When she is finally settled into the front seat of the van, she smells of stale beer and cigarettes.
It has taken some time and a lot of effort for her to negotiate the 60 feet from her front porch to the driveway where I am parked. She moves about with a walker and she is almost totally blind. - Diabetes.
For MUMs, this is one of those "go the extra mile" rides. It's late Friday, and she has weekend custody of her 12-year-old son. She needs to go pick him up, but he's way down in Lawrenceburg. MUMs usually doesn't drive out of the county, but it's the weekend before Christmas, and there's no other way for him to get here. How do you say "No" in the face of such glaring need?
I want to know her better, so on the trip down, I ask :
"I noticed that you live alone. How do you cook?" Mostly micro-wave, the old type with the dial, so she can know the cooking time by the position of the dial.
When I ask about how she came to live alone she turns a bit bitter, so I move on to something else.
"What kind of food do you like?"
Her matter of fact reply, "I USED to eat Mexican."
I think to myself "Maybe next week, if we have time, someone can take some Taco Bell over for a Christmas gift."
We make a quick stop in Mt. Pleasant to pick up Robin (my wife) and then on to Lawrenceburg.
When we meet the boy we are impressed with his pleasantness. He's quiet and serious, and he's just a little bit slow, but very courteous and very friendly. Turns out, he was a crack baby. She and her (former) husband adopted him when he was five. She was on staff at the orphanage at the time, and she knew that no one else would ever adopt him. She loved him deeply and she took him "to raise". Life hasn't worked out that way.
They hug in the back seat. "Hello, Momma."
"Hi, baby."
On the way back, while they're "catching up" Robin and I mostly listen.
They talk about Christmas. He's going to decorate the house for her, like last year. He'll hang the lights, too, but only on the inside this time. Last year, he was a little scared up on the roof, and it's too late in the season to put up the outside lights, anyway.
On Christmas day, his sister (married, with children) will be coming down to Lawrenceburg, and he will be with Momma, so he may not get to see her this year.
They'll work it out somehow.
I am praying that soon they will have Christ in their home and in their hearts, so that He can help them to work through all these issues. Alas, her bitterness and unforgiveness seems to be blocking out that particular kind of help.
Arriving back at her house, Robin and I linger in the driveway long enough to watch the boy help her (and her walker) safely navigate the walkway up to the house, then up each of the steps to the front porch, then through the front door. As she disappears inside, he stoops down to pick up his cardboard box (suitcase) of clothes, enters the house and closes the door. He is ready to "be her eyes" for another weekend.
As we drive away I cannot help but take note that there are no less than seven churches within a two-mile radius of her home.
If someone invited her to one of those churches, she would probably only go for the company, to soothe her loneliness. Even if she WERE going to church, her bitterness would probably continue to block out the forgiving love that the Christ of Christmas offers . . . .
But, who knows, after she's been there a while . . . .
________________________________
"The King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
(Matt. 25:40 NIV )
"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or to be the mirror that reflects it." - Edith Newbold Whatrton
