The blur of four little girls—our three plus one—spun my days into weeks and weeks into months until two birthdays passed for Willow in our shared world. I paused my care for the happy four year old in early 2006, however, to take care of Dad. Willow's mom, Rachelle, understood; life with a cancer patient at their house too called for time and careful days.
Illness or no, the earth kept revolving. When Dad was readmitted into the hospital in May—for the final time, although I didn't know it then—I reached out to Rachelle. She easily accepted my offer to watch Willow again, so I knew Jim’s health was worsening. Rachelle and Jim floundered through each day, I learned, but I knew it more from how she looked than what she said. She was thinner, and her words were leaner too.
After Dad died on September 18, Rachelle biked over to bring me her condolences. She stood outside on the sidewalk as I sat on our front steps, and we talked a little. She pressed the tender spot with a couple of well-placed questions, and I let the tears splash onto my skirt, not bothering to cover my face. She understood. She had lost loved ones in the past and was losing one now.
I saw the need before me—and Rachelle too, standing there with her bike—and felt the rejuvenating spark of usefulness. I couldn’t do much for her, but I could watch Willow more, and I said so. She welcomed the offer, and I thought about the flowing of welcomes, back and forth, that had become our way.
After a string of long days with Willow, Rachelle told me Jim was in the hospital. His health disintegrated further, and he became unresponsive. Rachelle stayed by his side. We kept Willow overnight.
During the tucking in for bed, I went down the line of girls.
“The Lord bless you and keep you,” I said to Willow, resting a hand on her head when it was her turn. Her gaze drank in each word, serenity smoothing her features as she watched me say the blessing over her life. “The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”
A few days later, on the morning of October 6, 2006, I phoned Rachelle.
“I’ll come and pick up Willow this morning,” I said. “Are you at the hospital already? It’s no problem for me to—”
“Jim died this morning.”
My heart clenched. “Rachelle, I’m sorry.”
“Could you still take Willow? She’d have more fun with you guys.”
Willow spent the day with us. I nestled her under my wing wherever we went. I read her stories. We created play-dough snakes. I wouldn’t let Ricka bicker with her like they sometimes did as almost-sisters.
While I was making lunch, the little girl came to me.
“My daddy died today,” she said, pushing smeared glasses up on her nose.
I paused from the peanut buttering. “I know, honey.” I had said her same sentence a few weeks earlier, a strange and terrible bond for me at thirty-six to share with a four year old. “Oh, I know.”
Later in October, I drove north alone to Jay Cooke State Park for Jim’s memorial service. The trees along the route toward Duluth waved their golden sides at the world with a new kind of greeting. The gathering of mourners met in a pavilion, and I knew no one in attendance except Rachelle. She snuggled in for a long hug before wandering off to mingle with her other guests.
I sat at a picnic table, a light breeze tossing leaves at my feet and pulling them away again. I recounted the two years following one phone call from a stranger: the shared path of giving and taking, the always assurance of birthing and losing, the hard way of the welcome. And my heart rested.
It was exactly as it was meant to be.
This is the painting Rachelle made for me. On the back is the title she gave it: “Welcome”
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.