Quarterly Report

From November 25, 2013.

I am not sure where to begin this story, so I will just plunge right in.
Nancy Thurman, who is my friend and neighbor, lost her husband Jim to cancer 6 months before mine passed away. She was one of the first people to come to my home and bring food and comfort following Bob’s death. I will never forget her words: “Welcome to the club nobody wants to belong to.”
In the past several months, Nancy and I have been great support for each other. It is nice to know someone lives just around the corner (albeit a country corner!) from me. We have been to grief support together and sometimes we will go out for supper just to get away from our really empty nests. It helps to have someone who understands what I am going through because she is on the same road herself.
Saturday was one of those times we each needed some companionship and we both needed groceries so we decided to go to the far eastside of Indianapolis, eat at McAlister’s, and then go to Meijer for our groceries.
I drove to Nancy’s house around 4:30 and as she was getting in the car, we happened to notice the sky. There was a dark gray cloud looming above us; however, there was a slot between it and the next dark cloud. The sun was shining brightly through that slot and its rays burst out from behind the next cloud and streamed towards the ground. We snapped pictures with our cell phones and then started our drive towards Indianapolis. Since we were headed mostly west, we were able to keep an eye on the sun and cloud formation; Nancy more so than I because I was driving.
As we went, we were discussing how much we missed our husbands. We wondered aloud if they ever thought about us anymore, realizing that they are somewhere more wonderful than we could ever understand. Each of us shared a part of how we felt about life without the men to whom we had pledged our lives and hearts.
We noticed the sky again; now not only were the rays shining downward from behind the clouds, some had broken out above the darkness and were shining upward as well. Nancy and I felt a deep sense of God’s presence and were in awe of the way He was reaching out to us in our moments of grief.
I needed to stop for gas, and when I got out of my car, I took a few moments to snap a picture before going to the pump. As I finished fueling my car and was closing my gas cap, another vehicle pulled in front of the convenience store part of the gas station. A man emerged from the car and was headed into the store. Just then, I heard a loud jingling sound, like someone had dropped a coin. I glanced at the man, but he kept walking. I realized the sound was too loud to have come from his direction anyway, so I looked down.
George Washington’s face peered back at me from his place on the “heads” side of a quarter. Tears streamed down my face as I looked at all the sun rays in the sky and thanked God for His assurance that my hubby was just fine. When I got back into my minivan, I had to tell Nancy about the quarter and fill her in on the story that went with it.
Several years ago, I wanted a fancy new sewing machine – one that did embroidery. Bob told me to save my pennies, but I figured up how many quarters it would take to purchase it – I knew it would take a lot less quarters than pennies. From then on, it became a joke. If one of my family members asked me to do something, I told them it would cost a quarter. We would laugh and life would go on. Even after Bob purchased the sewing machine for our 20th wedding anniversary, I still asked for quarters. Sometimes Bob would give me one – never regularly, but just enough to catch me off guard. It remained a source of humor for the two of us.
A couple of days before Bob’s health took a sudden turn for the worse, he cleared off the nightstand on his side of our bed. He hated carrying change in his pocket and he had a tray where he would dump all his coins. On this particular day, he fished out all the quarters and proceeded to give them to me, saying he had some catching up to do. We both laughed and I put them in my stash.
The next quarter I received from him came a few weeks after he changed his residence to Heaven. My bedroom closet has by-pass doors. I was cleaning and slid both doors to one side and ran the vacuum over the closet floor. Then I pushed both doors the other direction and vacuumed that side. The doors have no bottom track, so I also pushed them in towards the closet so I could vacuum the middle where they meet. For some reason, I pushed both doors back to the other side. There, in the middle of the doorway of the closet, lay a quarter. I knew it was meant for a sign to me that Bob was okay.
Now I have a second quarter that appeared out of nowhere. The jingling sound I heard was what alerted me to its presence, so I know it was not there when I got out of my van. All I had in my hand was my debit card, so it did not fall out of my wallet which was still in the van. There may be a logical explanation; however, I choose to see my quarter as a gift from a loving Father who knew it would bring me a sense of comfort. Some people find what they consider to be pennies from Heaven; however, it is quarters that touch my heart – not because of their difference in worth but because of their difference in meaning.
I guess the thing I want to emphasize here is the fact that God has ways of providing for us even in the midst of our deepest pain and sorrow. What we need to develop are eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that are open to His presence and His comfort.
Scripture: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 NASB

Update from 2014:
On May 29th, 2014, I went to dinner with two of my children and their families. Jonathan, Heather, and Vivian came to the same McAlister’s Deli where Nancy and I had gone in the above-mentioned story. I was with my daughter Molly and her family – Phil (her hubby), Maggie, Lincoln, and Melody. When we got up to the counter to order, we were informed that McAlister’s was out of salad. They were also out of baked potatoes. Since that is what some of us were planning to order, we decided to go elsewhere. There was a Qdoba a few doors down and since we all like Mexican food we ate there. I mentioned to Heather and Jonathan as we were standing in line that we could eat outside since it was a nice day and the music inside was too loud to hear yourself think, let alone someone else talking. However, Molly and family were in front of us in line and didn’t get the message – they settled inside.
After we got through the food line, I saw that Molly’s crew was settled inside. I started to sit with them, but I just could not take the loud music. I went outside with my food. It was much nicer outside, but Phil and Molly had to uproot the kids to bring them out. I felt bad about making them move, yet I felt like it was worth it to be able to have a conversation without shouting at each other.
Even with family around me, I was still struggling with the thought that it was my wedding anniversary – Bob and I were married on May 29, 1976. After we had eaten, Lincoln was trying to go under the table. I looked underneath it and there winking up at me lay a quarter. Another one from Heaven, I thought. After all the maneuvering it took to get me to the right restaurant and the right table, how could I think anything else?