AUNT HELEN

Sometimes my blogs are about me…but more often they are about other people (who, incidentally, I find much more fascinating than myself). Folks from my past…folks who have had a profound influence on my life. I call these the “Unforgettables”… and I certainly haven’t forgotten them. Helen is one such Unforgettable, and I am finally putting her story to print…maybe not in the book as I had promised her so long ago, but here today for my friends and family to still read her amazing story and hopefully come to admire her hope and courage to live.

My earliest memory of Helen was in her house.  It was 1955, and I was three years old: and yes, I still have vivid memories of those early years!  Helen was my mom’s best friend, and she and her husband (who was also my dentist – shudder) spent a lot of time with my father and mother.  I always called her Aunt Helen because she was family – at least to me.  

I remember loving to go visit her - and her house.  It was a beautiful 1930’s home, full of fancy curtains, rich soft furniture, and beautiful antiques (I am still searching in antique shops for the “Waltzers” figurine she kept on the end table that I spent hours fantasizing over every time I went...any leads let me know!!).

I never really noticed her struggling to move when we came to visit – perhaps she was always seated, or I was too busy playing with Sandy, the brown Cocker Spaniel who snapped at most people…but nuzzled me lovingly when I joined him on the floor.

I felt love there – and safety – and a kind of hopeful peace I never felt in my own home.  We visited less often after my little brother was born, but Mom talked to her on the phone many times during the week.  I missed going: I missed her.  I missed her hugs, her laugh, her dainty hands that were always so perfectly manicured, painted with pastels of pink: hands that had always brought me comfort when they held mine.

When I was about six, I remember asking my mom why we didn’t go to Aunt Helen’s as much anymore.  She said having a two-year old little hell-raiser (yes, you Terry!) was not made for their house.  But then one night I overheard her telling my father Helen was getting worse.  Wait - she was sick?    I asked Mom about what I heard…she said she would explain it to me “later”.  Well, later was actually years later, when I finally heard the sad story.

It was right before I was born.  Helen was crossing a busy street and was hit by a speeding car.  She had been 4 months pregnant and lost the baby.  Her spine had been severely damaged, and although she eventually walked a bit, her spine kept deteriorating - so much so that she became wheelchair bound, with heavy braces on her legs so they would not turn. I remember visiting and looking at those lifeless legs, thinking she would never walk again…and I cried each time I went home. Oh – and then her #&%*@ husband left her (needless to say…he was no longer my dentist). Yet when we visited, she always welcomed me with a smile and a hug: her arms still worked, and I remember thanking God for that. 

We lived so far from her it was hard to visit more…but that changed in the late 1960’s when she had one of those lifeless legs amputated and decided to move to the east side, where we had better access to visit and she had more help.  She and her sweet boxer Rusty (my dear Sandy had passed) ended up being my companions during my early high school years.  I felt compelled – no, more like inspired - to go over after school most nights to help her in any way, while most of my friends enjoyed all the fun things 15- and 16-year-old teens did.  I didn’t care.  I still felt peace with her, maybe more than even before.  I learned how to change catheters, how to move her in and out of her chair and bed.  I learned how to listen to stories…stories of her childhood, her marriage, her accident…and most importantly, her stories of hope and faith.  I learned how a person can have a “disability”…but can be able in so many other ways.  I learned about humanity and humility…far more than I would have spending time with my friends, as wonderful as they were. I considered myself lucky – no, blessed.  She was with me, but I still questioned: how could one person endure so much and still show such love and hope?   how could she still smile?

And then things changed, as things always do.  I got a job after school in my senior year and could only visit some on the weekends.  She was in and out of hospitals so many times: needing an ostomy, dealing with blood clots, developing diabetes, battling sepsis, and undergoing numerous operations (by 1975 she had endured 44 operations and eventually lost her second leg).  I had promised to write a book about her several times, and she was thrilled.  To this day, I feel some regret it never happened.  It just wasn’t the right time for me.

In one of those wonerful, serendipitous occurrences, she met Lee at some sort of a benefit (yes…she still got out in the world).  Lee, a man who had endured his own demons in the past. Lee who had a great smile, a hearty laugh, and an open heart.  He became her friend.  And then her companion.  And then her husband.  They both agreed that spending the rest of their years in Columbus Ohio was not something they wanted to do: they longed for days on a sun-soaked deck in Florida.  So, in 1976 , the year my Sara was born, they moved to Florida and lived the rest of their lives among the darting lizards, beautiful sunsets, and warm breezes of Punta Gorda.

My family and I got visit her one last time before her death.  Her smile was the same, her cheerfulness was infectious, and her joy of being alive contagious.  She might have lost her legs…but she never lost her heart.

So…the questions I had asked myself earlier  - how could one person endure so much and still show such love and hope?   how could she still smile? -  were actually answered one day back in my senior year in high school. I had gotten her settled in bed for the evening, and I was waiting on a ride to go home when I picked up her bible and started gently thumbing through the pages.  She had underlined key scriptures from Proverbs and Psalms and so many from the New Testament.  A bookmark held her place – with the script of the Serenity Prayer printed in beautiful gold letters on it.  And underneath it, in her distinctive handwriting, I read the following words:

“I know I will walk again…and maybe even fly…when I get to my Father’s House”

She helped shape my deep faith in my Lord and Savior, and I  can hardly wait until the day she walks with me, hand in hand, praising the Father for His goodness and mercy.  I love and miss you Aunt Helen. You are truly Unforgettable.

P.S. After talking to my friend Mary Ann...I learned a new word for people who have disabilities but are quite capable in many ways:

DIFF-ABILITIES. Love it!!!❤️