Together, over my battered red Nokia phone and Anne's ever-changing phones with features she could never figure out how to work (her dad talked her into getting texting on her phone plan; the guy in the store looked at her like she had 2 heads, she said...I found this funny because I had picked out my phone the same way--but without anybody talking me into getting more stuff on it--I wanted something simple to work and cheap to buy, much to the bafflement of the AT&T people...) but anyhow, in our simple, technologically challenged way, we walked through the tragic death of her husband Jack’s mother and the painful stuff of cleaning out her (Jack’s mother’s) house and her things. I began to get a clearer picture of who Jack was and the anguish of growing up in a home where a mother hoarded things and left her children to their own growing up. A house that was so little of a home that his dad could not handle staying there, even for the sake of his children. It was a life that scarred Jack’s sister so badly that she took her own life when Jack and Anne’s oldest daughter was a baby. It made me angry and sad that Anne bore the brunt of the pain that Jack carried...but I also knew the hurtful things overflowed from a well of pain. Jack did know Jesus...but here on earth we are still broken, and he was so very broken. One Saturday my phone rang, and when I heard the ragged edge in her voice, I knew.
“He did it, Rose.”
“Did what?” I asked stupidly, although I think I knew before she said a word.
He was gone. To where his badly broken heart would have no more pain, to where he could laugh and his eyes would not be sad even when he smiled. His healing would not be here on earth, but he was finally healed.
And so we walked through more pain.
Two thousand miles between best friends can be hard. But it can also be a safety net. It was hard to trust those around us who did not understand the lives we were living, who sometimes said well-meaning but ill-timed things. Who judged without walking a mile in our shoes. They didn’t know what life looked like from our perspective, and we couldn’t blame them for that. But it didn’t bring on the warm fuzzies either. The closest I could come to describing my relationship to my family and friends in those days was a description of a cowboy that had been part of the song “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys,“ that had been a hit for Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson some years ago. The part that resonated with me was this:
“Them that don’t know him don’t like him;
and them that do, sometimes don’t know how to take him.
He ain’t wrong, he’s just different,
and his pride won’t let him do things to make you think he’s right.“
(“Mamas Don’t Let your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys,” written by Ed and Patsy Bruce, recorded by Ed Bruce on his 1976 self-titled album for United Artists Records; recorded by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson for their 1978 duet album Waylon and Willie on the RCA label; recorded by the Gibson Miller Band for the 1994 album Red, White and Blue Collar, Epic Records.)
We lived in a sort of parallel universe to our friends and families who lived close to us--going to church, training our kids...beside, but not with, those around us. Schedules didn’t mesh with other people‘s; homeschooling was not always met with resounding applause in circles where people were not familiar with it. Homeschooling itself is isolating; we were usually so busy getting our subjects and required days covered that we had little time for anything else. We had accepted the fact that our close friends were few in number. And the fact was that most of those friends fell by the wayside, not because we didn’t care about them; but because we had so many demands on our days that our only time for friends was when our children were snugly tucked in bed, our day’s work was done, and we had settled down to an evening or night alone, or the evening wait for hubby to get home.
Several times I had said in frustration to my husband that I was just not “friendship material.” Who, here on earth, could I trust? Where could one find unconditional love tempered with honesty? Did friends even come like that anymore? I couldn’t handle any more misunderstandings, any more rejection. It hurt too badly. I had begun putting my effort into pushing people away, instead of drawing closer to anyone. I didn’t even want to be close to those around me who hadn’t hurt me yet. I was sure it was just a matter of time before I botched yet another relationship.
But what did either of us have to lose? If it fell flat...well, there were 2000 miles between us. It was our safety net. People were never meant to be alone, even we who don’t feel like we are friendship material. We didn’t realize at the time how gently and graciously God was leading us, providing a safe place when we had each closed the door firmly on the idea of any more close friends. So, while I was busy trying to build distance, God sent me someone to talk to. I found that, with all those miles between, I could be myself without fear or misunderstanding. After all, she and I did share a brain...
And so we built a friendship--this one built on solid Rock--as we talked and laughed through the mundane stuff of everyday life; and walked through the fire together.
Somehow, Anne and her children got through those difficult days after Jack’s death. I ached for them and wished she were close by so I could do the things that friends do when there is a death in the family--sit with the grieving, bring food that nobody feels like eating, watch the kids...just be there. But it wasn’t to be. I wrote her new address and phone number in my rolodex and changed the familiar phone number in my beat-up red cell phone when she and her children moved across the state line to get away from some of the painful memories. And prayed that this would be the start of better things to come for them.
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