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Friends United Meeting |
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Quaker Life
March 2003
Broken and Dented
By Pam Ferguson
I call it "Broken and Dented." The B&D store just down from my home is a small hole of a grocery store they call an outlet. It sells the most amazing variety of canned goods and foodstuff, most broken or dented, plus items that sat forever on grocery shelves because they are a bit too exotic for the average shopper. The majority of the clientele receive public assistance and sometimes the place has the feel of a garage sale of food. But it is a store full of surprises and I love the place. So did Donnabelle.
Donnabelle was eighty years old and had been dying from cancer for the last two years. I say dying. From the first moment she heard the tumors in her breast and uterus were cancerous she prepared to die. Sometimes I wondered if she forgot to live, but now I know differently. Donnabelle taught me that sometimes you could be so busy living that you forget to prepare for dying.
I met Donnabelle on our first Sunday at Winchester Friends. She was unforgettable—five-foot, gray-headed lady with impeccable, fancy clothing and jewelry, including a gold butterfly on her shoulder. If you met her at B&D, she would have on a loud orange pumpkin sweatshirt, or something red during the Christmas season with Christmas socks that rang with bells. She loved looking good, was one of the few people I knew who could actually afford it, and she didn't mind being flashy. It made her smile with a twinkle in her eye.
Donnabelle loved people and loved having people around her. As my husband, Ron, and I made our home here, Donnabelle became a part of our life. She grew more frail as the cancer progressed and our minutes and hours with her in her home or at the hospital grew as well.
About a year ago, the cancer progressed and her pain increased. We found her at the hospital one day feeling self-absorbed and rightly so. It was one of the rare times she questioned why God would do this to her. How do you explain why cancer happens? The one thing we knew was that this wasn't God's punishment. We knew there was little any of us could do to make it go away or change the situation short of a miracle from God. She didn't want a miracle. She wanted to die and go to heaven to be with her God, her husband and her parents.
In the middle of this conversation, Ron felt moved to tell Donnabelle about the conversation he had just had in the local jail. An inmate he had visited found out his wife and three children had moved in with the man next door and she was filing for divorce. Dennis loved his wife, was heartbroken and angry over her actions, and completely powerless to change the situation. Donnabelle and Dennis were at the same place in their lives—dealing with pain and suffering and the inability to change their circumstances. Ron asked Donnabelle to pray for Dennis and his life and pain. There are times when you know that you've been obedient. Both Ron and I saw something happen in Donnabelle's heart and mind. She grasped the significance and importance of praying for someone else; she asked questions about Dennis and took his life, his wife, his imprisonment and his pain into her heart and began praying for him. More than a passing fancy, over the next days and weeks her prayers and concern grew in an incredible way. In turn, Ron took the story of Donnabelle to Dennis in the jail, and asked him to pray for her in her battle with cancer and pain. Dennis took Donnabelle into his heart and mind and began to support her through prayer in addition to writing her letters.
Donnabelle spent much of last winter in the hospital, but gained enough strength in the spring to move back to her home. Within weeks of being home, she called and asked Ron if he would get her into the jail to visit Dennis. Their first meeting was a delight. Because of Donnabelle's hearing, the jailer allowed her to come at a time when no one else was in the visiting room and Donnabelle and Dennis met for the first time through Plexiglas. Dennis wept. Donnabelle lectured. She wanted his life to change and she wanted him out of jail so she could be a grandmother to him and help him get his life and his drinking under control. They were able to meet several times before Dennis was transferred to a prison facility five hours away.
Dennis kept writing and Donnabelle kept failing. Donnabelle told us she thought she wouldn't last until Christmas. Our hope was she would live long enough to see Dennis released from prison so he could visit her as a free and changed man. Everyday brought more pain and suffering for Donnabelle, yet her spirit remained sweet. Her visitors commented she always spent more time asking about their lives and concerns than she spent talking about herself.
The last weeks of Donnabelle's life were spent in the hospital under heavy medication. We did manage to have several incredible conversations with her about what death and heaven would be like. We spent hours talking, laughing and crying about her "graduation" day.
The one thing we didn't anticipate was the huge void Donnabelle's death would make in our lives and in our community. The day before her death, Ron and I woke her out of a drug-induced slumber. We knew her days with us were numbered and we didn't want her to die without speaking with her one last time. Before Donnabelle was even awake, the first word from her mouth was "peace." She said it twice. Several minutes later as she began to wake up and think clearer, we asked her about her waking words. She said, "I woke up out of the most wonderful peaceful sleep." I felt guilty for waking her up, but I would never trade that for the knowledge her last hours on earth were filled with peace.
We talked with Donnabelle for an hour that day. She requested we write up some wishes she had for the Meeting and a thank-you for the doctor. We told her at that moment Dennis was in transit from the prison to our town and would be released in a few days. We wanted to prepare her for a visit from him in the hospital. She was thrilled he was finally on his way and talked about seeing him soon. As we left, we once again hugged her and told her we loved her. As I look back, I realize what a gift that visit was for us.
Donnabelle died in the middle of the night, peacefully in her sleep. She was released into heaven on the day Dennis was released from prison and moved to our local jail for a few days stay before release. The next morning Ron walked to the jail to give the news to Dennis. And he wept.
The funeral went just as Donnabelle planned. I sat at the back of the meetinghouse during the memorial service and smiled because I knew Donnabelle was smiling. After the day was done, I took some time to be alone and stopped in at B&D, looking for a bargain and enjoying the peace and quiet. As I wandered around the tiny store, I happened to overhear a cashier's conversation. She was a tiny, 30-ish blonde, who obviously led a difficult, hard life. She was telling another customer that today was a sad day for her because today was the day they buried her friend, Donnabelle. This cashier, a woman I see quite often as I shop at B&D, told about how on Saturday nights about this time Donnabelle used to come in, shout "Yoo-hoo!" and wander around the store looking for a bargain. The young woman recounted story after story about those visits and how they helped each other and talked about their problems.
I was moved to hear this woman speak so lovingly of Donnabelle. Donnabelle, broken and dented from the pain of bone cancer, managed to engage everyone she was around up until the last week of her illness. She was shopping up until two weeks before she died. This young woman at B&D was just a cashier, a small part of Donnabelle's life. Yet Donnabelle touched her in a way I never considered possible. She saw humanity, cherished every contact with it and treated everyone with dignity and respect. I admit I often become so wrapped up in my everyday chores, busy trying to accomplish the most in the shortest amount of time, I forget the contact I have with humanity in every corner of life. I realized how broken and dented I've become through my careless walk through my town and through my life. I've forgotten to prepare for dying and live with the awareness that every moment and every life is significant and sacred.
I walked out of B&D that night with my eyes opened, my heart tender and full of the importance of saying a kind word, giving an encouraging smile, looking for that of God in humanity whenever and wherever I can. When I die, I want to be remembered like Donnabelle: a woman full of grace and love, someone who is willing to grow and be challenged, and someone who sees value in the broken and dented. The way I walk through my world has been changed by an 80-year-old woman.
Pam Ferguson, and her husband, Ron, have been Co-pastors at Winchester Friends Meeting, Indiana since coming back from Uganda in 1998.
Copyright (c) 2003 Friends United Meeting
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