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She wished George was there with them. With his rich baritone, he would give harmony to the words. Though she couldn’t explain why, music always added a richness to words already steeped with meaning. Music had a power all its own—a way to move the soul.
But George wasn’t with them and wouldn’t be coming. He had gone to his Savior the year Brandon had graduated high school. Had it been ten years? Goodness, time went by. After George died, Elizabeth had moved toward the coast to be closer to her younger brother and his family. Dave had never married or had children, so it made sense for Elizabeth to move closer to her only remaining family, but Helen had always ached at losing the closeness of such a dear friend.
Clearly, however, love extended beyond time and absence.
For a long stretch of time, the two women sat in silence. There was such easy comfort with Elizabeth, and Helen was so grateful for it.
“I was thinking on the drive over about Jackson,” Elizabeth said after some ten minutes or so.
Helen looked at her friend, finding that age had produced several more wrinkles on the woman’s face, but it had not robbed her of the joyful beauty that had always marked Elizabeth. “Jackson?”
“Yes. I was remembering when he was born. There was so much emotion in that time, wasn’t there?”
Even some thirty-four years later, Helen’s heart squeezed with a surge of that leftover emotion. It’d been such a potent concoction of fear and anger all mixed in with the joy at the birth of another child.
Helen hadn’t known anything about cleft palate before Jackson’s birth, other than it happened rarely. To other people’s babies. Her first response had been to wonder what she’d done wrong. Poor diet while she was pregnant? Had she taken something bad that had damaged her infant? Following that crushing sense of guilt, she’d panicked over what Jackson’s life would look like.
Surgeries—likely multiple times throughout his childhood. Ear and sinus challenges. Speech problems. Self-esteem issues. All of them made the doctor’s list of things to be aware of going forward. This, followed by what seemed like an obligatory “Don’t worry, though, Mrs. Murphy. Most children with this defect go on to live a perfectly healthy, normal life.”
Don’t worry? Her son had been born with his lip and palate incomplete. How was she going to feed him? How could she possibly sleep for the next several months before his first surgery to close the gap? And what if he did have hearing loss? She didn’t know how to navigate any of that. And this doctor, after giving her a list of what seemed grave warnings, was now sayingdon’t worry? As if that was possible.
“I was such a mess,” Helen said.
“You had good reason to be.” Elizabeth patted her hand.
With a quiet chuckle, Helen hung her head. “I was so afraid that he’d be such a lonely boy. Rejected and made fun of by others. Sad, quiet, and awkward. I kept thinking,Kids can be so mean, and I became such a mama bear.”
“Mothers are supposed to protect their babies.”
“Oh, I was over the top.” Helen rubbed her neck as it heated. “Do you know, the thing Kevin and I fought about most as we were raising the boys was Jackson. He kept telling me the boy was fine. I was certain he was being cavalier. We did some serious rounds about it several times over.” She shook her head. “In the end Kevin had been right all along. Jackson was absolutely fine. For whatever difficulties he had as a little kid because of his mouth, his massive personality overcame them all. And to think, all that time I thought he’d be a wallflower.” Helen snorted a laugh. “Now he makes a living as a stand-up comedian.”
Elizabeth winked. “God has a sense of humor.”
A touch of comfort warmed Helen’s heart. “He does. And God gave Jackson everything he needed in life.”
That slim hand patted Helen’s. “He does that.”
Helen shifted to face Elizabeth more squarely. “How did you get through it, Beth?”
By the shadow of sadness that passed through the older woman’s eyes, Helen knew Elizabeth understood her question, and the loss still hurt. Helen couldn’t imagine losing a son, and she certainly didn’t think a parent ever got over it.
“Day by day.” Elizabeth sighed softly and gazed out the window across the room. “At first I wanted the darkness to just swallow me whole. I couldn’t fathom going forward in life. And I was mad, secretly.” She tapped her chest. “In here. Mad that God would take the only son He’d given me. That He would leave George and me without a family, without a legacy.” In her pause, Elizabeth looked at her hands, now folded in her lap. After several heartbeats, she drew in a new breath and looked back at Helen. “But after a time, He made something clear to me.” She blinked, and a sheen glazed her eyes.
“What was it?” Helen whispered.
“You.” She reached for Helen’s hand. “He gave us you and Kevin and the boys. And He had done it through Dave, so in a way you were sort of my son’s testimony to me. His testimony of God’s goodness, even when it certainly did not feel good.”
Helen leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her dear friend. “We always thought you were God’s gift to us, not the other way around.”
Elizabeth kissed Helen’s cheek and leaned back. “You were the reason we stayed in Sugar Pine after Dave died. We loved being a part of your lives. A part of your family. If you want to know the truth, I didn’t want to go live with my brother’s family after George died.”
“We would have had you, Beth!”
“I know it.” She patted Helen’s hand. “But Caleb was so insistent. And there was purpose in my going there too. His children are also a delight to me, and I get to hold my great-nieces and watch them grow, just as I did your boys.” Sitting back, a small smile played at her lips. “Though it may seem small and quiet, I have lived a rich life.”
“I think that has a lot to do with you deciding to see it that way.”
Elizabeth caught Helen’s gaze and held it for a moment. It seemed like a silent passing on of wisdom, a wordless commission for Helen to choose for herself how she would see life. After a breath, Elizabeth rubbed Helen’s shoulder and turned forward to gaze out the window again.
