A Life-Changing Gift



Wearing a dress I made for
her 50th high school reunion

 Her name was “Halcyon,” not one you find in today’s baby-name books. It meant “calm, peaceful,” referring to the legendary halcyon bird which reputedly nested at sea about the time of the winter solstice, to calm the waves. Except she found her “calmness” in a solid relationship with Jesus Christ, which she generously shared with someone nearly fifty years her junior—me.

The other day I stopped by the cemetery a mile from our home where she is buried. Less than three months before her death, I was able to lay my firstborn baby in her arms, honoring her grandmotherly role in my life. By then strokes had already begun their swift erosion of earthly life. Within a few weeks, she was bedbound and speechless in a nursing home. I’d come visit with the baby, propping him against her bedrail so she could touch him. I could sense behind her clouded eyes that she felt her role in my life was done—and well done.

I am a richer, fuller person because I invested in a friendship with a godly older woman.

We met after the morning service of her church the first time I visited it. Her son, who worked at my company and brought her to church, had alerted his widowed mother that I’d be coming. She invited me home for lunch. She had no car, so I drove us to her old, worn, but welcoming little home.

That invitation, and more, eventually morphed into standing Friday night commitments to potluck our leftovers. When she learned I was using a somewhat unsavory public laundry facility, she invited me to use her washer and dryer. Not wanting to take advantage of a widow on Social Security, I bought a fun child’s bank for her laundry corner and left there money to help with utilities.

While my two weekly loads of laundry chugged, and we ate and talked, I was drawn into a spiritual banquet of instruction and counsel. Although I had grown up going to church, I had not fully connected the dots that Jesus died for me. One night, alone in my apartment, I finally personalized it, asking Him into my life. I soon realized how impoverished I was in my understanding of the Bible. She was a seasoned student of scriptures, her Bible limp from use and filled with underlined passages and notes. She patiently answered my questions and we always parted with prayer.

When I moved away to another job, her letters followed me, typed on an old manual typewriter with a shredded ribbon. After seven years away, during which my parents died, I returned to her hometown to be married. Now, the one who had helped me so much in my emotional and spiritual growing places, was needing my practical help.

I had started calling her “Grandma G” (her last name started with “G”), for even though we were not related, she fulfilled that mature and caring role in my life. My paternal grandmother had died before my birth. I rarely saw my maternal grandmother, widowed before she’d finished raising nine children and living several states away.

I could have kept my distance from Grandma G, categorizing her as “old and not friendship material.” Yes, we had followed different occupations: she was a retired nurse, I was a reporter. But we came together at the feet of Jesus, our hearts connected with prayer and caring. She encouraged my baby-steps of faith, even listening to me recite Bible verses I was memorizing in a Bible correspondence course. She just loved me where I was at, and probably prayed bold prayers for me when I was absent.

Her life wasn’t easy. Her sons didn’t follow her example of steadfast faith in Christ. She was poor by the world’s standards, but her true wealth was in Heaven, and she was looking forward to going there. I will never forget the hope in her moistening eyes as she recited to me her favorite verse, from the end of Jude: “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forevermore. Amen.”

Calm, peaceful—because her faith was firmly staked on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just before taking the photo of her grave marker,  I dropped a few tears and then thanked God for our life-changing gift of friendship. How grateful I am for her investment in my life. I’m confident we’ll meet again in Heaven.

By the way, if Heaven has board games, I'll stand in line to play her. Sometimes while my clothes dried, she'd challenge me to Scrabble (R). She was a true competitor with the tiles, especially Q and Z!