The Greatest Gift
By: Lynda Wallis
Tags: Compassion, Healing, Listening, Love, Women

While the parents were busy carrying suitcases, toys, books and bags of groceries into their summer cottage, the small four children were let loose with strict orders to go no further than the end of the dead end street. I spent as much time as humanly possible outdoors working in my gardens. I let my daughter know a group of four kids had arrived. She blasted out of the house and blended into the new group of kids. The free range tribe of barefoot wild children was five strong.

The family was to be there for two weeks. Desperately needing a break from their life in Detroit, the elegant musician cottage owners had offered the sanctuary of their charming and quiet summer cottage to this young beleaguered family of six. The husband was a minister to a small congregation in one of the more ravaged neighborhoods of the inner city of Detroit. He and his family lived in a small apartment above their crumbling storefront “church” in a tough Detroit neighborhood. Two weeks in the summer cottage was an incredible gift and a much needed respite from their lives heavily seeped in ministry work.

It was just to be their family for two blissful weeks without the endless needs of their congregation.

My daughter was never happier than when she was playing with other children. Because we were full-time residents in a former summer cottage community, the number of full-time young children residents was slim. Summer visitors with children were welcome additions to our little corner of the world.

During the course of their stay our days took on an easy summertime routine. Early each morning the safe space between our two cottages slowly filled with small barefoot sleepy children with uncombed hair, jelly smeared on their chubby little faces, bread crumbs stuck to the jelly, wearing mismatched rumpled clothes. Hundreds of chorus frogs filled the air with their songs of love in the marsh behind the cottages. Redwing blackbirds carried on loud and predictable conversations from up top of their cattail perches. The sheltering 100-year old tree canopy was filled with bird song. The parents often joined me on my garden enclosed patio with steaming cups of coffee in hand. We would chat quietly as the early morning sunlight gently sprinkled us with sunbeams through the white oak and hickory trees.

Our summer companionship was easy and comfortable.

I watched this young couple visibly let go of the crushing weight of ministering to the desperate needs of their congregants of inner city Detroit to simply being fully present for their young family. It was beautiful to watch them relax and release their burdens under the magical spell of our little spot of wonder.

One evening about six or seven days into their stay, the husband/pastor and I were sitting next to each other on a wooden bench outside. Our backs were against the sun warmed wall of my house, the sun was close to setting. Wild children were running around in front of us screaming with delight, chasing hordes of fireflies. He and I quietly chatted and drank ice cold beers. It was perfect.

I was very conscious of what a sacred time this was for this overburdened young minister and his wife. I had the sense from our conversations that they had no idea how heavy the needs of their congregants were going to be before they accepted their assignment in the ravaged inner city of Detroit.

The husband/pastor was definitely feeling refreshed and unburdened. He was so delighted at being able to put his entire focus on his wife and young family. It was a quiet joy for me to witness their transformation from a super stressed out family into the relaxed, playful individuals that had finally emerged.

He was still a minister, he could not stop himself from his calling, his gift. He turned his gift of attention and compassion on me that beautiful summer evening. He wanted to know more of my story; how was it that I was single parenting my two amazing, well adjusted children in this little pocket of wonder? At that point I had been supporting us for over a decade as a freelance artist/illustrator. I was a curious conundrum to him.

With his kind, gentle attention focused solely on me, I began to tell him my back story. It’s not a good story. I had been in a series of disastrous intimate relationships, divorced three times — gulp — the first divorce occurred when I was all of 20 years young. We had only recently transitioned away from handing my daughter over to her father at the local police station for their weekly visits to now having an unmarked squad car quietly waiting down the street from my house when her father came to pick her up. It was quick protection in the event that his violent anger might erupt. I had no emotional support from my birth family. I never asked for any financial support-that would have been unthinkable. I was managing, just barely, but managing to support us with my illustration business and the small, yet regular child support I receive from the fathers’ of both my children. From my birth family I learned to be ashamed that my children had two different fathers, signalling two failed relationships. I wore that shame uncomfortably. I used to joke, when I was ever bold enough to mention that my children had two different fathers, that I had been “trying to cross pollinate.”

He was silent for a long time after hearing my story. He had offered me clean tissues several times when I began to quietly cry. Finally he looked at me and said, “I’ve heard many stories over the years from the people I’ve ministered to. Given all that I have heard,” he said while looking directly at me, “I find it amazing you are not a heroin addict or a prostitute.”

Telling you I was stunned does not begin to describe my reaction to his words.

“You have an astonishing strength in you. You have overcome incredible pain and hardship and have built a beautiful life for yourself and your children in spite of the cards the universe dealt you.”

Over the years I have often thought back to that warm summer evening, ice cold beer in hand, laughing children chasing after fireflies in the garden, in the dusk and that generous man’s gift of listening.