You're All I Got

After she jumped out a window three floors up, the mental health facility decided she probably needed to live across the street at the other facility, back in those days when Ohio called it the Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities; thus she had come into his life precipitously.

In college, he had been an award winning soccer player dubbed “the animal” by his opponents; after graduating, he fell into a job of working with people with “disabilities,” eventually becoming superintendent of the local developmental center.

He made many friends (and some frenemies): she was one.

She had lived all her life in some sort of facility—since she was 6 years old—which is, perhaps, why she so actively sought adventures; her escapades were numerous: some hilarious, some ridiculous, some dangerous, often involving literal escapes to cities across the country, conning bus or train employees into free transportation. She was canny and clever with an extraordinary ability to work any system for her own benefit.

Staff—for good or bad—became family; at the first facility, she had given birth to a child around the Fourth of July, who was taken from her. She was told it had died. Her bad behavior increased during that season and those who cared for her had to remind themselves the time of year.

He often sat at a picnic table, working and chatting with a steady stream of interesting characters, including her.

They became friends, she working the angles like a clever child wangling an extra dessert or trip down the road.

“Dan, Dan,” she’d say in that guttural nearly incomprehensible voice, “Dan, can I have___?” to which he answered, “You have to earn the right for that reward by being nice to the people around you. No hitting, no screaming, no running away.”

When he left for another job, he gave her his phone number, dropping by her cottage early Friday mornings to visit with doughnuts, a cup of coffee or a $5 bill, always encouraging her to be not only clever but kind, to show love to others.

She called frequently and, if you were sitting in the same room, you could hear (but perhaps not understand) her voice.

It was then I noticed she no longer called him Dan: “Daddy, I tried to call you. Daddy? I tried to leave a voice mail for you.”

One Friday about a year ago, he noticed she did not look well; this began her journey home.

In the hospital, he prayed, encouraging her to also pray aloud.

“But I don’t know how,” she protested, to which he said, “Just start with “Dear God, and then say what you want to say.”

She said, “Dear Dan, I mean, God, I need help. “Dear Dan, I mean God, you’re all I got.”

The nurse who stood near whispered in a glimmer of tears, “I didn’t know she could do that.”

Months later on Good Friday evening, the call came that her time was close and he was needed, but before he got there, another call came that she had slipped out quietly.

These were the days of Covid isolation but the people who had so lovingly (mostly) cared for her granted permission for him to visit her body—the damaged fragile remnant she had left.

He sang over her that” as death gives way to victory I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know he lives!”

Easter, 2020, more than most, was a season of both grief and joy.

No one deserves to leave alone with no tears shed; in this disease-wracked world, we wept that this old friend who spoke strangely, limped through life not understanding the meaning of the words “brain damage” had been caught up somewhere beyond the earth, arms open, articulate and whole and lovely for the first time in her existence.

For Christians, Easter is the center of our faith. We know historically that Jesus was crucified; we also know that hundreds of people testified that they saw Him after death, that He had risen from the grave.

Either He was resurrected or He was not who He said He was and, over centuries, thousands of Christians have been willing to be persecuted and die for our belief in the truth of Jesus.

For those who love Jesus: This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. *******************         Darlene  rice paper/gouache/board