When A Hero Slips Away

It was our last service at the church we had attended 22 years. The next morning I would be pulling out with a minivan full of the last of our belongings and moving a few hours away. I hugged friends and bid them goodbye one by one. When I looked around at the handful that was left, she wasn’t there. My husband read my look and let me know almost apologetically that she slipped out ahead of me. “She didn’t want to say goodbye,” he explained. I smiled even while my heart clenched a bit. That was so like her.

I first met her when I came to the church as a seven-year-old preacher’s kid with a chip on my shoulder. I hadn’t wanted to say goodbye either. To my old church, my old friends, my old school and my own adopted grandmother who sat with me in church while my mama played the piano. Our new church was full of good people, but it took me awhile to accept that. However, she and her husband always sat right near the front on the organ side, and they became familiar. Then, they became supports to a growing teen. And somewhere between getting my driver’s and my marriage licenses, they became friends.

I always told her when I grew up I wanted to be just like her. She would just laugh, especially when I entered my thirties and my forties and was still saying that. When our husbands would be long in the board meetings, we’d sit and wait on them and I would hear her stories. She grew up with a daddy who made her suspicious of the idea of God as a Father for many years. She bore a scar on her arm from the time she’d defended her mama from his knife. Due to his negligence and his habits, they didn’t even have a working bathroom or plumbing for much of her childhood.

She married a man so opposite that he was the quintessential grandpa. He worked hard for his family and loved them well. Then, he was laid off and the weeks stretched into months so she hung up her housewife apron and went to work. In the 1940s or 50s that was not as easy as it is today. She became a secretary for a corporation with several male bosses when women still wore gloves to do their typing. One of the bosses told her tauntingly that he’d seen many females leave while under his employ. She was still there after he was gone.

In our church, she took on all the difficult things. When her husband became the treasurer, she helped him with his books. When we needed to plan and collect money for a large banquet, she organized everything down to the smallest detail. When the teenagers had no one that wanted to teach them, she and her husband stepped in. She took notes in every meeting because whoever was in charge needed her backup. She never missed a detail. And I don’t remember her ever being wrong.

At age 84, she decided to do something for herself. Sort of. I often wonder if it was her excuse to give me money she knew I wouldn’t take otherwise. She informed me that all her life she had wanted to play the piano. When she was a child, there was no money. When she was a young wife and mother, she had to help support the family. When I was growing up with her grandkids, they would take weeks-long trips with their grandparents in their big conversion van to far away places like Alaska and the western states. When those grandkids started having their own children, she was a caregiver for multiple older family members and friends. She poured her whole life into other people.

For a year and a half, she came to my house for piano lessons. She was a perfectionist from her secretary days. If she made one mistake, even a perceived one, she’d start the song over again. She dutifully prepared for all recitals. We would play duets together, and she’d laugh delightedly and say, “Let’s do it again!” She had such fun on my bench, her half-hour lesson had to stretch to a 45-minute lesson. We spent those 45 minutes together every week, fitting in bits of conversation, some music and lots of laughter. The only thing that stopped her was her need to be a caregiver again, this time for her husband who was beginning to forget how to drive to my house.

She hadn’t met Jesus until she was 40 and she always wanted to serve Jesus longer than she lived without Him. I remember her jubilant testimony when that day came. She prayed that she would live long enough to take care of her husband. She cared for him as lovingly and faithfully as she had so many friends and family members before him. When he passed away, it was as if she finally had permission to slow down. For someone with as much life and spunk as she had, it was difficult to pinpoint. But those who knew and loved her saw it in little ways, in incremental changes until she quietly went to Heaven just this week.

My mom passed a message to me that after she died, her daughter found the birthday card I’d sent her for her 90th birthday in her Bible. And that my and my siblings’ pictures were on her fridge along with her grandkids’ pictures. She loved like that. She welcomed everyone in so each one felt like he must be her favorite. Some years ago, another birthday card I sent her included these lyrics. I’m glad I didn’t wait to send it to her. I hope she knew just what she meant to me.

I doubt I’ll be just like her even if I manage to somehow grow up someday. There wasn’t anyone like her and never will be. All I can do is just learn a few things from the beautiful example she set for me. I think I’ll start with this one. I’m not saying “goodbye” either.