A few blankets still nonchalantly hang around, errant pillows loitering. I gather the debris of a March afternoon, of cousins and forts, sheets clamped to bedposts and pillows piled high.
Eight of them dwelled today under this roof of cotton stitched with thread. The walls bulged with laughter and the mattress creaked with boys springing, launching. Howls of tears, peals of laughter, a bit of scrapping and much loving built this fort of quilts and sheets. This was a safe place, a cocoon of security, in winter’s last days for a tribe of half a dozen Dutch kids and two blonde cousins, eyes as blue as the Nile.
And I dismantle it all, snapping sheets shut.
But a little niece’s words refuse to neatly pack away, stubbornly laying about from last night where I keep tripping over them.
“I know a teacher from my school who had it three times, Aunt Ann, and she is still alive.” She sits across the table from me, picking at her crust, wisps of blonde falling across her eyes.
“Had what?” our oldest boy asks, his mouth full of pizza.
She rolls wise seven-year-old eyes. “Cancer, of course.”
“And your mom is going to get better too.” I toss a bouy into those Nile waters.
“Yeth. She gonna get better thoon,” her lisping little brother chirps.
We smile into each other, searching eyes to see if the other really believes.
And in the dark of that night, tucked into a fort of stitches and patches, prayers were whispered and one keeps echoing. First he said pass when it was his turn, too shy. But when Dutch Farmer’s shadow stood in the doorway, lingering with final good night blessing, that little lisp asked, “Can I thill thay a pwayer, Uncle Darryl?”
Small words filled a dark room and the heart of a big God. “God, pleath make Mommy all better thoon. Amen.”
Surely God heard, that I knew. But what no one knew: how would He answer?
I match the corners of cotton sheet and fold in half, me folding and knotting too. Would God dismantle these two children’s lives? Pack up their Mama’s tent and move her out of here? And what of these two towheads? Left to float down that Nile….
Propping pillows on bed, I have nearly erased all remnants of fort and big dreams. That’s the way it goes, doesn’t it? “We are like a puff of wind; our days are passing like a shadow” (Ps. 144: 3-4). Time will wear away all traces of our faces. Houses, grand and demure alike, eventually weather and fall apart, beam by beam. Accomplishments erode, these things we cling to. Securities implode. And so our bodies wrinkle, blow away in the wind, dust clouds swirling home.
Hand smoothing out quilt wrinkles, I feel His hand close, smoothing out the creases of me with the truth of a permanent fort, indestructible no matter the storms “All who take refuge in you will be glad; they will sing out their joy forever. You will shelter them...” (Ps. 5:13).
The winds howl, moan, outside. Cancer prowls close. But I hear His answer.
Move into Me, dwell here.
And into the linen closet, I stack away the last of blankets and fears.
Lord, crises leave us wandering refugees. Thank you for being our forever shelter. Dwelling in you, couldn't we really find the courage to sing out glad joy?
Photo: Cousin on the farm, courtesy of photographer Hope
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