The Little Things
It was that twilight hour when light is giving way to darkness, and the sky is aglow with radiant splendor from the sun whose face is hidden. Sunburned hayfields framed by dusky mountains contributed a tawny aura to the approaching night.
On this warm September evening in 1965, as our car traced the winding highway through my beloved Arkansas hill country, my thoughts were adrift between these familiar scenes, and the two worlds which lay at either end of our journey.
Behind us was the world of Lois S., Student Nurse -- a world of needles and gauze, sutures and study hours, housemothers and hospital cafeteria meals, dormitory nicknames, books and bedpans, skeletons and mannequins, nursing care plans, and those wonderful weekend passes.
It was to one of those weekend passes that I owed this relaxing trip which would take me home to another world fifty miles away -- a country world of pot-bellied stoves, broiler houses, bare wood floors, barbed wire fences, wringer washers, assorted animals, and four miles away, the small town where, sixteen months earlier, I had marched to "Pomp and Circumstance" with eighty-three other high school graduates.
Suddenly our car veered into the oncoming lane, jarring my thoughts as we neared the top of a hill. The haze of approaching headlights appeared above the horizon. Frozen beside my father, I hoped he could steer clear of the two glaring eyes which topped the hill.
I started to relax as we skidded toward the shoulder and a shallow ditch. But the other vehicle had claimed the shoulder also. As blinding headlights met us head-on, I heard a loud crash followed by clainging metal diminishing into a faint jingle. Then silence, numbness, shock.
Overcome by an impulse to get out of the car, I tugged at the door, but it was jammed. As I opened my mouth to cry for help, my lower face was wrapped in pain. My jaw had been crushed. I couldn't speak. A passer-by stopped and forced the door open. Minutes dragged by, but finally I heard a wailing siren in the distance.
"Your forehead's been cut. Can you hold this rag on your head?" someone asked, as I was placed on the stretcher. I began to realize that the ambulance had no attendant. Daddy was semi-conscious and unable to help. I would be alone.
The shrill scream of the siren announced that we were retracing the fifteen miles I had just traveled. Back to the world of needles and gauze, but this time from a different perspective.
I grew faint from shock and loss of blood. Am I going to die? I wondered. I wasn't afraid to die. Death would be a welcome alternative to this. I could sense God's presence there with me.
God's presence was comforting. I was suddenly very thankful for a spiritual experience I'd had several years before. You can read about that experience here. But I always thought you'd planned some significant contributions for my life, God! Was I wrong? I have nothing to show for my life!
I remembered my two worlds. The girls at school would miss me for awhile. But, engrossed in their own worlds, they would soon forget. Eventually death would claim my family, and Lois S. would be only a vague memory in the minds of a few people. I'd be with God, but what of my life? Had it really been just a vapor?
As we pulled into the emergency entrance of the familiar hospital, I was relieved to know there would be someone there to help me, but I was saddened by the realization that I probably wouldn't die after all. I might have been transported to heaven. I could have seen the face of God tonight! But now, how long? A lifetime?
Soon we were in the emergency room, and a few hours later my jaw was immobilized by rubber traction bands stretched between metal bands wired to my upper and lower teeth. I couldn't open or move my clenched teeth. A couple of weeks later the rubber bands were replaced with wires and splints to hold my jaw more securely.
Then followed the healing period. The liquid diet. Even mashed potatoes had to be thinned to liquid with milk before I could suck them through my teeth.
During the ten weeks my teeth were fastened together, I had to cope with the obvious problems of speech and nourishment. But I found that the little things were the hardest to cope with -- the inability to wet my lips with my tongue; the embarrassment of "eating" (drinking?) in the hospital cafeteria when I couldn't open my teeth; the resentment of caring for patients who complained about food I couldn't eat.
Years have passed since this experience, and I've searched for answers to the questions which confronted me in the ambulance that night. But I haven't found them in a brilliant achievement or a noble mission. Again, the scales tip toward little things: A lifetime seems a long time, but how have I handled my minutes? Organizing a "help our children" campaign is excellent, but what's my reaction when my preschooler interrupts me to beg, "Come see the worm, Mom!"? Baking a special treat for an elderly person is good, but how did I respond to her plea, "Come in and spend some time with me?"
Life is made of these little things. I've discovered that what I have to show for the life I've lived depends not upon some outstanding contribution I might make, but upon how I've used the little opportunities God has given me.
Next time I face death, I pray I will have salvaged some of them.
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Special Note:
The most important "little thing" I have ever done involves a choice I made many years ago. It has turned out to be the biggest thing in my life. It is actually the thing that makes all the other things count.
It is the thing that kept me from being afraid when I faced death. It is the reason God's presence was with me. If you have not already read the spiritual experience I mentioned earlier in this story, click here to read it.