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Holy Moment

Be there when it happens

by Evelyn Bence

My adulthood has not been peopled by children. I've lived hours away from my 12 nieces and nephews, and I regret never having been there for birthdays.

But occasionally I traveled to visit my siblings and their families in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, or Scotland. And when there,

I was fortunate to have happened upon a number of first things, a series of breakaway moments that take on significance now that my nieces and nephews are announcing children of their own.

I heard Elizabeth speak her first sentence. Suddenly, with no prompting, she connected two verbs to an object. It was no haphazard or inconsequential string of words. Sitting on the inside of a window, she clearly expressed her desire: "Wanna go outside." I considered an array of potential infantile "wannas," and approved of her choice, as primal as birth, yearning for the light, the breeze, the open.

I witnessed my nephew Ryan's first step. The muscular feat was a desperate lurch away from me—the stranger—and toward his mother. Which was the stronger motive, fleeing perceived danger or flying to the familiar?

Nephew Bryan—I was in the backseat the first time he legally drove a car, seven miles into town, unaware of the purpose of mirrors.

These first things—though I did not go seeking them—I noticed with appreciation.

I gulped, even as I smiled at her phrasing. Several of my siblings, though cancer scarred, had survived. My parents and aunts, though in various stages of disrepair, were holding on.

But six weeks ago an aunt died. Six hours each way by car. Two days off work. To go or not to go to the funeral? I went, sensing the need to attend to last things with conscious effort.

Last weekend I drove another 12 hours to spend a last night in our family cottage, a cabin, really, on a church campground. No hot water. Toilets and showers down the road. Inside walls: bare two-by-fours nailed to siding.

Yesterday Dad sold it—the property that in childhood represented the freedom inherent in summer, vacation, the country, the creek. Before a quorum of siblings gathered in to clean up and clear out, I spent an afternoon there alone, smelling the furniture, sorting the dishes.

After others arrived, my younger brother and I walked the surrounding grounds and after dark insisted on a campfire. I slept well on the most comfortable musty mattress in the world, and in the morning I worked hard, preparing for the sale, preparing myself for the farewell.

No second guesses

There is a certainty, of course, about funerals and house closings. This is good-bye. But short of a corpse at hand or a key handed over, lasts by nature are not as easily identifiable as firsts. The seemingly healthy man who sat behind me in church on Sunday was buried by Friday. I didn't recognize the import of his "peace be with you"—or mine.

Will you—will I—still be here tomorrow? The question arises new every day, and the future veils its answers until it has rolled past.

I've learned not to trust premonitions of finality. Too many have missed the mark: sitting next to my dad at church one Easter, sure he would not live through another winter. He did. Posing for family photos, sure we would never again line 'em all up. We have.

But you never know. Last summer, straightening my parents' dining room after my mother's debilitating stroke, I found a medical paper she'd signed a week earlier. Dad didn't need it, he said. The doctor's prognosis was unclear, and yet I made a deliberate choice. This may well be Mom's last signature. I'll keep it.

I slipped the pink page into my purse. This time I was right. In a year the fingers on her good hand have curled rigid. "It's dead," she says of the arm that once tucked me in.

I sense now that my very attention to these finalities helps me sleep at night. Marking them, cautiously anticipating them—in the process I work out my own mortality with increasingly less fear and trembling. I'm more at peace with the psalmist's prayer for grace: "Lord, have mercy."

And choosing to note the last things prompts me to look and listen for a new round of first things.

"What's that?" I wanted to hear more, and he obviously wanted to give details.

"I picked violets for my wife." Not the usual appellation, "Mom" or "your mother," but an affectionate "my wife." Consulting with a neighbor known for her flower tending, he'd arranged the fragile stems among evergreen boughs in a short vase. The next morning he would take them to Mom, bedridden, at the nursing home.

"If you saw my bouquet, you'd be proud of me," he said as if I were the elder and he the younger.

My no-nonsense father, after 63 years of marriage, picking a bunch of early-spring violets for his love.

The pride and pleasure in his voice lingered and spurred me to take a youthful leap of my own. I've always wanted to ride a horse, but they seemed so big, always fenced and far away. It was time. I took the initiative and talked to Dorothy, my nephew's wife, who owns a stable and teaches riding to students who win show ribbons.

We set up a time for me to come ride Satin, her old black mare: gentle and patient with beginners. Not that this was a lesson. Once I sat astride the Western saddle, Dorothy gave four basic instructions: Tug the left rein to turn right; the right to turn left. Pull back to stop. Nudge belly to go.

I rode Satin three times around the ring, always turning right; the last length jogging, with Dorothy alongside, leading the charge. From the center of the ring, Dorothy's two-year-old, Kyle, and Dorothy's mother watched.

Ten minutes was enough. A dream fulfilled. A marked first that ended with a smile, a gawky dismount, and my two feet firmly on the ground.

Satisfied, I thought our session was finished. But as we all headed toward the ring's gate, I heard a two-year-old's simple request. "Wanna ride."

My grandnephew Kyle may have ridden alone a few times before, but not often. I chose to view it as a new generation of firsts. Dorothy set Kyle into the saddle. He grabbed the saddle horn with his left hand. With his right he reached down for the outstretched hand of his grandma. She and Dorothy walked young Kyle and old Satin back to the barn.

As I watched with appreciation.

A Christian Reader original article.

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