twelve

Sara knocked on the open door bearing the room number the receptionist had given and the name, “Nana Marshall.”

“Come on in.”

Sara stepped onto the plush carpet of the living room and stood still for a moment. The afternoon sun lit up the room like the outdoors, pouring through the sliding-glass doors opposite her. Her eyes blinked, trying to adjust to the brightness that made a silhouette of the woman in a recliner near the doors. An easy chair, a few feet across from the woman, seemed to be awaiting a visitor.

“Mrs. Marshall?”

“Yes. And you must be Sara. Viv called and said you’d be coming.”

Sara walked closer. “I brought these napkins for you to look at.”

The woman closed the Bible on her lap and put it on the table beside her. “You open it up. My eyes are so bad, I’m all thumbs at times.”

Sara opened the box and held it out.

The older woman tilted the box. “I can see it better with the light hitting it. My, how pretty. They do this every year because I’m so old. We all think this may be my last year.”

Her smile told Sara she wasn’t too concerned about that possibility.

Nana ran her fingers over the clear wrap, covering the napkins. “One hundred years old. Can you believe it?”

“You don’t look it.” Sara didn’t know what a one hundred-year-old woman should look like. But now that her eyes were adjusting to the bright light, she knew this woman looked no older than some seventy-five and eighty year olds.

“That’s what I tell myself when I look in the mirror.” Nana lowered her voice and glanced up through her eyeglasses. “That’s an advantage of not being able to see too well.” She had a nice laugh.

Nana lifted the box. “Take this and have a seat. I like to seat my visitors close enough so that I can see them without their being a big blur.”

Sara obeyed. “I’ve seen you before—when our church choir came at Christmas and Easter.”

Nana scoffed. “How could you remember me among all the others? Did I drop something?”

Sara laughed with her. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. Your eyes were closed and your lips moved like you were singing, even when the group wasn’t asked to sing along. I felt you were really enjoying it.”

“I love music.”

“That’s what Forrest said.”

“Oh, you know Forrest?”

“I’ve just met him. He and some friends of his are planting flowers at the Paridy house.”

Sara looked away from the intense stare of the older woman. Her gaze moved beyond the small wooden deck outside the sliding doors to the profusion of multi-colored pansies edging a walkway that met another concrete walking path cutting across the immaculate lush green lawn, reminding her of the golf course across from her own home. Several yards away, trees served as a private fence set against a background of majestic mountain peaks.

“Forrest likes music too. Maybe more than the others. He’s changed in the past few years. You probably don’t know about that.”

“I don’t know the family well. Except Sheena.” Sara told her about rooming with Sheena and just starting her job as house cleaner.

“I met Albert this afternoon. He said he might come to see you this afternoon.”

“They’re so busy.”

Sara detected a faint sense of loneliness in Nana’s words.

“But my being here is my own decision. None of the family liked it. They begged me to stay with them. But my purpose in life is not making myself dependent upon my children. Here, I can do what I want, when I want. I don’t get in anybody’s way.” She looked over and smiled. “And nobody gets in mine.”

Sara could understand Nana’s wanting to live here. This was the area’s only retirement center, acclaimed as one of the best in the nation. Nursing homes paled in comparison. But so did expenses.

Nana was fortunate to be able to live in such luxurious surroundings with others taking care of meals, grounds, repairs, and cleaning. Nurses and doctors were as near as the health-care center, a couple of buildings away. The center provided all sorts of activities, courses, lectures, and even trips for residents.

“But I’m just an old woman rambling on,” Nana said. “I guess that’s what I miss most about losing Daniel twenty-five years ago. Not having anybody to talk to all the time. There are plenty of people here to talk to, but they can’t hear me any better than I can see them.”

She laughed again.

Sara knew there was probably more truth to that than exaggeration, judging by all the elderly people living there. She also knew Nana wasn’t complaining. The woman had a sense of humor. Her words provided the perfect opportunity for Sara to leave. But she felt no compulsion to get away.

“I’m in no hurry. Mrs. Paridy gave me the afternoon off.”

The camaraderie between them had nothing to do with age, but everything to do with their inner spirits communing with each other. Sara wanted to know more about this woman who had lived such a remarkable, long life. This matriarch of the Marshall and Paridy families.

