety problem after the next: signal strength, router placement, blocked signals.  He was here so long, I forgot he was here at all.  It didn't help that his English was not proficient and Bill's Spanish is even less.  

    We got on the line with a guy back at headquarters who started translating.  He told me that Faust is on a six-month work Visa from Argentina and is one of their best guys, but something about our house was proving to be especially challenging.

    That's when I noticed how young Faust looked, how worn-out, and possibly how under appreciated for his tenacity to get this right in the face of frustrating challenges that went on for hours.

    When it finally looked like our Internet was restored and clicking along at the promised speeds of light? sound? so fast we could have every device in the house tapped in and never see delays? we were all so relieved.

    Without stopping to think what I would serve I announced recklessly, "Well, Faust, you spend all day and night at my house, you're part of the family now and staying for dinner.  I insist."

Wait, what?  It felt like a younger, more spontaneous version of myself showed up and reminded me of days when more options felt possible. 

    Luckily, raviolis and left-over cooked sausage and peppers were in the fridge.  I cobbled together some kind of toddler-class charcuterie with apple slices and peanut butter instead of prosciutto and figs.  I had chips and salsa.  Cheese slices and crackers.  Water or milk.  It was all basic and uncohesive, but I spread it out on the table and Faust asked if he could take a picture of it.  I still can't decide why.

    But we start eating and drinking with Faust and in that uncanny way it only does when I'm around fluent speakers, my Spanish comes back enough to hold a conversation. Cobbled together like my toddler-class charcuterie, but it works.  

    He drops the whole, "I can't trouble you," initial protest and digs in like the hungry man he is, getting seconds of everything.  I feel sad I waited so long to offer.  

    "I'm only here for six months, and I can't really afford to go and come back during that time, but I'm sad because my brother died last month," he tells us in Spanish with no preamble.  He's showing us pictures of his smiling 19-year-old brother.  I'm definitely pulling out my translator app and making sure I'm getting this right.  He died?  Died??  You can't go home, you missed his funeral, it happened so fast you never saw it coming?!    

    I realize why I hadn't noticed how young he was.  This kind of grief is like a heavy cloak, snuffing out the lighthearted vibes of youth.  He's weary and sad and just trying to get through this once grand plan to earn money that may very well not put them ahead, but only serve to help bring them back to square one after funeral and hospital expenses.

  We cried together.  We told him we'd pray for him and his family.  He gave Bill a hug as he was leaving and was too respectful to ask for one from me.  "From your mama" I said as I gave him one anyway.  "We needed to be like family tonight."

    I thought that was it.  A brief path overlap with a hurting brother who just needed some kindness and people who could hold his pain with him, even for an hour.

    But my "fast as the rays of the sun" internet is anything but.  It buffers on video.  I can watch pages load like a polaroid developing.  Horizontal bars to show loading  progress appear and take me back a couple decades as they stutter forward in unpredictable spurts.

    I remember Faust. I realize that the delay is what is causing me to think of him at all.  It occurs to me that for this season, my internet's speed is exactly what it is meant to be.  We said we'd pray for him.  But we are so easily distracted and unavailable these days.  This is how much God loves Faust: it's as though he says to me, I will slow you down, sister, so that you can make good on a promise to pray for one of my hurting beloveds.  

    So his name becomes a prayer while my video buffers.  While my email page loads.  While I click around to do my what I thought was my actual work.  Faust.  God, please protect and be near the brokenhearted.  Comfort and restore.

    It will sound ridiculous to some, but I don't think we'll be calling another internet technician to "diagnose" our internet speed problems.  Before my impatient brain remembered Faust, I complained out loud to everyone in my family.  Baffled, to a person they all came back with, "It's working just fine for me." 

Ok, God.  For Faust.   In a mystery I have yet to untangle, somehow, you want us to beseech You on behalf of each other.  And sometimes for the fainthearted and less faithful, you even go so far as to get quirky and creative so that we will.  My internet does not run fast so I will remember to pray for Faust.  I see what you did there, God. If you're going to such lengths to tap into my distracted prayers, I can only believe Faust really needs them.  Holy Spirit, please be the partner that fills in the gaps for everything else Faust needs.  I'm just sayin' his name while the pages load.

  

anniversary gift

 Today, (May 1) marks the day three years ago that my mom died.  At least, her body died.  She left. She went home to wait for us stragglers to catch up with her later.   As sad as that sounds, this post isn’t about grief.  I want to tell you about the gift. I wasn’t looking for one, or even hoping for one, and yet, today, one turned up.   Two years ago, I shared how God dropped a little message into my lap on this day, and it comforted me even while I marveled in gratitude.  Last year, I don’t remember any such thing happening.  Which brings us to today.

