Right away I noticed sweet Grandma Charlotta had a tremendous limp as she walked. Her body would rock or sort of sway back and forth as she moved. I noticed it, but I am not sure I ever stopped to ask why that was. She was somewhere in her late 70s and I guess I just assumed that was the sort of thing that went along with being somewhere in your late 70s.
Another obvious thing about her was her industriousness. She was always busy doing things. She lived with Rick’s family and cared for their home. She helped make dinners and threw in loads of laundry and seemed always to have someplace to go or something to do. She certainly never appeared to be bored. She walked downtown and drove her own car and even kept her own mobile home somewhere way out in the country.
I remember hearing how she spent most of her summers living in her mobile home and working at her cousin’s nearby greenhouses and nursery. Yes, a woman in her 70s, with a substantial limp, and she was working hard outdoors all summer long.
She was a quiet woman. She didn’t offer a lot of opinions or even insert herself into conversation very much. She seemed quite content to just sit in the presence of those around the table or the family room and listen to the banter and the younger generation's back and forth. With a slight smile on her face, she loved to just be present and taking it all in. She never overstayed or over-anything’d. At the end of the day, she would slip quietly from the room and retire to her bedroom without hardly a sound. Even with her limp, Charlotta walked softly.
She had a quick and quite beautiful smile, but I heard enough stories to know her life had been very hard. She worked long hours as a waitress in a diner for many years. She cared for her children and her husband and there was a good deal of heartache with both. But this quiet, sweet woman seemed to just keep going. Even with her limp.
I am sure I never once heard her say anything about pain or discomfort or really anything disparaging of anything or anyone at all. She was pleasant. Industrious. Steadfast.
Her quiet strength and occupation were always apparent to me, but lately, I find myself with a new and even greater admiration for her.
Strangely enough, it is her limp which is drawing her to my mind all of these years later. I haven’t said it out loud to anyone—not even to Rick—but I feel lately the way I limp around our home is reminding me of his Grandma Charlotta. On particularly bad days, I cannot walk without a strange rocking back and forth of my person. I have no idea why. It’s just the awkward gait that is now taking place in my body as both knees are in pain. I suppose it’s some kind of strange compensation my body is dictating to protect me from pain or further injury. I don’t really know. No one seems to really know.
Yes, I’ve seen several doctors and tried some treatments. Quite a few, in fact. I am currently waiting on approval for another new option. And we remain hopeful that this next thing might work, but in the meantime ... I hobble. Some days are better than others. Somedays I can mask it. Somedays, not so much.
I am still struggling with the fact that in the midst of my cancer diagnosis I must deal with such a debilitating and life-altering side effect of my meds. A few weeks ago when the pain was especially bad, we finally broke down and Rick ordered me a cane off of amazon. It arrived and, in a fit of rage, I literally threw the box into the back of my closet. And there it still sits. Of course I am having a difficult time accepting this new normal. So I hobble and hold on to furniture and walls and people and pretend that cane is not sitting buried in the back of my closet calling my name.
Somedays I walk-limp around like Grandma Charlotta and go about my business and take care of the things of daily living and other days I find myself with enough anger to want to throw just about anything and everything against the sorry wall at the back of my closet.
I am definitely not half as stoic as dear Charlotta. I don’t deny my pain. I don’t cheerfully pretend all is well. I don’t put on the happy face and charge-limp forward. Rick hears me grumble and complain. He sees me cry. He watches me debate if I need a pill for pain or another pill to sleep. He cannot help but watch me hobble across the kitchen or drag myself up the stairs every evening. He is living with a woman who has somehow transformed from a vibrant, active middle aged always-on-the-go-gal to a woman who feels like she's been catapulted somewhere in the middle of her 70s. Maybe her 80s.
I spend a good amount of time each week at my mom’s assisted living community and it is not lost on me that, these days, some of the residents there might be able to beat me in a foot race. Not such a good feeling for this always pretty competitive girl.
So I’ve been thinking a good bit about Charlotta McNatt. Thinking about her hard life. Thinking about the years of physical and emotional pain. Thinking about how she was a quiet, steady presence in Rick’s family home. She took care of so many things with hardly a word. She came in and out of rooms with hardly a sound. She never left a mess or a trace or any kind of dramatic imprint of her presence. I've thought also about how in all those years, though she was loved by Rick’s family, I am sure she at times felt a little bit invisible.
