It was a Louise kind of day. Cold with bright sunshine so one could sit in the car with the sun beating in and it felt warm.
When I first met Louise, she had recently given up driving, but she kept the car parked in the driveway so she could sit in the sunshine and read her mail. I would stop by her house and have to search the garden and the car because she was rarely in the house. I believe it was for Louise’s 80th birthday that she packed out her first deer. It might have been 85.
She was one of my favorites. Louise told stories about knitting hats for WWI soldiers when she was in the third grade, thanking her daddy for not killing himself when the stock market crashed, traveling to Iran, and getting hit in the head with the ball during a World Series game in Detroit.
Louise could tell stories and I regret every time I moved us back on track during Bible study instead of listening to one more story.
We’ve been talking about grace lots at church; wrestling with what the word actually means. In my mind, Louise epitomized grace, especially learning how to age gracefully.
I think we confuse acceptance with grace. They’re not the same thing. Acceptance is the willingness to receive what is. Grace involves a bit of a fight, a rebellion with what is, and a demand for what may be.
Grace demands that humanity is recognized, and when it has been trampled upon, that it is restored. It is more gracious to demand respect from others than to allow people to dismiss or dehumanize us. It is gracious to ask for help when it is needed, but to also tell folks when you don’t need their help.
When we talk about people aging gracefully, I think we often want it to mean that people get out of the way, sit in the corner and be quiet while we do for them to appease our guilt so we can get on with our day.
When Louise fell and broke her arm, I went to the hospital with her. The doctor was a jerk. He treated her like an old woman. He talked to me like Louise wasn’t even there and I told him she was perfectly capable of responding. He didn’t believe me, but she shamed him. Sometimes shame is the correct response.
It ended up being cancer and Louise died a few days after my daughter was born. She was waiting to see the baby and it was one of the hardest funerals I’ve ever done.
But Louise fought. She didn’t fight the cancer or caregivers, but she fought to remain human in the midst of so much that strips us of our humanity.
So I’m thankful for warm sunbeams shining in my van on a bitter cold day to remind me of a lovely lady who taught me some about grace.
• Tari Stage-Harvey is the pastor of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church.
