I left home at age 18. I joined the Navy, spending nine weeks in boot camp in Orlando, Florida, then transferring to Monterey, California and the Defense Language Institute to learn Russian. I didn’t know it, of course, but I was Naive. I capitalized that on purpose. I wasn’t just naive. I was Naive. I was not only unsophisticated, inexperienced, guileless and trusting. I also thought everyone else was just like me. I knew there was bad in the world, but I didn’t realize that badness was everywhere or that it was mixed in with the good. It isn’t that I grew up pampered or advantaged. Far from it. My parents brought this baby girl, their third, home to a two bedroom trailer. I had experienced difficult times, I knew sinners and knew I was definitely one, but at the same time, I somehow had lived my first 18 years in a cushion of love and innocence.
SO. Leaving home to join the Navy provided me with culture shock of epic magnitude. I fought the disillusionment and homesickness. I studied hard and tried to be a ‘good girl’ while all the time watching how others chose to live (and without guilt!). I learned that hard work doesn’t guarantee success – learning Russian was the most difficult thing I had ever tackled. I learned that girls that I liked cussed and stayed out all night, and guys could be sneaky and full of lies. It was a difficult time.
I kept the habit of going to church and nearly every Sunday, I tucked myself into a pew on the left hand side of the sanctuary about halfway to the front at a local church. On one Sunday, I slipped into a seat on the aisle next to an old woman. We smiled at each other, but then remained solitary as the service progressed. When we stood for the first hymn, I opened the hymnal and offered to share it with her. She kindly held half the book during the song, but didn’t sing.
I didn’t think about it or her again that week.
Next Sunday rolled around. I sat down in my normal venue. Before the service began, that same old woman came down the aisle, then stopped at the end of my pew. “Could I sit next to you?” Her voice was quiet and kind, a little raspy, like old women voices can get. I smiled and nodded, and moved over. During the service, we again shared a hymnal, and again she didn’t sing. When that service ended as we both gathered our things and prepared to tackle our own lives, she thanked me. “I like sitting next to you, because then I can hear the words of the songs. My eyesight keeps me from reading that small print from the hymnal.”
And with that admission, a precious friendship began. We introduced ourselves. Her name was Ella Jean Kirk and she lived in an assisted living facility. She invited me to come visit her and we set a date. I can’t explain exactly how or why she became so dear to me. Looking back, maybe I just needed someone who’d survived the chaos of life to hug me and show me it was possible. She listened to me. She shared her own life with me. Her little apartment was an oasis from the swirling craziness.
Ella Jean died the week I left Monterey. I’d visited her in the hospital, I told her I loved her. But I was wrapped up in my own selfishness and the excitement of graduating from Russian school and moving on to my next adventure. And I didn’t go to the funeral. I still regret that decision. I didn’t show her the respect that she deserved. I wasn’t there to sing for her one last time.
I know she wouldn’t want me to feel guilty, but I still do, even after all these years. I have a small, round, carved wooden box with an ivory bird on the top that she gave me. It is one of my most prized possessions. I look at it and I miss her. I look at it and I thank God for giving me her sweetness when I really needed it. I look at it and am reminded that small things are important and that I shouldn’t ever miss the chances I am given. When I think of the passage in Hebrews 12:1 that talks about a ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that surround us, cheering us on so that we can run our race, I picture Ella Jean up there in the stands. Now that I am an old woman myself, I look forward to meeting her again in heaven. We will sit in the mansion Jesus prepared for her and share our stories and our love and our friendship again. What fun that will be!
