5 Peace in the Valley

Day Five - January 24




"Is there anything on my schedule today, anything that I have to do?"

"Only get ready to see Judy. The nurse is coming this morning," I reply. Relieved, he slowly settles into his morning routines.

I often wonder how mother would have handled these days if she had survived her accident years ago. Father had returned from Europe and was waiting at the Rochester airport where she was to pick him up. She put a dinner selection from the freezer into the microwave oven, ran a comb through her hair and headed into the city. We'll never know what happened. There is no explanation for her car leaving the road, but she did not survive the impact. It was a very long wait at the airport, one that he re-lived at every journey's end from that day forward.

He was a shy twenty-four year old, and he wanted to meet her. She was only seventeen, bubbly and movie-star beautiful. She had been a child evangelist for two years already, known for head-lining week long revival services in the southwest. His brother, Walter--less timid with the girls, having a mischievous, unafraid to entertain personality--discovered Chet had his eye on Ruth. He wasted no time setting up a meeting.

The last day of her family's vacation, she waited in the car ready to return to New Mexico. Father stood at her window while they talked.

What could have been said to prompt a year of letter writing followed by marriage? What sparks flew that became a forty-six year commitment? I suppose the same ones her parents felt that led to their triple wedding in three horse-drawn carriages, each bride and groom between fourteen and sixteen years old, and the same ones his mother's teenage boyfriend in Poland felt when he decided to follow her to the United States.

Father brought his teenage bride to New York where soon after, he was counseled by the male dominated culture around him to have her discontinue her preaching. Some sparks died in mother, and though for years after, she said she'd like to become a nurse, she never pursued it.

Now father waits for nurse Judy on the sofa mother chose in the home she so carefully designed. He diligently maintained everything exactly as she would have wanted for the last thirteen years. He was afraid to even open the Hummel display case to dust, lest one Hummel be returned to the improper staging. After mother passed away he taught himself to bake by following recipes in her handwritten cookbooks. He felt close to her, following her instructions for measurements and ingredients to the letter, becoming an artisan in the kitchen.

Earlier when I told him the only thing on his schedule was nurse Judy this morning, he replied, "That's okay, I don't have to do anything for her. I can relax."

Judy's sweet soft voice peacefully cares for his needs.