The Song of Winter

I never felt that I was any good at singing the song of winter. It’s the melody that warms a heart and meets the unspoken needs of the terribly ill. The ones who live out a cold, gray season of life that may be their last…

It always seems there are others around who are natural born singers or who have trained voices to grasp this tune in ways I can’t.

I was a small four-year-old in kindergarten. Our teacher, Mrs. Rathbun, decided that Christian Myers—a boy with a blonde crew cut and the littlest of upturned noses—and myself were small enough to fit into tiny clown costumes. Wriggling myself into playclothes, I imagined we had been chosen to kick off a fun game.

Instead, after changing in the closet, another teacher led Christian and me outside to the back of a white van with boarded back windows. She opened the door to the vehicle and told us to get in. Neither teacher informed us where we were headed.

Christian and I exchanged glances. I could tell by his expression that he was worried too.

But adults were to be obeyed so we climbed in.

We grasped at the slippery, metal floor of the van on all fours, trying not to get flung around like laundry in a clothes dryer and just stared at each other.

It seemed like a long time before the van stopped. When it finally did, a rear door to the van had been opened and the teacher told us to get out. I shed a tear from the bright sunlight.

Taking a hand from each of us, she proceeded to lead us into a large brick building.

Then we entered a room with multiple beds where all else melted away but one upon which lay an old, old woman with the blackest of hair fanned out onto white pillows. She extended a long, hooked finger from which a talon-like fingernail pierced the air, and crooked it further to beckon me close. As she did, she leaned forward, her waxy face tight-lipped. My head said no but my feet obeyed, inching forward.

At the edge of the bed I stopped, heart pounding. The finger pointed to a clear, glass jar on a table filled with hard, round red candies. The finger urged me to take. I shook my head silently. If I did what she wanted I would catch her disease and die.

And then I was led to another room. I saw a boy in a bed placed horizontally in the room. An adult told me he can’t hear, see, or speak, yet I am to “cheer him up” nonetheless. And off went the adult.

I spotted a small window that met the ceiling. I stared at it a moment as if there was an answer in the wan light filtering through. Then, in a soft voice I began to sing a child’s song. But the music stopped, stuck in my throat by a feeling that it was just too hard to continue. I wasn’t helping him because the boy didn’t budge, but remained as still as one of my dolls thrown on the floor after I tire of it.

And using this unexpected script from a day in the life of my four-year-old self, the stage was set for the enemy to make me frightened of the dying, to recoil from the inevitability of mortality. To feel utterly useless.

And pretty much, that’s the way it’s been. Others sing the song and I am the backup who lets out an occasional “whoot” or “hey hey.” Until—I recently felt a sense of urgency to see a childhood friend who dropped off social media. But I couldn’t find anyone to tell me what happened or where she might be. Until—while close to her new residence on a trip, I stumbled upon a months old message on my phone from her sister with a phone number.

That’s strange...No, that’s GOD leading me on.

I drove through miles of cornfields, peanut farms and acres of tobacco plants, a church it seemed for every twenty residents, to a remote area of the state. I stopped at a large-chain supermarket for flowers. One bunch in the entire place. But they’re beautiful, and just for my friend.

God is good!

I wandered the halls of a rehab in search of her and met her roommate—a woman of advanced years who says my friend hasn’t had a visitor for a long time, not even her only son. And my heart ached. I knew Jackie was loved by her sister. But distance separated her from family. Some friends probably didn’t even know where she was or what happened to her. Others may have not wanted to sing this song of twilight that leaves them with a chill in their bones and a barrenness tough to plod through. I am in no position to judge.

And I entered through the open door, steeling myself for what I might see and—shock.

But, she’s my age.

Immediately, I struggle to understand slurred speech that is soft and high pitched. Though it’s been many years since I last saw her, she remembers me and utters my full name.

I asked questions left unanswered or that she began to, but trailed off into silent gazes in the distance. It may be the arrival of more strangers that only she can see, but she told me they are nice because I asked about them.

No vase, container or ice bucket for her flowers, so I ran out to the nurse’s station to get one, only to discover there was no place but her food tray to place it. No chair for a visitor so I sat on the edge of her bed. A large, white pill rested on her hospital gown and I wondered about it.

She said she was so thirsty, always thirsty and asked for her cup. But the large blue cup had her roommate’s name on it and for her there was none. I ran back to the nurse’s station where I’d hopefully get one. Success, but the only water source I could find was lukewarm out of a tap from a not-so-clean sink. When I saw her having trouble holding the cup, I held it for her until she drank her fill.

She asked if I would hold her hand, and I did.

We were interrupted by two aides that stepped into the room and without saying a word, together pulled my friend along with the bedsheet off of the bed and onto the floor. It all happened so fast, I saw them expose her nakedness from the waist down to change her undergarment. I turned away to give Jackie some semblance of privacy—and dignity.

A hot dog in a bun smothered in ketchup, beans and coleslaw arrived and I got upset. How does one gain strength in a wasted body and heal on this junk?

She refused to eat. Eventually she tried to lift a utensil but wasn’t able. She wanted iced tea and sugar-free cookies I brought, so I broke off child-size bites of wafers and placed them in her mouth and held a straw to her lips. With each bite and sip she said it is good.

“I feel like you’re my mother,” she said with a smile, and she seemed more herself with this statement than any other she made.

“That’s okay,” I said, searching for words, “We never get too old to sometimes need our mothers.”

I can’t leave! But I wanted to bolt in my sorrow and shock over how she’d wasted away.

She scooped at the coleslaw and tried to navigate it towards her mouth. Some landed on her nose and cheeks though she didn’t seem to notice. I wiped her clean with baby wipes.

And then she looked at me and began to sing. A song from a lifetime ago, one that I recognized, yet I cannot at all remember now. And we sang softly together for about a minute. And she smiled.

My heart broke that I had to go—far away. She asked for a hug and with care and restraint for the fragility of a person who no longer reaches out but needs others to reach in I tried. I petted dry, crepey skin and smoothed back tangled hair, looked into her eyes and told her I loved her. And I never said that to my friend before. But she said she loved me back.

From the age of four to this visit I’d never tried to sing the song of winter alone. But the Lord showed me it’s not as complicated a tune as the enemy falsely led me to believe. Though the serpent gloated for a long time over my surprise misfortune at four-years-old, over a quarter of a century later the Lord ”turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire…He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:1-3 NIV).

It’s been in me…

Driving away from the facility, for every three or four neat houses along the highway sat a dead one—roof sagging into what should have been a welcoming front door with a wreath. Others had smashed windows—relics of dwellings that once were new, where people lived and no doubt hoped and dreamed. And God confirmed in my spirit through these wasted homes, that among tidy, neat people, there are many living winter—especially as I get older and those around me do too.

Churches abounded in this area, though many seemed silent, vacant. Yet there I was, the church. I am to sing the song of the wasted, crushed, broken. And though I might not perform an amazing melody, God has always wanted me to hand over that old tape caught in a loop and sing His new song. And it’s not too hard. And, I pray there will be someone to sing the song of winter to me one day.