God Drives a Tow Truck (14 page)

I sketched a few stereotypical angels with wings, but nothing that I thought deserved years of memorializing in the painstaking fiber process. I didn’t think angels really looked anything like that, but I didn’t know how else to make them obviously angels. Halos would be even hokier. I knew the Bible said we often entertain angels unawares. How could I possibly draw a recognizable angel?

Then, I had a vision. Like many of my best ideas, I am not sure where it came from. I sketched a child flinching from the hand of a person from below while reaching for a hand coming from above. I don’t know why I drew it, but when I finished, I knew this was one Nelson would like.

I called him a week later. He was shocked that I was done so quickly but told me to bring them right over. This time I left the children with my husband, and went alone. If I were to be murdered for my art, it would be a small comfort in my last moments to know that my genes would live on in my progeny. Nelson greeted me with a gruffer and angrier demeanor this time, and I felt certain he had
not
remembered his medicine that morning.

Wordlessly he took the canvasses and spread them on a table. Looking at the first four, he nodded, and said, “These are good. I can work with these.”

Then he came to my rendering of the child, with the hand reaching down to comfort in counterpoint to the tormentor’s hand. Nelson stared at the picture for a long time.

“What were you thinking when you did this?” he asked finally.

“I was thinking how we can’t always prevent all the horrible things that happen on earth,” I answered, “But God is always there and always ready to comfort.”

He looked at the picture many silent minutes. I wondered if I should explain that the hand reaching down was the hand of an angel. Once again, I thought, I have blown it. I should have drawn wings, and togas, harps, and halos. Finally, he spoke in a deep growl, without looking at me.

“I was abused as a child,” he said, “But I knew angels were always near.”

He didn’t explain, nor could I, why the angels hadn’t removed him from the situation. He also spoke as though the angels had been sources of strength, not uncaring observers. He didn’t need to tell me that horror was probably the cause of his illness. I was touched by his ability to take that horrendous experience and turn it into an artistic outpouring of beauty and creativity, without apparent rancor toward God. He poured his pain into those tedious and beautiful weavings.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. Without a word, he licked his finger and counted out ten hundred dollar bills. I had never seen a hundred dollar bill before. He handed me the money and then gathered a stack of clean canvas.

“Do whatever you want with these,” He said, piling them in my arms, “And I will pay you another thousand.”

I gripped the money and the canvases, and mumbled ,”Thank you.” I couldn’t think of a single thing more to say. I couldn’t imagine that giant man as a tiny child, at the mercy of evil.
Again he led me silently down the hall and held open the door.

“Take your time on these. Paint whatever you feel you should.”

I did paint more scenes, though I don’t remember anymore what they were of. I don’t think they were inspired, like my angel had been. Nelson reviewed them with little emotion, paid me in cash again, and told me he didn’t need any more for now. If ever I needed money, let him know and he would contract my work again.

Months later, I saw an article in the paper with a color photograph that caught my eye. There in colorful, glowing fiber was my rendering of the child with the hand of love reaching down! The article was about Nelson and his talent in this unique art form. The photograph was of my creation, exactly as I had portrayed it, only gloriously magnificent in the millions of beautiful threads. I wondered how he had finished it in months, not years. As he had warned, nowhere was I given credit for the conception of the piece, but I had been well paid when we had desperately needed it, and I still was proud of my work.

About a year later, I thought of Nelson. We were doing better financially, but it never hurt to have more money. I called the number that I had never emptied from my rolodex.

The number had been disconnected, no forwarding number. That’s strange, I thought. I looked in the phone book. No more listings for
Art Today
, or for Nelson. I did an internet search of Nelson and fiber artists. Nothing. I drove by the old warehouse. No little sign that promised “Art Today”. Art Today, but gone tomorrow! When there was no more need, apparently the Manna had ceased falling from Heaven.

He had vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared in my life. I don’t even remember his last name. However, I will never forget the vision I painted of the comforting hand reaching down to a tortured child looking up, loosening, but inexplicably not removing, the tug of evil below.

“Why are you crying , Mama?” asked my son.

“I was just thinking about angels,” I said.

“I see angels sometimes when I lie in bed.”
“What do they look like?”
“Millions of sparkles in the air.”

Like millions of beautiful threads…

Chapter Twenty One

Christopher

1 Corinthians 10: 12-13

¹²
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!
¹³
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

My sweet friend Tanya was in tears, pleading with her friends to find time to visit her son, Christopher. Christopher was newly incarcerated in a Skilled Nursing Care facility for Respiratory Illness, a lone teenager among the aged octogenarians. He had lived at home for as long as his parents could care for his profound special physical needs. When his health deteriorated, he lived at a wonderful facility with staff members that loved him like their own child. But now, with rapidly increasing health issues and depleted insurance, he had been sent to this Nursing Home. It was not what the parents desired, but it was their reality.

They papered his walls with cheery pictures and letters, and put other mementos of home in his room -- stuffed animals, colorful afghans, vases of flowers. However, there was little they could do to cover the stench of people with poor control over bodily functions, or the smell of antiseptic and strong cleansers. People did not come to this place to recover, but to die. The presence of death lurked in every sound, every smell, and every labored breath.

