Tender Grace (20 page)

I had reached my destination and I loved it.

Not knowing exactly when I’d arrive in San Diego, I hadn’t made a reservation, but boldness and optimism seized me, and I strode up to the registration desk and asked if there was possibly a room available for Saturday through Tuesday nights. The man behind the counter consulted his computer and said he had nothing for Saturday, but a nonsmoking queen room was available on Sunday through Tuesday nights.

“That’s great,” I said.

If a room had not been available, I would have requested a broom closet and a cot.

Pleased at the prospect of at least three days on the island, I returned to the trolley stop and rode to my next stop, Balboa Park. Most of the passengers, a good many of them children on this Friday afternoon, rushed off and made their way to the zoo. I’m proud to say I refrained from yelling “Suckers!” The truth is I’ve heard the San Diego Zoo is one of the best in the country, but I’m continuing my boycott of all zoos until one or all of the kids are with me.

Instead I headed to the IMAX Theater to watch
Deep Sea
, which seemed expedient given the amount of time I plan to spend hugging the Pacific Ocean the next week or so.

I had no idea when I entered the rest room at the IMAX that another child would be waiting to snuggle into my heart. This little girl, five at the most, was trying to wash the remnants of some sort of sticky mess from her hands; blue cotton candy is my best guess. I say trying, because even on tiptoes she couldn’t reach the water faucet. I looked at her face, the color of Willa’s espresso, and asked if she needed help washing her hands.

She nodded and I turned the knobs to get warm water. I massaged her tiny palms and fingers with soap from the dispenser and then lifted her so she could put her hands under the stream of water.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” I said.

She nodded again.

“What’s your name?” I asked, grabbing a paper towel and wetting it.

“Tabitha,” she whispered.

“Oh, that’s a nice name,” I said. “Do you mind if I wash your face, Tabitha?”

She looked up at me with the wide-eyed adoration of a devoted subject before a benevolent queen, and I wiped her mouth.

After I had her spotless, I patted the top of her braided head and asked if she was with someone.

“My class,” she said.

As safe as an IMAX bathroom might seem, I couldn’t believe she had been in that bathroom by herself. I took her hand and walked out into the common area in front of the theater and nearby snack area. Seeing a group of children about her age and two young women trying to corral them, I asked Tabitha if that was her group.

“Yes,” she said, and we walked that way until one of the girls in charge, a teacher I guess, saw us and hurried over to retrieve her.

“She was in the bathroom washing her hands,” I said, trying not to sound critical but wanting somehow to convey the need for caution.

“Thanks,” the girl called over her shoulder as she rushed Tabitha over to the group, which had apparently viewed an earlier IMAX performance and was preparing to leave. They were almost to the door, one of the teachers in front of the ten or eleven children and one behind them, when Tabitha broke from the group and ran to me and threw her arms around my waist. Kneeling to her height, I hugged her thoroughly and told her to have a great day with her friends.

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.”