Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Start (01/16/06)
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TITLE: Granny's Story | Previous Challenge Entry
By Beth Muehlhausen
01/21/06 -
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The entire extended family honored Granny with a surprise birthday party on the day she started her journey into the decade between eighty and ninety. She was now officially an “octogenarian!” Granny had never seen such a huge sheet cake, complete with eighty pink candles and nearly as many frosting roses.
Most of the family thought she was eighty going on about thirty. She was definitely an approachable old lady – hardly stuffy or boring. Although crippled by arthritis, Granny knew how to engage with peoples’ hearts in ways that lifted them up and encouraged them to live on a higher plane.
After her party, Granny’s halting voice continued to fill the house. She still jabbered away, taking advantage of a private moment to talk with someone from out-of-town. Her voice faltered with the effort of one who had spoken many, many words in her lifetime.
“I’ll tell you…about a time…when I was probably…about your age,” Granny began.
“Back then,” Granny said with one eyebrow raised, “I was…awfully…insecure. Do you…know what…that means?”
Without waiting for a reply, she continued. “I thought…my friends…were better than me…somehow. I had to wear…these corrective…clompy gray oxfords…while other girls wore…pretty shoes. I felt like a real…what’s the word?” Granny looked out the window. “I guess you’d say…I felt like…a ‘clutz’. It’s hard…to stick out…in the crowd. You know?”
The grandfather clock chimed slowly. Granny gazed into space, waiting for it to finish.
“Well, in my time…every girl had to take…home economics classes…to learn how to cook…and sew. So one day…in sewing class…the teacher had to…leave the room…for some reason. She said…to ‘carry on’…till she got back…so we kept doin’…what we were doin’. I was standing…on a stool…sort of like the footstool…you’re sitting on right now…while this girl…her name was Cindy…marked the hem in my skirt…with these long…tailor pins. She thought she was…something special…but I didn’t like her. She always…made me feel…really small.”
“Cindy was working her way…around to my back side,” Granny said,” when she…let loose. ‘Hey girls…everyone look! I’m staring… at HAIRY LEGS! She doesn’t…shave! ‘Whatsa matter…little girl…are you afraid…to grow up…or what? Ever kissed…a boy? Huh…well…have you?’ Then she poked my leg…hard…with a pin…enough that this bubble of blood…oozed out. Well, everyone was afraid…of Cindy…so they laughed.”
“Honey…I didn’t know…what to do. I wanted…to kick Cindy…in the teeth…with one of my…gray oxfords…but I didn’t. I just stood there…stiff as a stone…with my heart flip-flopping…and prayed…inside my head. I thought…something in me…was going…to die. When the teacher came back…everyone quieted down…as if nothing had happened.”
Granny’s bulging eyes peered through the thick lenses of her glasses to search the face before her. “There’s something…I want you…to know…honey.” She took a deep breath.
“Later that same night…I told God…how I felt. Hurt…and lonely…and sad. I thought…I’d run into a dead end…with no place to go. And…you know what? He answered me…deep in my heart. I could start over…He said. I was not…some sort of cast-away…especially not because…Cindy picked on me. “ Then she snickered, “I shaved my legs…for the first time…that night, too,”
“The next morning…I looked…in the mirror…and said, ‘You know…God loves you…right?…your parents…they love you…Cindy has…no control…over any of that…right’?
“See…God reminded me…to love myself…oxfords…and all.”
Granny curtsied playfully at the end of her oration, and with that, sat down on the couch before a wide-eyed, but smiling, Rebecca. She reached over with her gnarled, arthritic fingers to stroke the auburn curls surrounding her sweet granddaughter’s face. Rebecca was a beautiful girl in every sense of the word. And yet Granny longed to impart the wisdom she’d gained during her eighty years: the Christian life actually is a series of new beginnings.
Granny reached for a large-print book on her coffee table. “Would you….read something to me…honey? Right there…on the left page…clear at the bottom…by T.S. Eliot.”
Rebecca’s fluent, youthful voice filled the room. “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
Granny again fingered Rebecca’s curls. Then she slid her weathered hands down Rebecca’s gently sloping shoulders and slender arms until she grasped her left hand and the stump where Rebecca’s right hand should have been.
“God loves you…precious ‘Becca,” Granny whispered, and emotion caused her voice to crack. She clutched both of Rebecca’s forearms and her own hands shook, as if imparting the strength of Godly wisdom. “Whenever…you need a fresh start…just let Him know. Okay…honey?”
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Author’s’ note: This story is dedicated to the victims of thalidomide, a drug used to treat pregnant women in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. This drug often stunted the development of their fetuses. One source indicates that around 15,000 fetuses were deformed because of thalidomide. – some didn’t survive. Like Rebecca, the ones who did were challenged to learn how to adjust every day for the rest of their lives…how to accept their deformities…how to compensate…how to “start over” repeatedly, hopefully as recipients of God’s empowering grace.
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