Dripping Life April 23

As I write this, our family has just concluded yet another Sunday church service in our living room. We’re still self-quarantining and venturing out only for groceries, picking up food and going to the mailbox.

Yep, it stinks. Like you, we’re all getting tired and working hard to have game nights, watching movies together and spending individual quiet times, praying for the safety of everyone serving as first responders. We also pray for the thousands of families in our country who have lost loved ones and the thousands sickened by the virus.

But we also are blessed with life lessons coming from these and other hard times. I’d like to share one that caught me totally by surprise, an unexpected gift I’ll always cherish.

We had known the family, not well, but well enough to stop and chat each time we saw them at spring dance recitals or "The Nutcracker" each winter.

He was tall, prematurely gray and jovial. She was petite, always laughing and knew everybody's name and who their child or grandchild was.

Their daughter Hannah and our granddaughter Emma had both started dance lessons at age 3 and had moved through the ranks. Now they are both 13 years old.

Liz was a very involved mom...the type who would sit in front of Walmart in below-freezing temperatures with her Girl Scout troop, so the girls could all make their goals, selling cookies.

Her husband Kevin was also involved in their daughter's activities and was not above donning a tutu over basketball shorts and tennis shoes with the other dads to perform a pretty awful ballet at one of the recitals." I'll never forget the shock and then the laughter as these fathers (my son included) took their bows -- or in this case, their intentionally-awful curtsies.

A few years ago, when we saw Liz and Kevin at the spring recital, Liz was wearing a scarf over her hairless head. Yet, she never missed a beat, greeting everyone by name and thoroughly enjoying the dance performances-- not just her daughter's but all the kids’ performances. She was like a den mother and all the dancers loved her.

I didn't ask any questions and assumed (yes, not a good idea), she was healing from treatment for breast cancer and, like many women, would come out as a survivor.

Then this past December, during "The Nutcracker," there was Kevin, now somber, and Liz in a motorized wheelchair, saying little and one of the first to leave, so we didn't get to visit. Later I learned that brain cancer had recurred and she was now in hospice.

My family and I were stunned. How could this happen to someone who took such deep quaffs of life. Someone who found so much joy in the little things, especially her daughter, who now stood on the brink of adulthood.

Liz and her family remained in my heart. My prayers ranged from, "I'm sure there's been some mistake," to "be with this family and make their journey less difficult."

That year at the "Spring Show," the auditorium was at capacity, but luckily, our daughter had saved two very good seats for us (and by "very good," I mean close enough to the stage that I wouldn't have to put on my glasses).

As we approached our seats, I saw I would be seated next to our friend Liz, her body now swollen with steroids, her left side paralyzed.

I panicked. I had known many families with loved ones in hospice, had baked cakes and casseroles, sent flowers and cards...all that simple stuff. But I had never interacted with anyone outside my family who was in hospice. What should I say? How should I act?

But there was no time, (except for a quick "Help me!" prayer), to figure out the answers I needed. Instead, I leaned over and kissed her cheek, greeted Kevin, and sat down.

Liz made it fairly easy as I struggled to stay in the moment. We talked about how all the kids had grown, remembering the days when they were three-year-old beginners, the costumes...the usual stuff.

At times, she would ask me to repeat what I had just said, letting me know she was on some fairly strong pain medication. But that night, we were simply two girls talking.

When Hannah danced, Liz cried and I cried along with her. But her tears weren't "woe is me" tears. They were tears of pride, of joy and of love for her little girl. She apologized, saying, "I'm just an emotional wreck."

"Liz," I answered. "Emotions are okay...and especially when Hannah dances. She's simply beautiful."

After the recital, we hugged again, bumped fists and called each other "girlfriend."

"It was a beautiful night," I said.

"Yes," Liz answered, "just like every time the girls dance."

Admittedly, I worked hard that evening, to stay in the moment, to maintain a comfort level...but for whom? Liz or me?

A few short weeks after the recital, Liz had passed away, surrounded by her family, the many people who loved her.

That's when I realized that, even in her final days, Liz had been at the recital...being Liz. Always outgoing, always thinking about somebody besides herself. And while I had tried to hide my struggle to keep our conversation light, I now knew Liz had worked even harder, trying to make it comfortable for me, even as her inevitable last day was drawing nearer.

That was an unexpected gift, her gift to me that night...and even  though it’s been more than a year since her death, I have tried emulate Liz, her positive attitude in the face of the hardest of times and her uncanny ability to think beyond her own problems and discomforts to see others. It is a gift I'll always treasure and one I continue to borrow from.