Tender Grace

by Jackina Stark

  As I sat in the theater waiting to delve into the deep sea, I thought about the children of my trip, especially Helen, Jared, and Tabitha. Am I a magnet for them? Or are they a magnet for me? Or are we simply a gift to one another? The IMAX film was nice—I’ve put aquariums on my list of things to see now—but my encounter with Tabitha was nicer still.

  It was late when I got back tonight, but I got out Tom’s Bible and read the Lazarus story. I’ve been thinking about Jesus weeping with Mary and Martha as they stood near the hillside where their brother was buried.

  I wonder, did he weep with me when I stood by Tom’s grave?

  I like to think so.

  Yet surely that moment filled him with joy as well, for long ago he proved his power over death when he stood with those he loved and called Lazarus from his grave.

  I had another thought as I read. Looking back over my early entries, I do believe that sometime in July, Jesus called me from my tomb, and since then he himself has been unwrapping the graveclothes, one layer after another, setting me free.

  September 16

  I hate to admit it, because it’s as predictable as loving Venice, but I enjoyed Sea World no end. Years ago I went to the one in Orlando with Tom and the kids, but I think that was before Shamu charmed visitors with his majestic agility, as surprising as Emmitt Smith performing so gracefully on Dancing With the Stars.

  During the show a family was among those sharing my bleacher, the husband sitting next to me. He had left his two daughters on the front row, begging to be drenched, but the youngest children, two small boys, sat between their mom and dad and gasped through the whole program. The younger of the boys jumped on his dad’s lap when the mammoth whale first came out of the water and propelled himself into the air, making a perfect arc. The boy, his eyes wide and shining, his little mouth forming a perfect O, turned to his dad and hugged him—pure overflow of pleasure.

  I know this because of the pleasure that welled up in me. It’s a wonder I didn’t hug his dad.

  When the show was over, the daughters came dripping up to join the rest of the family, and as all of them gathered their things to find the sea lions and otters, the dad said to me, “Who knew we’d bust a tear watching Shamu.”

  “No kidding,” I said, glad someone capable of such a thing had sat next to me.

  When I returned to the hotel, I checked my e-mail and found five messages waiting for me.

  Mark and Molly both had written updates on the kids. The girls are playing soccer. I have to say I’m sorry I’m missing their first soccer season, but I’m scheduled to watch videos of their games the minute I return. “The kids are begging to see Nana,” Molly wrote.

  Willa’s message was a question: “Are you sorry yet that you didn’t ask me to come along?”

  Paul Keeter said he’d like to have a substitute in place by Christmas, and he’d give me until the first of December to make a decision.

  Andrew said, “How do I get over wanting to see you?”

  I wrote the kids and told them about Shamu and my reservation for the Hotel del Coronado starting tomorrow, and I gave them instructions to zoom in on the girls when they recorded their games and to tell the kids I’d be home soon enough to make them a Halloween costume to wear to their harvest parties.

  I wrote Paul and told him I’d let him know my answer the Monday after Thanksgiving.

  I wrote Willa and said, “Very.”

  And finally I wrote Andrew a one-line answer to match his one-line question: “I’ll take that as a compliment, not a real question.”

  After I ordered room service and watched a movie, I decided to end my day with a stroll along the beach. When I returned to my room, I stood at the window, looking at the reflection of the moon on the water, a beautiful ribbon of light, and whispered what will likely become my favorite prayer: “I love you, Lord.”

  twenty

  September 17

  I awoke early this Sunday morning, and before I showered and got ready for church, I walked the beach, taking my Bible with me. It was a two-birds-with-one-stone impulse, but it turned out to make all the difference to this day. I hardly passed a soul as I walked and easily found a quiet place to unfold my towel and sit cross-legged, reading awhile and then staring at the ocean.

  I turned to John 12, which records the dinner Lazarus and Mary and Martha give in honor of Jesus. I felt as if I were walking into their home with him, smelling the fragrances of love that fill this place: the dinner Martha has prepared, the perfume Mary pours on his feet. I knew what was coming in the story. The cross is straight ahead, and what Mary and Martha do must be rest for his troubled heart.

  Their offerings were on my mind as I packed the car and drove the short distance to church. They were still on my mind while the congregation sang and while the minister spoke. Like Mary and Martha, I am grateful for who God is and what he has done for me. What can I do to show my gratitude? I prayed in church this morning that I could find a way to refresh his heart as Mary and Martha did that long-ago day in Bethany.

  I suppose that prayer, along with the sermon, accounts for what happened after church and why I didn’t get to Coronado Island until after five—not at all what I had planned.

  The minister spoke from Matthew 25, Jesus’ parable about the sheep and the goats, or what Tom called the parable of “The Least of These.” The minister said this parable defines the righteous as those who care for others. He said our kindnesses are what identify us as children of a benevolent God, and in a refrain he used throughout his message, he reminded us of Jesus’ words: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these . . . you did for me.”

  I sat there remembering one of Tom’s kindnesses.

