God Drives a Tow Truck (13 page)

A year later when we first stepped on the MIT campus, I saw thousands of students like Anders and knew he had found his niche. His struggle to find others like himself was over, at least for the next four years.

I remembered a radio call-in program I had heard many years ago. It was a religious talk show, and the caller was a parent like me, desperately despairing because her unusual child had no friends.

The talk show host told her, “But you must teach him that he ALWAYS has a friend in Jesus.”

There was a moment’s silence and the caller said, “I was hoping for someone a little closer to his age.”

That is what I was hoping for too. How gracious God had been to grant that pain-laden request.

Chapter Nineteen

A Good Sense of Smell

Acts 7: 27-30

³⁰
“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
³¹
When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say:
³²
‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’

As I hit those years when the melanin began to grow weary of hanging on and the color dripped like sap from my hair, other less than wonderful bodily changes accumulated, as well. Skin sagged, as did other things. Perhaps the most annoying and difficult effect of aging to deal with then made its appearance. Sleep began to elude me. I found myself increasingly awake in the deep dark moments of the night, when the owls were hooting and frost was settling. My tendency to be an early morning person did not change, but I was consistently lying awake for three or four hours in the middle of the night. I was always tired, and increasingly irritable from lack of sleep. Despite others’ counsel, I was loathe to take drugs for this common condition.

I knew that every aspect of aging was normal and pre-ordained by a gracious God who understood that the vigor and beauty of youth only made us resistant to Heaven. If I had been planning the universe, I might have done it differently, but I was learning in my now three decade walk with God that
my
way didn’t always lead me to a place as wonderful as I had thought it would. I wasn’t always happy with God’s way either, but at least I would have someone else to blame.

So, I was trying to ascertain how God wanted me to use those sleepless hours. My first response was to fight them. I flung my body back and forth like a metronome, ticking away the hours. Sheets tangled and twisted as I battled the insomnia bravely. When this strategy failed, I tried meditation and relaxation techniques like I’d been taught in my Lamaze natural birthing classes. I relaxed my forehead, and my eyes, and my soft palate… and by the time I reached my neck and I was
still
not asleep, my forehead was again tense and angry.

Finally I gave up. If God was so determined that I be awake, then I would make use of the time and pray. Surprisingly, those hours began to pass with a weary peacefulness that I almost,
almost
began to cherish. I cannot say honestly that I selflessly brought all the needs of others to the throne of Grace, but I did focus maybe half the time on prayer. Sometimes the laundry list of tomorrow’s needs crept in, but at other times I did pray for loved ones, for our nation, for our leaders, and for morning.

One of those sleepless nights, I smelled smoke. I have lousy hearing, and my eyes have slowly deteriorated, but I have always had a good sense of smell. While age has robbed me of grace and energy and beauty, it has not yet destroyed my olfactory supremacy. (When there is so little to be proud of, we grasp at the insignificant. )

This evening, I had been a little grumpy as I wanted so badly to sleep. I had important and early things to do in the morning. I knew at this rate, I would not tally five hours of blissful shut-eye.

“OK Lord, if I must be awake, show me why. Who am I supposed to intercede for? Bring their name to my very overtired heart.” I waited, and sniffed. Definitely smoke.

I crawled out of bed and started prowling through the house. I went to every corner of the house, sniffing like a bloodhound. The scent was almost imperceptible, but it was there. I knew I had caught the faint scent of smoke. I went to the children’s rooms first. The smell was even less perceptible there. After wandering the dark and silent house for several minutes, I decided I must have imagined the smell and returned to my sleepless vigil.

Again, as I lay there, eyes squeezed shut, I smelled smoke. Finally, I flung the covers off again and slammed my feet down.

“What’s wrong?” asked my husband, awakening.

“I smell smoke,” I answered.

He sniffed the air.

“I don’t,” he said.

“Well I don’t mean to brag, but I have a superior sense of smell.”

I went to the window and opened it.

“It is out there,” I said with certainty, “Something is on fire.”

My husband dressed quickly and hurried out into the night. I stood at the door. Suddenly I heard him shrieking, “Fire! Fire! Call 911!”

Trembling, I raced to the phone and dialed. Arvo was not an alarmist. For him to have sounded so panicked, there was a problem. I ran outside to see where it was. A few houses away, huge flames as high as the house were blazing in the darkness. Over the phone, I directed the firemen, and with relief heard their sirens a few seconds later. The firehouse was just two miles away. A half hour later, my husband returned.

