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People in Hell are Broken

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Contributed by: Laura Pellerin on 9/6/2008

September 06, 2008

Summer's almost gone, time to start classes, time to go back to work, time to clean up the yard. I consider my yard to be a present from God this year because of the nature of healing. About the time I left town to go visit my daughter, my neighbor's husband died of cancer. His death was not unexpected, but their foreshadowing grief held my neighbor's life at bay.

The woman, whom I shall call Angela, could not talk about anything without shedding more tears over her husband's looming demise. She lived to care for him from day to day, only taking time out from such dreary pastimes to sprinkle her once-loved roses and water her grass, never long enough to do much good.

Grief can be a terrible thing. I listened to her patiently, and I'd like to think that helped her get thru another day.

Once she turned off her hose and went back inside to tend to her husband, I watered her flowers just as I watered mine. I planted morning glories and wound the stems in and out of our shared chain-link fence so she saw as much green and as many blossoms as were on my side. I pulled weeds on both sides of the fence. Although I never wasted an ounce of water on my dead lawn, I sprayed her grass to help keep it alive. I planted vegetables and begged that she help herself freely to them while I was away.

Her husband's time came while I was gone. The Man called me up to give me the bad news. He also complained that it had been raining for four days straight and added that due to a technical SNAFU, our hardware floors would not be done during my stay in Idaho. We'd have to get them done sometime later. I'm ashamed to admit that I swore a blue streak into the sunny stillness of my daughter's yard. Luckily, my three-year-old granddaughter was at the time inside and deeply engrossed in the movie life of Babe.

I left Idaho a little bluer, looking to check into the Broadmoor with my cat when I got home, exploring shortcuts which cut off about two hours of my driving time. I arrived after dark and found I had just missed the funeral. I walked into the house to fin the only piece of furniture set up was my bed. I fell into a deep, blue funk.

Then came the dawn and a new morning. My cat, Sammy was glad to see that I was still alive and had returned home safely to her. She is very talkative upon my return whenever I leave her for eight hours or more. It took about an hour to get her off my case so we could step outside and greet the day.

Lo and behold! For a moment I couldn't believe my eyes. The experience was a little like stepping out of a black and white television set into living color. Our dead lawn looked to be as green and lush as the next door neighbor's. My vegetables had doubled in size and were laden with fruit. Angela greeted me with a 'Good morning!' that bore few tears. Still mourning her husband's passing, the woman nevertheless pulled on a pair of gloves and borrowed our rake with which to weed her flower beds. The miracle of rain brought to her yard a plethora of blossoms, as well as weeds.

Angela and I talk every day. She comes over with the paper. I go over there to check her heater and we pull weeds together. She has plans what to do with her grass in the back, the grass that didn't come back to life. The plans I had for our lawn area have gone down the tubes since it did somehow, miraculously came back to life. But I thank God that my neighbor has regained a hold on life, thanks to the healing power of gardening.

Who was it that wrote: Tend to the fruits of your garden? Or better yet, as a musical director pointed out to us during a first rehearsal of staged vaudeville music, "People in hell can't do anything, they can't even feed themselves because their arms and legs are broken. People in heaven are broken, too, but they've learned to feed each other..."

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Submitted By: Stephanie Johnson

posted on 10/20/2008 @ 12:09:52 AM

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What a touching story. My heart goes out to "Angela" in her time of loss. I pray for many blossoms and veggies for both of you!

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Submitted By: Theresa Null

posted on 9/24/2008 @ 10:56:23 PM

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I never heard: "People in hell can't do anything, they can't even feed themselves because their arms and legs are broken. People in heaven are broken, too, but they've learned to feed each other..." I'm going to go ponder. You sound like a beautiful soul. Hugs to your neighbor.

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