The Table

My mother’s shoulders drooped today.

They that had stood strong for 70 years, and now finally maybe had met their match;
Weighed down with the sadness she bore for her best friend who has lost everything in the fires we have had here.

Her eyes were puffy.
Her sighs bore weight.

After a long hug and shared tear-welling,
she told me that she was just having so much trouble with the moving forward.
With resuming normal life as so many she loved were in pain.

Her feet felt hesitant in the marching
when her heart lay there in the ash.
She said she felt so tired.
She said she just needed some rest.

After long discussion and sharing our common ache,
I reminded her that we all need to remember our own self-care, too.

That caring for ourselves was not selfish,
but was instead a time of recharging in order to get back out there to be helpful once again.
She battled with this thought.
I could see it in her eyes.
Her body begged for just sitting in a chair.
Her brain said, “But that feels like giving up!”

I finally convinced her to take just one hour.
Just to sit in silence.
Just to take her own deep breath.

After all: There is a reason that in the flight announcement they tell you to fasten your own mask first…

I reminded her that the care of those left standing matters, too.
That that is the only way we can be the ones with the strength to hold,
and sort,
and do the lifting.

She walked out the door, only her Bible and purse in her hand.
Her eyes pointed down at her shoes.

But four hours later, when she returned,
She told me this story -
And her spirit was visibly renewed:

She had driven from the house not knowing where to even go.

Her favorite place now sitting closed in a wasteland of ash.
The idea came to just drive East.
She thought she would head to Farmer’s Lane.
She would just sit and be still awhile.

But as she got to the corner of Steele Ln. and Mendocino,
she had felt a strong urge that she should turn left.
She did,
then she had seen the Starbucks there.

She shrugged and decided not to use more gas,
and chose to pull into that parking lot.
She grabbed her purse and her Bible, and walked in to stand in line.

As she stood there,
she felt someone come to stand behind her.
As she turned to look she noticed that the woman who was now inches from her was crying.

There was no need to ask her why here.
We are all crying the same tears.

But my mother, mother of all, took this as a cue to comfort.
She spoke to the woman,
sharing the pain of our now shared views.
Our world now turned to gray.

My mom said she hugged the woman in line as she cried.
She had opened, small, the door.
Then her name was called,
her cup slid out,
She took it and had walked away.

She carried that cup to her seat at an empty table that was made for two.
She faced the street, and every sad car that passed.

She said that she had just settled in as the woman, then,
pulled out the open seat.

For the next full hour, my mom explained, that woman spilled out from her heart.
The pains of her past.
The longing she felt.
All the good that she justified she had done.

Her mother had died in an explosion and then subsequent fire.
These fires had brought back that pain.
She had suffered accidents, heartbreaks, and devastation.
The trauma just would not end.
However,
out of the goodness of her heart,
she had adopted and was raising three siblings spared from a life they did not deserve.
She was pouring out.

Her tears dripped onto the table.
How could this be the life she presented them?
How could she offer any safety to them from here?

She explained that she just could not wrap her mind around the pain.
The past pain.
The present.
The pain that she saw coming.
She recounted all the times she had survived.
The trials she had stood tall through.

“I just don’t know why I’m still here….” she had said,
as still the tears spilled onto that table.
As cars passed, and the strangers filtered through.

“You’re here because there are still things to do,” my mom said as she looked into her eyes.

“You are here because God is simply not done with you.”

My mom explained all the things she had said as an encouragement to this stranger, now friend.
The one sitting across her table.

Tears spilled out from her own eyes.

She had invited the woman to our beautiful church.
She had offered the warm embrace.
She had passed on the same encouragement that I had given to HER about self care just shortly before,
as tears burned hot again.

Grace like a vapor.
Barely traceable,
but undeniably there.

My mom stood before me telling this story with her own tears falling.
She told how,
in feeling used for something bigger, she had been filled with the things that she had been seeking today.

In being open, she had been sealed.

Peace. Encouragement. Purpose.

Before the woman left,
after she had thanked my mom,
she casually said,

“You know, It’s the weirdest thing….
I was just driving to get away from it all.
I didn’t know where I was even going.
I thought maybe I’d walk around Safeway,
but then I looked across the parking lot and had the thought,
‘You should go to Starbucks,’
so I came.”

I don’t believe these things are by chance.

These two people,
both in need of comfort in their hearts.
Both searching for solace,
and a healing touch
brought together by the cupped hands of divine appointment.

One with something to give.

One with a need to fill.

I was reminded today of the scripture,

“A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”
- Proverbs 11:25

Out of my mom’s own need,
still, she poured out.

Out of her own pouring,
Then she was filled.


May we all be waiting at that small table.

May we all wait for the one who will sit across.

May we love each other without any boundaries.

May we never count generous loving a loss.