Our elderly neighbor lady is dying.
We knew she had been having health issues, but the sudden diagnosis still shocked us. I didn't expect this level of grief when I rang her doorbell yesterday morning and asked after her when a family member answered. I was concerned that maybe she had fallen and broken a hip, or that she had a long recovery from a seasonal illness ahead of her.
I didn't expect the truth to keep me up tonight.
Yet, here I am. Composing this in my head, turning it over and over til I know I have to get it out.
I don't grieve for her. She is about to be reunited with the husband she lost over a decade ago, at the foot of the throne of God, rejoicing with the angels.
I grieve for me.
This woman, some sixty years my senior, touched my life in quiet, everyday ways.
She was the first in the neighborhood to welcome us when we moved in just two years ago. She introduced herself; I called her Mrs. D_____. She made sure I knew to call her by her Christian name. For some reason, her acceptance of me as an adult, as a peer, made me feel more like an adult than did marriage, home-ownership, or even birthing a child.
There was at least once she invited this lonely wife, new to the community, over for tea. I heard dusty life stories, saw pictures of birds she had cataloged and quilts she had made, and left feeling remembered.
She told us several times, in that sweet forgetful manner many elderly have, of her participation with the Minnesota Ornothologists. She derived so much pleasure from going on day trips to count bird species, or even just watching her backyard from the picture window in her dining room, that same window we sat by and sipped our tea.
There is a comfort knowing that the person who lives mere feet away isn't watching you, looking for fodder for gossip, or trying to fit you into their mold of expectations.
When the power was out that cold day last winter, my husband was at work, and she was home alone, we checked on each other. When my husband and I were detained at church and I was concerned about our casserole burning before we could get home, she came over and took it out of the oven for me. That winter day we were so merrily shoveling the walk and decided to do hers as well, she had such kind words of gratitude.
I remember one Sunday when we went to church in town, because obligations for that day didn't allow time for us to travel all the way to our church home. She made a point to invite us over for the lunch that is still customary in this Dutch town. We thought we had to decline since we were headed out. Now I wish we had stopped for those few minutes.
As we were waiting for Baby to arrive, I admired a lovely little baby quilt in a local shop. Its cheerful yellows and pinks made it far too feminine to risk buying when we didn't know if we were having a girl. Even after our daughter was born, I couldn't justify the purchase no matter how much I loved it: funds were too tight after our family expanded for me to buy it when we already had plenty of blankets and quilts for our little girl. It would have been too extravagant of a purchase for even me. To my shame, I never thought to ask God for it. Yet, He gave it to me, through the hands of our little neighbor lady. I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw it nestled in the bottom of the gift bag: the profound love of a God who notices. I see it now, making our fourth-generation bassinet both beautiful and cozy for our precious daughter, as a daily reminder, in a new way, that our extravagant God really does care about the little matters of our hearts, not just the large, weighty, "important" issues.
And so, as I grieve, I realize that, while there is great pain from losing a family member, there is also a closure that comes with that status, "bereaved granddaughter," for instance. There is the chance to disperse a household of worldly goods, to take home that favorite tea cup, that treasured picture, the sewing machine her hands touched so many times. I respect that close bond and want to give her family the space they need to pull together around her in these last days, hours.
I mourn from a distance, as her neighbor.
But she was my friend.
