Judy

            She wore a royal blue turban to the training school sponsored by my workplace. Turbans aren’t a good sign, not in our culture. They mean cancer. I wanted to ask, but it’s personal, very personal. You never know how personal. Will someone want to talk? Is silence better?

            A day later I met Judy, the lady of the turban. As we talked about sweaters and what size she needed, the door opened for us to speak about the why of the turban.

Breast cancer. Surgery. Chemo.

Even the words ushered in pain and sympathy.  While she quietly spoke of her journey, I couldn’t help remember mine. Almost ten years ago I heard the “C” word, and it rocked my world. I had been devastated.

Judy and I traded experiences, but the more she shared, the more humbled I was. My cancer and treatment were a stroll through a meadow compared to her rough, stormy journey. She nonchalantly spoke of sores in her mouth. Her hair, of course, was gone. Her fingernails were a mess, she said, showing me her hands.  The fingernails surprised her. Then she said that a nurse had pronounced her lucky. Some people lose their nails altogether.

I looked at my hands; I touched my hair. I had lost neither. God let me keep them both.

Why?

I don’t know. I don’t know why my journey was physically easier than Judy’s. She probably can’t tell you why she got to keep her fingernails, as annoying as they were to her that day, and why other people lose them.  Why doesn’t seem to be the most important question, although I want it to be.

What gets us farther. What can I learn? What is God trying to teach me? What can I do with this difficult time to help someone in the future?  Those aren’t easy questions. They take us beyond the present pain that so captures our attention and move us to purposefulness in our lives.

In the book The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, Christian is journeying to the Celestial City. As long as he keeps moving forward in the right direction, clear minded and focused, he avoids distraction and getting stuck. So, too, when we direct our thoughts on the what, we live with strength and usefulness. Why derails.

Judy was there. When she mentioned the comment the nurse made about others losing their nails entirely, Judy said that it could always be worse. Her words tugged at my heart. No, I thought, you’ve had enough. That would have been too much. But I don’t get to decide that about Judy or anybody else, not even myself.

Faith says: God can decide what is enough and when is enough.

That evening when I popped into a shoe store, a display of nail polish called me, especially a bottle of pink.When Judy’s nails grow back better, and she’s ready to paint them up, I hope she will. She may have asked a thousand whys through her bumpy, unplanned road, but I have at least one what for her.

Judy reminded me again that our journeys aren’t pointless or insignificant. We touch and bless the lives of others even through the dark valleys of our lives. And Judy touched mine. God bless you, Judy!