I am reposting this for those who know me, but don't really know my background. The author of this was a good friend of Mom's during her last few years on this earth. God is so good to give us who we need at different times of our lives.
If I’m going to tell the story about the people who have had the greatest impact on my spiritual life, I couldn’t possibly leave out my courageous Frances.
I just walked into her room one day, and here’s what I saw:
A young girl, maybe in her mid-30’s with big brown eyes and sort of a pixie look. She looked ready to smile given half a chance.
She was so still lying there, flat on her back. Nor part of her moved at all. Finally I asked what on earth she was doing in a convalescent hospital. In a flat, unemotional voice she said...
“I have Multiple Sclerosis and can’t move from my neck down.”
This was said in such a way I knew she neither wanted, nor expected, sympathy.
I asked her a few questions about the disease, and she talked easily, almost objectively, as if maybe all this had happened to someone else, someone she used to know, in a different world, a different place.
My heart was aching for her, but I had learned a few things the hard way, and one of them was this.
Never, never, violate or intrude on a person’s privacy, especially the sick, as they seem to have a greater need to keep their individuality. Maybe it’s because they must depend on others for their help and care. They can still be a person: if they keep part of themselves untouched.
I believe if we are to do God’s work, we must become “all things to all people that we might by all means save some.”
I could see that Frances had accepted and adjusted to the cold, hard fact that she would never get better, and so she was ready for some light-hearted laughter and so was I.
We established sort of a “fun and games” relationship and I really looked forward to seeing her once or twice a week.
I found out quite a bit about her. She had to leave four teenaged children at home when she finally had to give up and enter a hospital, knowing she could never go home again. No one but our Heavenly Father could know what kind of private hell she went through. Somehow, by sheer courage, she managed to stay on top of things and live her life the best way possible with the deck stacked against her.
We talked about many things, and I felt very close to her, but she let me come just so far, and no farther. I began to see she had built and armor of protection around herself like an invisible wall.
She couldn’t take the chance of becoming vulnerable. I could sense her thoughts.
Don’t care too much. Don’t trust too much. Don’t be obligated to anyone. Don’t let go. Don’t get hurt any more.
She was holding her finger in the dike and dared not remove it, or she would be swept away.
I understood, and respected her privacy., but if I get carried away on some emotional tangent, like I’m so inclined to do, I could see the curtain come down, and the show was over.
As I began to put together bits and pieces, I found out Frances had been a “sitting duck” for every faith healer and every insensitive “religious fanatic” in town.
One day as I shared some of the “mountains and valleys” I’d encountered on my road to the Lord, she opened up a little and began to talk about some of the “do-gooders” who had come to see her.
Some tried the “laying on of hands”. Others read the Bible hour after hour, never once asking what she wanted. What an invasion into her life! And there was no escape from her bedridden captivity.
I found myself getting very angry, and also very protective. If it had been possible, I would have stood guard outsider her door and given a “mental frisking” to all who came.
Frances knew that I could identify with her in a world without God.
And so, drop by drop, we began to share, and her starving soul picked up a “crumb”. Both our pastors began to visit her, and I could see she had started to think abut some hellish past she had pushed away and out of sight.
One day when I waked in, those big brown eyes were sending out spark signals. I knew something good had happened, so when I asked, she said, “Of all things - I bought myself a typewriter”.
This sounded so incongruous, we both started to laugh, and when Frances and I got on that laughing spree, it was as if all sunshine and rainbows in Heaven joined together in her little room.
You see, we had reached a plateau in our friendship where we could see a kind of pathetic comedy in some of her ridiculous situations. Sometimes I think we laughed to keep from crying. I know I did. But Frances had more courage than I and had learned to live in an impossible world.
And so now she had a typewriter. She had been a secretary and decided she would hold a pencil in her teeth and hit the keys. She was able to be put in a wheelchair twice a day and as she couldn’t sit up very long, she had to memorize what she wanted to write. That way she could make use of every minute.
What a thrill! Now she could write her parents, relatives, friends. She felt a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Now at last she could do something for herself.
And we rejoiced together.
One day I got a letter in the mail and when I saw the address was from Frances, I just sat there, almost afraid to open it. She had typed a beautiful poem just for me. I’m always deeply touched by a gesture of love. All I could see in my “mind’s eye” was Frances holding a pencil in her teeth and making this kind of effort to bring a moment of happiness into someone’s life.
I asked God for His special blessing for her from this day on, moment by moment, and I prayed.
“Oh God. Hold her in Your everlasting arms. She’s coming to You, Lord, faltering, blindly stumbling, agonizing, but coming, just the same.”
It’s enough for now.
Thank You, Jesus.
I had to share this with someone, and who else but Myrna?
When I handed her the letter, I was sort of weepy and she must have thought it was the “letter edged in black”, until she read it. I’m afraid my poem is tattered and tear-stained, but it’s more precious, I suppose because of that.
When I saw Frances, I tried to tell her what her “labor of love” did to me, and I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job, because of the lump in my throat, but she got the message.
She looked so happy, and I prayed she would get her reward--”Good measure, press down, running over”.
In control as usual, she said
“Maybe something good can come from this after all.”
And I knew the time was right, and I asked,
“Have you thought about going to church with me?”
Her answer,
“Yes, I’ll go Sunday.”
And so... I pushed a wheelchair through the open doors with someone who had been victorious. So this is what we have. A hope of things to come, so we can hold out against the world.
One faith. One church. One Lord. One Father of us all.
Forever.
My Thoughts
This chapter came from the book Along Came a Stranger by Lynda Kohl. In the book she used the name Janice for Frances because my mother was still alive and she was serious about privacy. Lynda Kohl is even a pseudonym for Lydia Kohlmeier. This book was written in 1975 two years before Frances passed away.
Lydia wrote this to define her own journey in her walk with God. She chose my mother because of her courage. It’s enlightening to know my mother was courageous. I always thought of her as “my mother”. But seeing her through another’s eyes and 32 years later, I see her courage and always loved her sense of humor. She would laugh about the most ridiculous things. And we all laughed with her even as we cried with her through the pain and anguish her disease brought.
I left home in 1972, got married, had two children by the time she passed. So I didn’t get to enjoy the last 5 years of her life. I really missed the best part of it.
I thought I had lost this book.
Earlier this year I was grieved to realize I was missing it. When I had to rearrange things in the garage and found some old boxes of the children’s mementos I was keeping, I ran across the book with a photo of her at her typewriter, my little sister standing there with her.
This is my Mother’s Day gift (2010) to my children and grandchildren. They never knew their Grandma Bender and hopefully this will give some insight into her life.
Sue Hanauer
