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Without fail, he always found a way to comfort his beloved, despite the broken dreams and the prayers yet unanswered. He always was up to something good, even if she couldn’t see it. In fact, he did his best work in such times.
“A leaf has the most extraordinary death. There is so much beauty to it.” She admired it one last time, then gently tossed it into the air. Together they watched it float softly to the patio. “I think that’s something to pay attention to, don’t you, Miss Kelley?”
“Look, Miss Kelley, you want answers, and I want an extraordinary death. We can help each other. For every extraordinary death you suggest for me to consider, I’ll answer three questions you have about my life. Any three of those questions you have there in your notebook, or ones you think up on the way. Blunt or mild or boring. No question is off-limits. And I promise I will always be truthful.” Subtly she pulled her hands to the middle of her belly and pressed in on the pesky ache. “What do you say? Three stories for a suggestion. Sounds like quite an offer, if I do say so myself.”
“That may not sound extraordinary to some people, Miss Kelley, but we should never underestimate the life-changing gift of friendship.”
You need the Lord more than anything, but in his benevolence, he often shows up in the form of friends.
Several times I had plans in place, but each time, the Lord said no. It wasn’t my story to live.” The hurt of it rang through Aidyn. A lifelong dream never being realized after so much work and prayer seemed too painful a fate. And unfair. What if that happened to her? “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.” “Hard is a good word for it, honey. But God was good to provide a better story. His stories usually are better than anything we can come up with.
He gave me lots of friends and love and adventure, right where I was. I was short on family, but I was never low on blessings.”
I want it to be known that I did my utmost to leave in my wake the love Jesus first gave me.
You have to be the friend people need while they are there with you, because it’s the only chance you’ll get.”
That woman, now spindly and vulnerable to falls, had once helped reshape the city’s cultural dynamic. A woman who hadn’t fought a war or influenced the law of the land or won a major game, but rather, with quiet courage and immeasurable compassion, had helped ensure that refugees were not left to their own devices. The everyday woman who befriended and loved complete strangers, who stood in the gap between two clashing cultures not ready to wholly trust each other. It all began because Mrs. Kip, intimately familiar with pain, once stopped amid her daily rush to comfort a grieving mother and
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Aidyn regarded the wilted woman before her and breathed in wonder at all she had heard. “Mrs. Kip . . . that is stunning.”
The blankness had returned, the room ready to receive the next voyager, stripped and sterilized of anything that was of him, as if he was never there. But he had been. The empty place in Clara’s being proved it. The heart is designed to give far more love than the brain can calculate and to endure far more loss than the body anticipates.
“Because . . . the world needs more Mrs. Kips. It needs to be inspired by people like her.” The words of the old woman rushed to her mind. “People are more compassionate than the media makes them out to be. Sometimes they just need a little coaxing.” Woods raised an eyebrow. “Learn that from her?” “I did, actually.”
“Honey, this world is going to come at you. The pain is real, and it is sharp. You know what it did to me. But you also know what I gave back to the world. Despite it all, I returned light for darkness. Remember that.” Her throat cried from dryness, but she forged ahead. “I am nothing but a feeble bag of bones with a decent smile. I did nothing good—not one solitary thing—apart from God. Whatever empowerment I had came from him. It’s the same empowerment you have for the taking. It’s walking at your right hand, as close as an ask. Whatever comes your way, you don’t need to be shaken.”
When morning came, an overwhelming urge prompted her to go to Mrs. Kip’s church, to stand in that spot the women had and walk among the memories. It was inexplicable and weird—exactly how Mrs. Kip described the Lord’s nudges.
“I simply tried to love people as best I could for as long as I was privileged to be with them.” If only one thing Mrs. Kip had ever said was true, that was the one.
“You said the mark of authentic love is dying a thousand deaths to self. I get now what you meant by that because I watched you live it out.”
