Love Finds A Way

I pulled into Mother’s driveway, my headlights sweeping the front of her house. It was my regular Wednesday night visit to check and see how she was doing.

After Daddy died ten years earlier, she moved to the town where I live. My weekly visits weren’t because she was scared to be alone or was a weak, dependent person. In fact, she was the opposite of all those traits.

I visited because she was dying. Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, its specific name, wouldn’t cause most people to give pause. But its general name — cancer — causes blood to run cold in the bravest.

Mama did the chemo and radiation route and got an eighteen-month reprieve. But it roared back with a vengeance and she made the decision not to go through anymore treatments.

My brothers, sister and I didn’t try to change her mind on that issue. Let her meet life, or death, on her terms, we said.

As I softly knocked and eased in through the back door, I saw mama sitting in her chair reading. The chemo changed her normally soft auburn hair into a coarse, salt-and-pepper version.

Sensing my presence, she looked up.

“Well hello there,” she said with a smile.

“Hi mama. How are you doing?”

“A little tired. But I’ve had a good day.”

I checked to see if she had food in her refrigerator and looked for evidence that she was eating well. Satisfied with my search results, I sat across from her on the couch.

“How are Brenda and the girls?” she asked.

“Everyone is doing good. Busy as usual.”

Then mother began her usual rundown of all the family members she had talked to and updated me on all the happenings. Maybe it’s because she worked as a switchboard operator in college that she ended up being the central point of communication in our family.

Silence filled a pause in our conversation.

A look of concern flirted across her face. There was something on her mind. Without a prompt on my part she began.

“David, something’s bothering me. I know I’m dying and don’t have a lot of time left. I wish there was something I could do to make things right between me and Martha Ann. She knows I’m sick, but I haven’t heard a word from her.”

I think, Why do people feel the need at the end of life to torment themselves with reaching resolution on every unresolved, sometimes unresolveable issue across the course of their life?

There were three sisters. All born in the 1920’s and all their names started with an “M” — Mayme, Martin, and Martha Ann. Their parents had hoped Martin was going to be a boy, so they stuck with the name they had chosen. She was my mother.

The girls grew up during the Depression — the real one. Sharing chores on their farm in Kentucky created ample opportunities for experiences that would bond them for life.

They all had an easy laugh, though mama seemed to be the most serious of the three.

One passion they shared when they were grown was their family.

Spending vacations with my cousins, whether camping, or visiting at Grandy’s (my grandfather) house, or staying a week at Mayme’s farm, was a regular part of my life. My siblings and cousins would play hide-and-seek in Uncle George’s corn field, shoot basketball in the hayloft of the barn, ride horses, or play in the creek.

Watching my dad and uncles, through the haze of their cigar smoke, play a hotly contested game of Rook would occupy me until bedtime. Once in bed, I could still hear their good-natured hollering and laughing through the thin walls of my bedroom.

For more than fifty years, these sisters were close. But something changed. Distance grew between my mother and Martha Ann. They shared fewer and fewer phone calls and letters.

How do people who lived and loved and shared their lives have a falling out? What creates the space? I never knew exactly what happened, and still don’t. I don’t have to. The reason is not important to me.

To mother I said, “I know that has to bother you. But there’s only so much one person can do to make things right. Remember your father’s favorite chapter of the Bible? Romans 12? It says, ‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’ There’re some important qualifiers in that thought — an if and an as far as.”

She gave me a patronizing smile. Me telling her what the Bible said. That was pretty presumptuous of me.

“I know that,” she said. “It just seems like there ought to be something else I could do.”

“Here’s a suggestion, mama. Why don’t you write Martha a letter and just tell her how you feel? Tell her what you want. Then it’ll be up to her. You’ll have done all you can do.”

With a little more energy in her voice, mama says, “That’s a good idea.”

Before the night ended, she penned her letter. The next morning, she placed it in the mailbox. Then she waited.

When I saw mama on Sunday, she had extra color in her cheeks and a twinkle in her eye.

“Guess who called me last night. Martha Ann! She said she wants to come see me!”

“Wow,” I replied. “That’s amazing. But do you think you’re up to a visit?”

“It doesn’t matter. I invited her to come. She’ll be here Tuesday and is going to stay for a few days.”

A sense of resolution truly eased her burdened heart.

For four days the two sisters engaged in a whirlwind of activity. I’d call to check on them, but often found them gone — off on another jaunt. When I did get to talk to them, they were so full of happiness and peace, I found myself not caring if Martha Ann’s visit was fatiguing mother.

A good night’s rest can revive a fatigued body. But a fatigued spirit often requires the touch of God.

Mother called me the night of Martha’s departure. “Well, she left this afternoon.”

“Are you exhausted?”

“Yes, but I don’t care. I don’t have that many more days anyway. But I’ve got to tell you the most amazing thing about her visit. I kept waiting for her to talk with me about the things I’d put in my letter to her. But I didn’t want to push it, or break the spell, so I kept quiet. Finally, as we were saying our goodbyes, I couldn’t hold back. So I asked her, ‘Martha Ann, what did you think about the things I said in my letter?’”

A chill ran up my back and across my scalp. Somehow, I sensed what she was going to tell me.

“What’d she say mama?”

“She said, ‘What letter? What are you talking about?’” David, she hadn’t even gotten my letter. Isn’t God good?”

With misty eyes I replied, “Yes He is mama. Yes He is."