  Running errands one Saturday morning, he saw a man by the side of the road holding a WILL WORK TO EAT sign. It’s easy to ignore such signs and the people who hold them, justifying our actions, but this particular day, Tom pulled his car over, got out, and went over to engage the man in a conversation. The man’s name was Harold, and Tom ended up buying him lunch at McDonald’s. While they ate together, Tom discovered that Harold was staying at a cheap pay-by- the-week motel; that he had applied for a janitorial job at a local factory and would find out the next week whether he got it; that he had no family to speak of; that he had no food. He did have an old Plymouth Duster back at the motel, but the gas gauge was on empty, and he couldn’t think of anything to do except to pull some cardboard out of a dumpster so he could make a sign, stand on the side of the road, and hope someone needed leaves removed from their gutters or their windows washed.

  Tom took Harold back to his room, paid for another week’s stay, brought his few clothes home for me to wash, and returned to the motel that evening with his clean clothes, gas for his car, and a sack full of groceries.

  I didn’t know you could love a man as much as I loved Tom that day.

  When he stopped and checked on Harold the next week, he had gotten the job. Our church helped him get settled into an apartment, and he attends our church most Sundays, holding a sign on a street only a memory. Attempts to help aren’t always so easy or successful, so this experience thrilled us. It felt like “pure religion.”

  Thinking of Tom and Harold and Mary and Martha, I didn’t rush out of church this morning after the benediction, even with the island waiting for me. I hung around to speak to the minister.

  “I’m in San Diego for only a few days,” I said, “and what I’m inquiring about may seem strange. Well, actually, it is strange.”

  I think I rolled my eyes at that point, or something of that nature. He stood patiently listening when I’m sure he wanted to get home and recover from the morning’s exertion. Our minister gets to church at four on Sunday mornings.

  “I wonder,” I said, trying to hurry, “if you know of a need I could meet today.”

  The minute those words were out of my mouth, I could hear Willa saying, Tell me you didn’t say that!

  I wish I could, Willa. I really wish I
could.

  The minister smiled, and I knew what he was thinking: Here in my vestibule stands a human greeting card.

  “I have the day free,” I explained, “and I just thought somebody or someplace might need a little help, maybe a homeless shelter or something. What can I say? Your ‘least of these’ sermon convicted me.”

  He looked stumped. He said he couldn’t think of a thing for me to do, not that very day anyway.

  I was determined.

  “Is your church involved with a homeless shelter?”

  “The ladies provide clothes and food for one of them several times a year.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “You know, I don’t. I can point you in the general direction, though.”

  I must have looked stricken.

  “I’m kidding,” he said.

  He asked me to follow him to his office, where he looked up the address and gave me directions.

  “Thanks so much,” I said, leaving his office with the address and a resolve that seemed to come from nowhere. Maybe I didn’t want to go to Coronado Island empty-handed.

  I drove past the shelter twice. The storefront and surrounding area did not look welcoming; it didn’t even look safe.

  I wondered if there were a nicer homeless shelter to bless today.

  When I walked tentatively through the front door, I found myself in a hallway with dirty tiles, a couple of them broken. It had probably already been a busy day. I peered into the doorway on my right and saw an empty chapel. I heard voices in a room across the hall and stepped in to see a large dining room with three or four people eating a spaghetti dinner at various tables. There was a counter at the back of the room, open to a kitchen beyond, where a man and two ladies appeared to be cleaning up after the lunch meal. I looked at my watch and realized I had arrived too late to help serve any hungry people.

  The man in the kitchen turned and saw me standing near the doorway.

  “May I help you?” he asked, walking toward me. Apparently, he didn’t mistake me for someone late to lunch. He held out his hand. “I’m Bill, assistant director of the shelter.”

  I went through the spiel I had given the minister and was met with much the same reaction. And why wouldn’t I be? I wasn’t following anything close to a normal channel for volunteering. I’m not sure people appreciate or know what to do with spur of the moment.

  “Well,” he said, “we’ve got the kitchen covered. Why don’t you visit with those who are finishing up and bring in their dishes when they’re through.”

  “Then maybe I could clean the tables,” I offered.

  He smiled and returned to the kitchen, leaving me to “visit.”

  There were only three people left by then. An old gentleman and a woman of undetermined age, sitting across and down from each other, had started up something that resembled a conversation, so I approached the remaining man, who sat sullenly at a back table. His hair was pulled back into a greasy ponytail; he did not have a beard, but he had a start on one; he had on a flannel shirt, though it might have been eighty degrees outside and the air-conditioning in the shelter was poor or nonexistent; and he had not washed his hands for some time, certainly not before lunch.

  What to say? How’s your Sunday going?

  “Lunch looks good,” I said.

  Dear God, send some useful words.

  The scruffy man looked up from his plate, wondering, I’m sure, what he had done to deserve this intrusion on his meal.

  “Do you want anything else?” I asked.

  “Now, that’s a fine question.”

  I’m an idiot.

  “I mean, anything else to eat. A roll? Or more spaghetti? Another brownie?”

  “No.”

  “Did you go to church here this morning?”

  “Am I eating?”

  “Trying to,” I said, smiling.

