The nurse snapped the paper to a clipboard, handed it to me with a pen, then looked back at her computer screen.
“I’m going to tell you three words, then I will ask what they are after you draw the face of a clock, and set the time to 11:10.” She paused. “Apple, car, book.”
I silently picked up the pen, blood rushing to my face with a sudden sense of panic.
Wait – does the 12 go on the top, or a one? Oh, the 12! Of course – ha! How silly to think I’d forget!
I’ve done this before, except I was the nurse handing over the paper and pen. It was often pitiful, witnessing a busted brain go on tilt and disconnect, the hand scribbling blindly along the page, numbers flung everywhere, or maybe nowhere. Usually, they got the circle right, but not always. Now I was the patient.
“And the three words?”
Ah, yes, piece of cake.
“Apple, car, (oh no, where did it go?)…and book!” The last word was just leaving when I grabbed it by the tail. The nurse stuck out her hand, unimpressed, signaling me to turn in the clipboard. Test over.
I wonder what happens if I fail. Is there a secret button under her computer that she reaches for? Then the doctor comes in, serious and sighing,
“I’m sorry. You’re demented.”
Or a security guard, kind but firm. “Come with me.” To a nursing home with soft food and cheerful, large women instructing us to sing old Beatles songs. It will smell like decay and Febreeze.
Relieved, I dress and then chat with the doctor, who has grown old beside me over the last 35 years. We talk about retirement, vaccinations she knows I won’t get, and a few sweet memories of working together, back when doctors rounded and nurses had to wake them up in the middle of the night.
My husband and I are moving, a big move to North Carolina, to be near kids and grandkids. Forty-six years ago, I landed on Cape Cod in a VW bus with a steamer trunk, a handful of peacock feathers, and a hundred bucks. Only once had I visited, just a few weeks prior, and it seemed like a good adventure. Three sons and a thousand tales of redemption later, God has pushed open the door and is gently sending us onward. It’s good and not scary at all. There is something wondrous and sad about growing old, like fireflies suddenly appearing in the shadows of night.
This morning, I drove down to Woodside Cemetery to water some new plants on either side of my son Spencer’s grave. Sensible plants that will weather the wind and drought and frost without me here – without my crazy Christmas decorations and fading silk flower arrangements. There’s a bench alongside it that his dad put in so we could sit and think and sometimes rest from grieving. Now his dad is buried beside Spence. I can turn and see the rectangular patch filling in with weeds, and it makes me think about time and how fast 50 years go by, when we were young and Cape Cod was a smoky dream. When peacock feathers were essential.
You reconcile with death because you have to, even though I was in a stubborn stand-off for a long time after losing my son. Every last fiber of my shattered soul said, “No!” until I could no longer stand. But Death does not win. Jesus does. He met me at that bench many times, when I longed to lie down beneath the grass, escaping pain and a world that was unfamiliar now. I was tired. “My grace is sufficient,” He said. It is still.
The South calls with a gentle drawl. Once upon a time, I was headed there, to an island off the coast of South Carolina, to Spanish moss and mockingbirds and a softer wind. But Cape Cod was kismet, a cold, sharp turn north, then a baby, then two more. Now six grandchildren later, I want tea parties and basketballs, to hear small hands make music, to sit across a table with my big children and their wives and my grandchildren and tell God stories that have no end. I want to love my husband deeper and better with our days left together. I’d also like a bench in the shade, and a mockingbird on my roof. Please.
I don’t think Jesus cares about zip codes, as long as we still follow Him, so close we are actually one, like ballroom dancing. Life becomes very simple then, stepping and gliding and turning – so a move is not scary when you know He goes with you. I am grateful – friends and memories, strung together with cords of love, fill my heart so full that it hurts sometimes. This is what it means to be rich. And there are dark, haunting places I will not miss, though I know Sorrow will go with me, finding a corner to curl up in, a familiar friend.
My knees creak and groan. Yet I can remember lying on my parents’ couch, the cushions cool and smelling of snuffed out cigarettes, my six-year-old knees smeared green from the summer grass, the smell of earth mixed with smoke. I recall cartwheels and jumping off the neighbor’s garage to a dare. I bet I can still climb a tree. But can I climb down? The security guard would be waiting at the bottom, shaking his head, with a clipboard and a pen.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be
afraid!’ – Robert Browning
The breeze shifts to the north, and I hear the leaves let go, scraping down the road. A lone cricket. The girl with the peacock feathers who curled up in a VW bus next to the furious gray Atlantic with a notebook for poetry in her cold hands turns the page. Now the fingers are worn and tattered with years of scallop shucking, piano playing, diaper changing, child grabbing, body rolling, IV bag spiking, endless hand washing, sun and wind chafing. I can’t count the “wisdom” spots, and I like to think I have earned all of the wrinkles and splotches as badges of enlightenment and wit, but my mind is tired these days. I know I’ve learned a bunch, but I forget most of it. Words are sometimes like catching bubbles.
“Apple, car, book.”
There’s three.
I sat in a booth today across from an old friend who told me she would not see me again until we get to heaven. She cried. It jolted me, that the leisure of an occasional coffee together will be lost. I’m not good at finding goodbye words, but I know God wants me to try. She is raising teenagers, and like an old veteran, I can only listen and maybe impart some vision and hope. And four words. They will thank you. Someday, usually after their own kids are waking them up at two AM. It’s not stunning insight, just lived life. She texted me after we parted, with beautiful words of gratitude, which I just passed along to Jesus.
Maybe it’s okay to be quiet and listen more. Laugh more, and hug more. I don’t think I even need that many words.
“Trust God, nor be afraid.” There’s some wisdom for you—and five good words.
And six more to end: “The best is yet to be.”
