Melba

I dropped by Melba’s apartment last night on my way home from River of Life Lutheran Church. My son Mark and I have stopped by this church in north Minneapolis a number of times these past two weeks. They open their basement kitchen each weekday to Loaves and Fishes, a program that serves free supper meals between 5:30 and 6:30. We heard about the program through a couple from our church that has made this a nightly event for themselves. They hang out, some times eating, but always listening, and usually praying with those who are interested. They are the ones who first met Dale (see October 21) a few months ago when he was still living on the streets, and subsequently found shelter for him, sharing a room with 70-something Carl.

But back to Melba. She lives only a few blocks north of that church. And she was married more than 60 years to Phil; together they were pillars in our former church. They also hold a special place in our family’s collective heart. My personal Warden, the blogologist Swansmith, wrote about Phil a few days ago. While cleaning in the office, she had found a letter written by Phil on Sunday. I was also cleaning, but out in the garage. And I too came across a letter from Phil. (We never throw away any letters! And I’m not even talking letters as in correspondences to us. If a letter is part of a word and on paper, we save it, yea rescue it. Whether in book form, or magazines, or newspapers, or napkins, or backs of envelopes, we grieve when any text [sacred or not] is marched out our front door to the recycling bin.) With wonderful penmanship and thoughtfulness and sincerity, he brought joy and encouragement to our lives at the time of the letters’ original arrival and now many years later.

So in the back of my mind I renewed my effort to stop by Melba’s and tell her of our finds. As I stood in the lobby of her building last night it took a while to explain who I was—her hearing aid was in the other room. Upon retrieving it, she recognized my voice and gladly buzzed me in. We had a wonderful visit.

I should have know better than to expect her parked in front of the tube. She was busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. A group of more than 27 would be descending upon her apartment in about two weeks. She had so much she wanted to get done to have the place properly welcoming. And it’s not like she can do this preparation during the day. For the daytime is for hopping buses all-around town. That morning she caught a bus outside her building and took it all the way to the other end of town for a Ladies workshop and luncheon. It was at a college in a St. Paul suburb, so it must have required numerous transfers. She’s a daring lady at 87.

We reminisced about her husband who died about two years ago and her son who died about a year before that. Of course I knew her husband Phil very well, but only said quick hellos to her son over the years. He was a dozen or more years my senior and our paths only crossed at special church functions, such as Christmas smorgasbords and anniversary celebrations. The son’s funeral is one that Suzi and I attended and one that we are forever grateful that we did. I only wished that we had known him better. It was about the strangest mix of people I’ve ever been apart of. At the center of the funeral home was a drum circle with Native Americans in full regalia, friends with whom he had worked. He was a musician who did not know a style of music he didn’t like. He was involved in everything from a rock band to a gospel quartet. And he was a successful engineer and inventor with eight prestigious patens to his name. We were surprised to run into a fellow AFS host parent at the funeral. This guy had known him well and played with him in, I believe, a Blues band.

But Melba’s doing well. She’s too busy to dwell on the hardships of these past few years. She’s on the go, gallivanting around town, riding buses I don’t know that I would dare ride. And she’s well on her way to being ready for Thanksgiving. With the literally hundreds of pictures on her walls of family and friends, she has much to be thankful for. And come Thanksgiving her tiny apartment will be stuffed like a golden brown turkey, but filled with love and good memories.