I might limp a bit like Charlotta, but the similarities probably end there. My family makes me feel very seen. My husband and even my children often express a good deal of appreciation and adoration. They love and honor me so well. They have not counted me out. They have not written me off. They do everything in their power to help me keep living vibrantly and voraciously. I know I am lucky and I couldn’t be more grateful for their incredible support.
Yes, truth be told, I am a little bit embarrassed by this new limp. Embarrassed that I have to be dropped off at the door or use my mother’s handicap parking sign or ask for help so often throughout my day. But I’m also grateful that my family continues to treat me like the same old mom I’ve always been. Yes, they are more tender and more helpful, but there’s such an enormous gift in their normalcy.
It's been an especially frustrating couple of weeks as I've been doing my best to whip up all the holiday magic in our home. I love the details and decorating of Christmas. I love it so much. But the past two days I have had increased pain with every single step and it has made all the merry-making pretty maddening.
Earlier today, as I was tweaking a few ornaments on the Christmas tree I noticed a small glass-beaded angel that hangs every year on our tree---34 Christmases, in fact! It is an ornament Charlotta made at one of her [many] church craft classes. She loved to create these little glass angels for the ladies church bazaar to sell each year. It was probably on our first Christmas married that she gifted this one to us. That little angel ornament is one of the only things we have left of her and it is absolutely no accident that I would come across it this morning. It reminded me again of Charlotta.
And so today I want to take a moment to extend a bit of grace to those of you who are also limping around a little more lately. Maybe it is a real physical limp. Maybe it’s something else. Something more invisible. Some kind of pain or internal wound that has you feeling more hobbled than holy in this month of Christmas. Something making you feel more burdensome and less beautiful at this most wonderful time of the year.
I am sure, whether you have your own personal cheering section, or not, it is still possible to feel very alone in your pain. Alone in your limping. You might go about your business and take care of all the things like Charlotta did, but, even so, you feel fragile — like a mere wisp or a shadow. Like you could come and go and no one might even notice. Maybe you even feel completely invisible in your pain.
And, one thing I have learned in recent years especially, is that, when we are weary, the holidays can sometimes make us feel worse. All of that comfort and joy can feel fake or forced or, at the very least, pretty fragile.
I just want you to know you are not alone. You are seen. You are heard. Your pain is real. Your tears are precious. You might not feel like you have much comfort in this world, but you do have a Heavenly Father who loves you and desires deeply to have a real relationship with you. He desires to be both your comfort and your joy.
He sees your limp. Even if it is invisible to others.
He sees you. Even if you feel invisible to others.
We have this beautiful glass-beaded angel ornament hanging on our tree as a remembrance of Grandma Charlotta. It is sweet. Very sweet. But far sweeter is the news the angels sang to the shepherds when baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
“Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Those simple, unsophisticated shepherds in the fields. They had canes or staffs too. They had rough roads to walk. Tough work to do. Unruly sheep. Hard ground. Cold nights. Long hours. Lonely days.
Yet God chose those servants of the sheep to be recipients of the most incredible and important proclamation of Good News ever given to our world.
Do not be afraid!
I bring you good news!
I bring you great joy!
It is for all the people!
Everyone! Even the simple shepherds. Even the lonely lady limping along. Even the one who feels invisible. Even the one in constant pain. Even the one who feels all is lost. Even the one who can’t seem to find Christ in Christmas.
I so often find myself amazed at the beautiful way scripture connects and communicates from one end of the Bible to the other. The shepherds and their sheep—they are some of my very favorite subject material and I love how they seem to constantly make an appearance.
Because though God announced this good news to the shepherds in the fields way back when at the birth of Jesus, it wasn't until many years later that this same Jesus showed us what the good news actually looks like when He shared the parable of the lost sheep.
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not lead the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?
And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing.
And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and and his neighbors , saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Luke 15
Why could those angels proclaim this good news? “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Because the babe born in Bethlehem would someday be that same Good Shepherd who would leave the 99 and go after the ONE who was lost, limping, hurting.
THAT is good news. THAT is great joy. THAT is for all people.
The One does matter that much.
You matter.
Your limp in life matters.
When you feel otherwise, remember the Good Shepherd who leaves and searches and tenderly lays the lost sheep on His shoulders.
The Good Shepherd who carries it carefully home and rejoices.
Glory to God in the highest, indeed.
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| Grandma Charlotta with us at our college graduation - May 1991 |