  He didn’t smile back. A stab at humor and subtle self-deprecation had gotten me nowhere.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m probably bothering you. I’m just looking for a way to help.”

  He laughed.

  Here stands a hilarious greeting card.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, sitting down instead of running to the kitchen.

  “Jenkins.”

  “I’m Audrey. I live in Missouri.”

  Finally I said something that got his attention.

  “One of my kids lives in Missouri.”

  “You have kids?”

  “Something wrong with that?”

  “Well, no, of course not. Do you ever see them?”

  “Sure, lady. I fly to Missouri once a month, and every Christmas I invite them here to the shelter.”

  I needed a minute to think.

  “I can’t even call them,” he continued. “Takes money, you know. I can’t remember when they last heard from me.”

  He was finished with his plate. He wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve and stared at me.

  “Do you want me to take your plate?” I asked.

  “Sure, you do that.”

  I stood up and reached for it and then sat back down. I opened my purse, took out my billfold, and slipped two twenty-dollar bills out of it.

  “Maybe you can call your kids with this,” I said.

  He stared at the money in my hand and then grabbed it. “Sure. That’s real nice of you,” he said, shoving the bills into his pocket and heading for the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “Actually, you can use my cell phone.”

  I was digging it out of my purse when Jenkins left, slamming the door on his way out.

  Bill came up to me and asked what had happened.

  “He wasn’t a very happy man,” I said.

  “No, Jenkins isn’t a happy man.”

  “I gave him some money to call his kids.”

  “Oh, Audrey, we don’t give out money like that. You mustn’t do that again.”

  “Why?”

  “Jenkins won’t use that money to call his kids. We have donated calling cards they can use here. It’s very likely he won’t use your money for anything good.”

  I should have known that. Well, great, I had come into the shelter and violated their rules in less than thirty minutes.

  “I’m sorry. I only wanted to help and it looks like I made a mess of things. Is there something I can do that might really help before I slink off into the sunset?”

  “Well,” he said, “there’s a bathroom that needs cleaning. Someone threw up in there, and nobody has had time to get to it.”

  Oops, I thought, I don’t do vomit.

  “The supplies you’ll need are in a closet in the kitchen.”

  Someone came in from the hall and said they needed Bill upstairs, and I headed for the kitchen even though every atom in me wanted very much to head to my car. The two women I had seen earlier were scrubbing pots. I thought about asking if they wanted me to finish them up while they attended to the bathroom, but I had loused up one assignment and intended to do this one right before retreating to my Solara and Coronado Island.

  That, despite the fact that the few times my children threw up and didn’t make it to the bathroom, Tom took care of it. The one time he was asleep and I had no choice but to clean up the mess, I threw up myself during the whole disgusting process.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Molly had said. “I tried to make it.”

  “No problem, honey.” I gagged, handing her a cold cloth. “Go back to bed.”

  Now I was at it again.

  Armed with a bucket, Spic and Span, toilet cleaner, rubber gloves, a roll of paper towels, and a mop, I opened the door to the offensive men’s bathroom. It was big enough for only a toilet, a sink, and over the sink, a mirror with a crack running like a graph catty-corner across the lower half.

  I think I yelled when I opened the door. I also think I heard the women in the kitchen laugh. I doubt they could help themselves.

  I took one look at the toilet stool and the floor and ran back into the kitc
hen.

  “Do you guys have a pancake turner?”

  The women looked at each other before one of them opened a drawer and rustled up one for me.

  That pancake turner saved me more time and trouble than they’d ever know. After sticking toilet paper up my nostrils, I started scraping gunk into the trash can. My eyes watered and I gagged, but I didn’t throw up. I didn’t need any more trouble.

  After I got the stuff up (and believe me, every surface had been violated), I began scrubbing everything in sight: the toilet, the sink, the floors, the mirror, the light fixture, even the walls. I put a new roll of toilet paper on the back of the tank, since there was no holder, and went into the kitchen and asked the ladies where I might find a can of air freshener. They exchanged an amused look before one of them explained the shelter didn’t stock air fresheners.

  Undaunted, I found a convenience store nearby (ignoring completely my recently developed aversion to convenience stores) and bought every can of freshener they had (that would be two). I came back, held up the cans for the ladies finishing up in the kitchen to see, and sprayed the scent of lilacs in every crevice of that bathroom. Then, for a finale, I left the cans on the tank beside the roll of toilet paper in hopes that they would continue their freshening work. Backing out of the tiny space, I felt like saying, Da dum! I’m sure the ladies in the kitchen fully expected it.

  Bill had finally returned. I noticed this when I backed into him.

  “Whew,” he said. “I think you’ve found your calling. It actually smells good in there.”

  “Does it smell like the fragrance of love?”

  He had not been privy to my Bible reading and subsequent thoughts early this morning. “More like lilacs,” he said with a smile.

  “You’re right, it does smell good. Now let me get out of here while my tally of good and evil is even.”

  “Thanks for caring, Audrey.”

  “Thank you for caring, Bill.” I took out my checkbook and wrote a check that should equal the cost of my stay at the Hotel del Coronado and handed it to him. “You have a lot of needs.”