“Daniel was your husband?”

Nana’s brow furrowed. “Did I say Daniel? I meant Byron. I don’t talk about Daniel to the family. He was my first husband.”

❧

Nana didn’t go for anything that hinted of the psychic. However, having lived for one hundred years, she was blessed to still have an astute mind, and she’d come to rely on her instincts and believed one of the abilities God had given her was discernment.

This young woman intrigued her. Why was a friend of Sheena’s a house cleaner? And why hadn’t Sara jumped at the chance to get away, instead of asking her a question that invited her to reveal more about herself?

The images of her three eligible great-grandsons flashed through Nana’s mind. She had no doubt that any one of them would take a shine to this pretty girl.

Nana had already formed a first opinion. But for many reasons, she wanted to explore this girl’s heart. In doing so, she would need to reveal her own.

❧

Sara relaxed against the chair as Nana got a distant look on her face and turned toward the light. Memory spilled forth in words.

She and Daniel had been missionaries in Korea. They’d had no children, but the little Korean boys and girls at the school where Nana taught were like her own.

Nana’s face brightened. “Daniel and I taught songs to adults and children. Music is an international language. The children loved making the motions to ‘This Little Light of Mine.’ They sang it in Korean and English. That was a teaching tool as well as a witness. Oh, those little boys and girls would sing, sing, sing.”

Nana’s voice trembled. “Daniel was killed in an uprising.”

With quivering lips, but a courageous spirit, Nana spoke of the political conditions, then of her being recalled to the U.S. By that time, her parents had struck oil. Their lives were changing, their friends changed, and Nana began to see as great a need for witnessing to the wealthy as to the destitute.

“Greater in a way,” Nana said, “because the destitute are more open to recognizing their inner needs. The wealthy often have the concept they are self-sufficient because they have so many worldly goods and can take trips or buy something when there’s a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction.

Nana led the Bible studies her parents organized.

“About five years after Daniel died, a dashing handsome attorney who’d just been elected to the state legislature came to the Bible study. His young wife had cancer. Although his career was going the way he’d hoped—his political ambitions were great—and he came from great wealth, he realized his helplessness to control some of life’s situations. He came to ask for prayer for his wife’s healing. He came every week. Finally, he asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior.”

Nana smiled. “He led his wife to do the same.”

“That’s wonderful,” Sara interjected.

Nana nodded. “Yes, but. . .” She shook her head. “His wife died three months later. His faith hit bottom.”

Sara could have cried.

“I was able to tell him I knew how he felt. My husband and I had given up everything to go and minister to the people of Korea, yet my husband was killed. I was left without the one I loved, the one who was supposed to be my life’s mate.”

Nana reached into the pocket of her print dress for a tissue. “I begged him to hold onto Jesus, even if he didn’t feel Him. Eventually, he crossed over that gulf of grief. It was a slow, painful process. He had to accept the reality that God is the Creator, we are the creatures. God is in control, not us. We cannot do enough work to merit protection from other men’s free will. He understood that but said he felt God had let him down.”

Sara didn’t speak during Nana’s brief silence.

The older woman wiped her eyes, then continued. “I could understand that. I’d felt it too. But deep in my heart, I knew the right way to feel about God. My husband and I had known the sacrifice and the danger when we went to Korea. I told him that. Then one day, Byron said to me, ‘My heart has broken. But you know? I’m realizing that my wife and I were healed spiritually. She has more than I could ever give her. If she had been healed physically, then my faith would be based on what God can do for me in this life. That’s not what He’s about. It’s more about trusting Him and living for Him even when life doesn’t go our way. It’s a relationship with the Creator of the universe that will last throughout eternity.’ ”

Sara waited for the ending.

Nana returned the tissue to her pocket and smiled.

Sara could stand it no longer. “What happened to Byron?”

“Oh,” Nana scoffed and leaned over to touch Sara on the knee. “I left out one of the best parts. Two years later, Byron and I married. He became a congressman. But his ultimate goal was no longer to attain position. He became a wonderful Christian witness. Albert reminds me so much of him.”

Sara smiled. If Albert were half the man Nana talked about, then he would certainly be a prize for any woman.