Monday Mimisms ~ Aunt Evelyn
I hated to clean. And I loved to talk, especially in an empty church with acoustical echoes of my own making where children were not supposed to otherwise utter a sound. It was downright blasphemy.
I could only fool her for so long. As soon as the vacuuming started and I was sure she couldn't see or hear me, I would climb up into the choir loft behind the sacred pulpit, say hello to Jesus, and then on the long way back to the pews that still needed dusting, I would conjure up a sermon about what he might be praying and say a few words to the invisible people.
As soon as the vacuum noise ceased, it was time to return to the dust from which I came...or something like that. And in a hurry. She would sashay out of the hall of now perfectly perfect classrooms and walk right up to the place I'd just been preaching with nary an amen let me tell ya. In her hands she carried a vase full of gladiolas and crocus, now kissed with water, and arranged just right for the Sunday's altar. I figured out many years later that she wasn't just there to dutifully clean. It brought her great joy to ready and adorn the church she loved.
I don't know why I'm thinking of her today. Except that I miss her sometimes and wish I could tell her how much those cleaning trips meant to me. And how it shaped my spiritual self in ways I discovered later in life, remembering how she served without asking for payment or praise, and how she never scolded me for leaving so much dust on the wood.
A few years after my great-uncle died and she was alone for the first time in her life, at fifty-two years of age, she had a stroke. I thought she was invincible and strong. Driven and dedicated. Selfless and kind....and deserving so much more than her fate. She spent the next twenty-five years of her life in a nursing home. And it pained me more than anything. When I visited there was only one word she could say. That word was "home." She would cry openly and beg me to take her with me. I made promises I couldn't keep, but I tried. No amount of Gethsemane praying was going to make that dream come true for her. And so without the benefit of children of her own, she stayed in that miserable place. There were long seasons of time when I simply couldn't visit her. Not because it was physically impossible, but because I knew I would have to tell her no and watch her cry. The look of disappointment on her face was more than I could take. And my guilt when I didn't visit, was just as painful. One day I picked a bouquet of her ever blooming fence flowers and took them to her. It only made her miss home more and I never did it again.If I could, for just one day, I would like to go back with her, in a swerving white car full of crocus, to the churchyard where she's now a permanent resident and talk to that Jesus on the wall. I would ask Him how one who dedicated her life in service to others in so many ways could end up alone and uncared for. I won't get that chance. The sanctuary burned in a fire not long after she went away. The only thing they salvaged was the window and the painting.





























