“You are a hero,” he told me, “The fire had started in a pile some workmen had left while working on the neighbor’s fence. They suspect one had thrown a cigarette in it and it smoldered all night. No one else smelled it because the night is so warm-- everyone had AC on, and the windows shut. It had already burned the siding along their son’s room wall. The firemen say your nose saved the child’s life.”

In the morning, the neighbors on both sides of that fence brought me a huge bouquet of flowers. I was a little embarrassed as really, I had done nothing. The real hero was my husband. All I could claim was a very good nose, which now reveled in the scent of the beautiful flowers. However, I don’t rage at those sleepless hours anymore. All things have a purpose and a reason, and I have been blessed to be privy to a few of the more obvious ones. Now when I lie awake, I ask God to show me what I should see, and if not that, what I should smell.

Chapter Twenty

The Art Angel

Psalm 91: 10-11

¹⁰
no harm will overtake you,
   no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹
For he will command his angels concerning you
   to guard you in all your ways;

We had recently moved to North Carolina, and my husband had taken a new job in Christian ministry. We had hoped I would be able to supplement his income, but when I became pregnant with our third child, we decided that I needed to stay home and be with my baby. Somehow we would survive.

I was an artist, so I decided it was time to brave the horror of rejection, and peddle my art. I trekked to a number of art galleries, with my baby in the back pack and my two young boys by my side. We would all carry my canvasses in to the gallery and dare them to turn away this engaging family. I always managed to leave paintings for them to sell. Some did sell, but most did not, and so our financial condition was always a little precarious.

I would find the galleries by searching for ads in the newspaper. As bills piled up and we were growing increasingly desperate, I turned to the yellow pages and let my fingers do the walking for a change. The first listing under Art Galleries was
Art Today
. What kind of name was that?
Art Today, but gone tomorrow
, I laughed. I had never seen that gallery on my many excursions to the art districts. However, I called the owner, Nelson, after praying that God would open a door for me.

Nelson told me he did not run a typical gallery, but he was indeed looking for artists. He was a fiber artist, weaving beautifully realistic pictures in various threads and fibers. He said he needed artists to help design his canvases and while I would not be given credit, I would be well paid. Was I interested? I supposed this was a form of prostituting my art, but I was desperate. I drove to the address he gave me, with my family in tow. We pulled in to an old, abandoned warehouse. There was a small sign on the door that said,
Art Today
. This was a little creepy. Still, I was so desperate to sell my art, that I mustered the courage to ring the doorbell.

Nelson answered the door, opening it onto a dark hallway with cement floors. It looked like the entryway to a dungeon. He was a huge man, but looked friendly enough. He told me to follow him to his gallery. Our steps echoed in the sepulcher like damp hall. My boys huddled near me, silently, eyes wide and black. I followed Nelson to a cavernous cement walled room (where people would never hear me scream…). The walls were covered with some of the most exquisitely beautiful weavings I had ever seen. From a distance, the renderings on the cloth looked like photographs. The one that most mesmerized me was an underwater scene looking upward at a swimmer. I could almost feel the wetness of the pool.

“These are incredible!” I said. I looked more closely. Thousands of fibers were meticulously woven together, with what had to have been millions of changes of thread to create the effect.

Nelson confirmed that observation. Each work took years to produce. He showed me a scrapbook with articles about him and his impressive work. What was this miraculous artist doing working out of this dank and frightening old building?

“How on earth do you have the patience to do this?” I exclaimed.

“I have schizophrenia,” he said calmly, as though that explained it.

I glanced around the cement room, clutching my children’s hands. How do these things happen to me with such regularity, I wondered?

“It is controlled,” he said, “Unless I forget to take my medicine.”

I hope you took it today
, I groaned to myself.

“May I see your work?” he asked.

I opened my portfolio, plotting escape routes out of the corner of my eye. He murmured, “H’mmm, nice”, though did not seem overly impressed. As he shut my portfolio, I knew I had lost the deal, and endangered all our lives for nothing. I zipped my portfolio closed. I realized then how foolish I had been.

“I will pay you a thousand dollars. What I need is for you to design something having to do with angels on this canvas. Give me five or six to choose from. Just do an oil wash right on the canvas. Call me when you have them ready. Goodbye.” He turned and walked towards the door, without waiting to see if I was following.

I was too astonished to say anything. Was he serious? Was he offering me all that money for simple oil washes? I clutched the canvases and my children, and scurried out the door he held open, a look of impatience on his face.

As soon as I returned home, I began sketching. We needed the money badly. I could not believe this was happening, nor could my husband, but I was not about to turn it down.