I did not know Christopher at all, but his story had always touched me. He had ingested meconium at birth, resulting in profound brain damage and cerebral palsy. Meconium is present when the baby has had a bowel movement at some point in utero. If ingested, it is toxic to the young brain. He could not speak, and it was unclear how much he could understand as his body was so physically unable to respond.

With the birth of my own son, Anders, there had been the classic green stained meconium water when I went into labor. The doctors had whisked him away when he was born, and suctioned him immediately. Anders had fortunately not swallowed the toxic amniotic fluid and was healthy. Christopher was not so fortunate. Thus, I felt a connection to Tanya, and empathy for her suffering. I responded to her request to visit her teenage son.

I believed it would be a good experience for my daughter, Asherel, to come with me to the dismal Nursing Home. I knew it would not be easy for her, but I also knew that helping others has its own reward. Despite my background in dealing with severe disability, it was still frightening to walk into the decrepit facility with its unpleasant smells, and old, sick people hooked to multiple tubes and machines. Christopher, too, was intubated with both an oxygen and feeding tube. He shared his room with an old man, the first of many roommates who lived on the window side of the room. Christopher, with a dividing curtain between him and the window, never could catch a breath of fresh air, or glance at the blue sky, except when his roommates died. Unfortunately, they did so with astounding regularity, and in between roommates, the curtain remained open and the dreary room was a bit less oppressive.

We first started visiting Christopher in the summer. There was a beautiful little park behind the home, just across a narrow street. I asked Tanya if it would be possible for me to take Christopher there. He had a wheelchair, but there would be a whole series of equipment transfer from bed to wheelchair to allow him to survive for that short trip to the park. The feeding tube would need to be disconnected, the oxygen tank positioned on the wheelchair, the oxygen tube disconnected from the tank on the bed, and then reconnected to the wheelchair tank. Then Christopher would need to be dressed, and transferred from the bed to the wheelchair, a maneuver that took two nurses. When we returned from the park, the whole process would have to be repeated in reverse. The overworked, under-staffed nurses were not eager to go to such trouble, and Tanya was reluctant to ask them. However, she loved the idea of a park excursion for her dear son. They were so often reeling from one crisis to another, that she didn’t have the energy to consider how she could make his life more normal. Such a simple idea as walking in the park did not easily occur to her in the all consuming worry of how to be sure he had the care to keep him alive. Ongoing battles with her insurance company were draining her emotionally and financially. She was too worn out to attempt the laborious process of a simple outing to the park.

“But he loves being outside,” she told me,

“
I would be so grateful if you would take him. Thank you so much for the offer.”

It may have seemed an act of kindness, but it was actually an act of self preservation. I didn’t think I could endure even a five minute visit with him inside that dismal place.

The nurses were not thrilled when I handed them Tanya’s written permission for me to take Christopher out of the building.

“You understand this will take us twenty minutes,” the nurse told me.

“I can wait,” I answered. I am sorry that it is so much trouble.”
“And you understand other patients will be short changed for us to honor this request.”

“Can I help?” I asked.

The nurse sucked in a large, noisy breath, and walked away. She returned with another aide to help dress and lift Christopher from the bed. With barely concealed frustration, the nurse showed me how to be sure the oxygen tank was full.

“This is the gauge. See this needle needs to point to the green area. When it is in the red, head back. You will still have twenty minutes at that point, but best not to take any chances.”

“It only looks half full. Will that be ok?”
“You have an hour of oxygen there,” she said, “How long will you be gone?”
“I only have about twenty minutes left,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“You’ll be fine.”

She seemed less angry as she showed me how to tilt Christopher back should we go over bumps.

“You would not want him tumbling out.”
“No,” I agreed, “You are right about that.”

She smiled at me, and patted Christopher’s hand.

“Going on an adventure,” she said. He smiled.

It was a huge, heavy wheelchair. By the time they got Christopher in it, a half hour job all told, it looked like a spaceship with all its tubes and gauges, and heavy oxygen tank.

“Wish me luck,” I said to the nurse, who was already scurrying to another patient’s room. Asherel followed me to the elevator. I grunted as I pushed the heavy chair forward.

“Have fun, Christopher,” called the nurse, disappearing around a corner.

On the ramp out of the building, the heavy wheelchair, which probably weighed more than me, began to accelerate.

“Help me, quick!” I called to Asherel. We both held tightly to the chair, digging our heels in, leaning back. We managed to evade the first disaster, as the wheelchair slowly rolled to a stop.

Having made it successfully down the steep ramp, we wheeled quickly across the narrow street. As we bounced up the curb, jostling Christopher, the wheelchair threatened to roll back on us but we heaved it forward. Disaster number two averted. Now crossing under the canopy of trees, Christopher looked up at the limbs scraping the deep blue sky and began to laugh. I had never seen him laugh like that before. It bubbled across his whole face. Every time we would pass under a tree, he would laugh. He was tilted back in the chair since he did not have the body control to sit fully upright, so his gaze was focused upward. His blue eyes reflected the sky.