It was one of those weeks--a week where I had a carefully planned list of task to accomplished so that I could leave town the following week with peace of mind but a week where forces out of my control prevented even one item from being completed. Hurricane Alex brought massive rainfall for three days. My husband fell and cracked a rib so we spent several hours in an emergency facility. My sister called to say that my mother who suffers from Parkinson's stays in a state of constant confusion. My son finally informed me that he is unemployed but not to worry, he's joining the army. What's not to worry about there. And then I'd promised Deborah I would come and help her pack to move out of her apartment.
Deborah is someone I met at my retail job. Deborah didn't make many friends at work. In fact, she sometimes seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. She called in sick one day and checked herself into the hospital. Within a week, she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. I obtained her phone number, determined to stay in touch. During one phone call, she hesitantly asked if I could come and help her pack. In the midst of all her treatment and illness, she needed to vacate her apartment.
I'd spoken to Deborah earlier in the week to check on her and that's when we decided I'd call her after her radiation treatment to see if she was up to having me come and help on Tuesday. But the new number she gave me didn't work and the old number was disconnected. In the meantime, the rain started. Not just rain, but the torrential downpour that comes from hurricanes and floods all feeder roads and main routes of traffic around here. Even though Alex made landfall in South Texas, he was a huge storm spreading rain and spawning tornadoes across the south. Then my husband fell and cracked his rib so we spent Thursday evening in the ER, something never very quick. Finally, Saturday during my lunch break, I reached Deborah's daughter. She said it would be wonderful if I would go sort through the apartment and determine what to save and what to toss. She gave me the correct number for Deborah. After work, I checked with my husband. He'd just taken his meds and was going to lie down and sleep for awhile. We agreed that would be the perfect time to go to Deborah's.
I still couldn't reach her on the phone but her daughter encouraged me to just go on by there. Deborah was grateful, even thrilled to see me. I'd mentally prepared myself for an unpleasant situation since she'd described what the effects of daily radiation were doing to her. Her two room apartment easily qualified for one of those organizing shows. Piles of stuff covered every surface, the floor, the desk. Only the stove was clear. My heart sunk. Pre-rain and ER, I'd planned to arrive with gloves, boxes, and cleaning supplies but I had none of those for this impromptu visit.
I'm an organizing natural so I just put on my optimistic face and surveyed the situation. I found a pack of gloves, some trash bags, and a few boxes underneath a pile so I began sorting. Grandchildren's toys in one box, junk mail in the trash, a box for items to give away, one stack for current medical info, a memorabilia stack, and so we went for two hours. Deborah had lived in the apartment for seven years. And in seven year's time, she hadn't thrown away much paper. Her desk revealed a life spent surviving. There were countless slips of paper with numbers for possible job leads, old pay stubs, classifieds with jobs circled, legal papers for issues from not having enough money. I joked with her about using one notebook to write all her numbers in. She joked back wishing I'd been around for her earlier in life. We talked about all the jobs she'd had. Deborah shared that largely she just felt stupid and was treated as such. I suggested she had some learning disabilities and an inability to organized. She agreed.
Two hours later, the desk, the ironing board-made-bedside table, other side tables, the floor were clear, papers sorted into appropriate folders, dishes washed, and a semblance of order was beginning to appear. In the piles, we uncovered the cards mailed to her recently. My church sent prayer cards and there were cards from other Sunday school classes offering their prayers. But standing in the midst of the disorganization, I couldn't help but wonder, where were those people? Deborah treasured those cards and we stacked them so she could get them easily and reread them. Deborah even treasured the letter from the retail employer granting her a leave of absence for her illness believing it to be a personal letter. And then I realized: This is a woman who has not seen a lot of caring in her life.
And certainly prayer is a wonderful thing. But what Deborah needed was people. People who cared. Deborah was tired and in pain by now so it was time for me to go. She asked me to get her mail and three cokes from the coke machine to help with her nausea. She insisted on providing the quarters for the coke machine so to preserve some dignity, I took them. And then the tiny miracle happened. The coke machine provided the cokes and spit the money back on all but the last coke. It's as if God said, "Thanks. Have two drinks on me." Or maybe not. I doubt that God steals cokes but with no way to make the machine take the money and nowhere to leave the money, it felt like a gift.
I came home exhausted after eight hours of retail therapy from behind the counter and two hours of cleaning at Deborah's. I lay in bed thinking about Sunday, the next day. I need to pack my for trip and clean a little bit of my own house. But I felt a strong urge to return to Deborah's. I realized that the only furniture in her living room was a dining room chair, a side table, and a small table holding a television. I guess I missed the absence of other furniture because the room was full of stuff. One lone chair for a lonely woman to watch TV. My own worries aside, I was certain I was going back.
And I did. I rounded up a couple of friends and headed back to Deborah's. Wendy tackled the kitchen and the refrigerator with great vigor and the result was a sparkling kitchen. Julie tackled paper piles sorting current documents into neatly labeled folders, and I continued throwing away old paper, filling the give-away box, and generally cleaning. Two hours (six man hours!) later, I surveyed our work. While not completely clean, I believe we accomplished enough that her daughter and son-in-law could then move her into her new location with just a little more packing.
Why did we do this? I don't have a pat answer other than knowing that there really was no one else to do this. And as I prepared my lesson on Esther this week, I kept thinking perhaps I met Deborah "for such a time as this." Esther 4:14
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