Let me tell you what happened. Well, that would be a straight-forward account of how I helped a woman load some books into her car during my library shift.  That happened.  But the gift, my friends, is how it was completely saturated with meaning that only I would notice.  

I met a lady unafraid to wear head-to-toe red-complete with a chic hat and some kind of wild, knitted scarf that she managed to pull off without looking silly.  She was riding a motorized scooter and needed help bagging up about a dozen audio books.  “I’d rather be listening to something than watch a movie,” she noted.  “I just love to have something on all the time.” As it turned out, the scooter had no real place to load all these books, so we went down the elevator together and I offered to help her to her car.  Before we did, her daughter called to check in on her.  When I heard the ringtone, it startled me and I reflexively went looking for my phone, because it was the exact same ringtone from the phone my mom gave me a year before she died.  The lady had one of those conversations that older people do….putting the caller on speaker, talking a little louder than strictly necessary.  “Mom, how are you, is everything ok?” I heard her daughter ask.   “Oh, yes.  I’m having a fine time.  I’m great. I’m at the library.  Just getting more stuff to listen to.”  “Ok, I’ll see you soon, then.”  “Well, it won’t be as soon as you think, because I’m not at the library you’re thinking of, but I’ll see you soon.”  “Ok, I love you…be careful, bye.”  “I love you, too.  Bye”. 

She looked up at me and smiled. “That’s my daughter, she said.  “She’s 66 years old and you would think she’s the mother and I’m the daughter.  I tell her not to mother me, but what can you do?”

“Well, at least we know you won’t be trying to ride that scooter down the stairs now that she told you to be careful!” I joked with her. We laughed in the elevator.  She was smart and quirky and funny.  And I knew all these things for having hung out with her for only 10 minutes.  She also wore the largest, prettiest square diamond ring I have ever seen.  It took all my restraint to not say anything, because it looked like something royalty would wear.  It was, like the ringtone on the phone, startling to me, and I couldn’t place why.

When we got outside, the scooter was going painfully slow, like it was out of charge.  We joked some more about it being like a turtle, but she showed me how it was on maximum power.  “Thank you for helping me.  It was a real pleasure to get to be with you today,” she said so kindly.  “You’ve been a delight,” I told her sincerely.  She had made me feel like we were old, old friends, coconspirators, even.  

Now I have worked in library services for over ten years, and I have never not once ridden on a motorized scooter on the job.  But that is what I found myself doing to return it to our building. Just as I got on that thing, the “maximum power” part must have kicked in and I lurched forward like a girl on a bronco.  And then stopped.  And then lurched.  I looked ridiculous.  And my new friend thought so too because she started laughing.  Because she was funny and liked funny things, she teased, “There yah go.  You’ve got it!  You’re a natural.”   I started to ham it up just a bit because, why not? It was our moment to share. So there I found myself, in the midst of a day of heavy sadness, grinning my face off.  A true, wide grin with only one word popping unexpectedly into my mind: Mom.  

I suddenly remembered my smart, funny, quirky mom who got on a motorized wheelchair thing and made us all laugh.  We “be careful!-ed her like crazy…her legs frail from cancer, her muscles seemingly not as strong.  But she was hammy and funny and daring and bold.  Whizzing around with this goofy aviator hat on in a way that only she could pull off.  I remembered how she looked hard (and found) the good in every one and every situation. She could shape the reality of her declining mobility into a hilarious day at the park.  

I thought of my mom who was always listening to something. Ahead of her time, she listened to radio before podcasts.  I thought of the way she became a hat and scarf aficionado after the cancer hit…turning the drag of hair loss into a whimsical exploration of turbans, hats and scarves. I thought of my mom, who sent me diamonds two years ago, whose phone sounded just like this lady’s, and who might tell me if she could, that she would see me soon, but not too soon.

Do I think the lady with the flower in her hat was an angel? No, not really.  I don’t think she usually has wings and lives in Heaven and that she was on some kind of mission to bring my mom closer.

But do I believe that God, who knows every detail of my life, every memory my brain has ever stored, every association I would be apt to make—do I believe that he sent a convergence of details into this day to bring my mom closer?  Yes.  I do.

Into this ordinary day, that didn’t have margin to remember her well, he brought this lady with her hat and scarf, her affection for audio, her ringtone, her diamond, her self-deprecating humor, her good-nature in her affliction, her spazzy scooter, and her loving conversation with and about her daughter right into my workplace and let me remember my mom with a smile.