The two nonagenarians wanted to show me the window seat
where they enjoy the view together. These tiny, frail women, strong in faith
and love, have become neighbours in the home where they now live.
We walked the few steps down the corridor to the window. In
the foreground loomed an ugly, boarded up and graffiti’d disused council
building. If you looked around or peered over it, you could glimpse the street
beyond with its bus traffic. It was the life beyond the structure that they
enjoyed.
The empty hulk of a building may have gobbled up their view
but they didn’t focus on it. They looked past it to the life that confirmed
life to them.
There are looming, empty hulks in most of our lives, be they
bereavements, health loss, anxieties, or whatever. They tempt us to focus on
them but we can resist their pull, with God’s help, and see beauty and life
beyond.
We imagined together how lovely that bit of ground could
look if the building could be demolished and replaced with a vibrant garden.
But maybe in their creative imaginations, such a natural space of beauty
already exists.
I’m grateful to them for the unconscious way in which they were
an example to me today. God bless you, Jean and Netta.
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