Giving All . . . And a Little Bit More. A Note From Jan.

Good friends just left. Making their way back to Florida. Choosing to be slowed by visits along the way with other friends and family. They left me smiling. Neil’s Jud’s oldest friend, as in duration not age. He left with a couple of Jud’s shirts and ties. Nudged by Jud, I’m sure. Works since both are tall.

Neil and Linda left me with hugs, stories, good conversations, book ideas and a Simon Pearce candle noting, “You are light to many people and we know Jud is proud of you.” 

Nothing like affirmation from ones who’ve known Jud and me over the long haul. It was a good note to leave on.  Thank you, Linda.   I’ve known Neil, as long as I’ve known Jud.  We all met as freshmen in college.  Now, we’re “all grown up.”  Sorta.

Last evening Linda, Neil and I sat on the porch of The Market restaurant in Annisquam. Picture perfect harbor on an evening with just enough breeze to deter mosquitoes and cool down the heat of the day. Neil loves boats and the three of us love the water.

Jud and Neil met at Word of Life Camp when they were thirteen. A couple of years later, they worked together on the camp’s boat crew. Important since the camp was on an island. Now, Jud’s in heaven and Dr. Neil and Linda Cornell call Florida home, instead of  Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital and Etna, New Hampshire.  Big change to go from New England to Florida. Bigger one from earth to heaven in a single breath.

After they left, I turned my back to a kitchen needing help, faced down Eleanor’s mandate, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do,” and grabbed my yellowed paperback copy of Garrison Keillor’s book LEAVING HOME. Got it cheap at the used bookstore.  Earlier, Neil and I’d been laughing over Garrison’s thoughts on sweet corn.  

The story I picked up on was of Clarence Bunsen from Lake Wobegon, who is sitting in the Lutheran church, stunned but grateful he didn’t have the heart attack he thought he was having earlier that morning.  Pastor Ingqvist’s sermon’s gone on long enough for Clarence to lose interest, until he’s jolted back during a long pause and realizes the sermon’s in its last stages and the offering’s next.

“Clarence eased his wallet out and saw he had no cash.  He got out a pen and hid the checkbook in his Bible (next to Psalm 101) and quietly scratched out a check for thirty dollars, more than usual, because he had almost had a heart attack and also because his offering was personalized.  He wrote surreptitiously,  trying to keep his eyes up and ahead—knowing you’re not supposed to write checks in church, it isn’t a grocery store.”

“He glanced to his right, and Mrs. Val Tollefson was glaring at him.  She thought he was writing in the Bible. (In the old Norwegian synod you didn’t write in a Bible, not even little comments in the margin like ‘Good verse’ or ‘You can say that again’…not even in pencil because it undermines the authority of Scripture.) Meanwhile, Pastor ingqvist launched into prayer.  Clarence tried to tear the check quietly out of the checkbook…His check wouldn’t come quietly, the first half-inch rip sounded like plywood being torn from a wall, so he waited for the pastor to launch into a strong sentence of fervent prayer to cover up the check removal, but Pastor Ingqvist was pausing at odd points, so Clarence couldn’t tell when it was safe or when suddenly he would be ripping in the middle of pure holy silence.  Mrs. Tollefsen was about to get up and snatch Scripture out of his hands.  At prayers’ end, as they said the Lord’s Prayer, he eased the check out (“and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen’), and when Elmer passed the basket, Clarence laid down the check folded neatly in half in the basket and bowed his head and suddenly realized he had written it for three hundred dollars.”

“He had written with his eyes averted and he knew he had written three-zero-zero on the short line and three-zero-zero on the long line. Could a man sneak downstairs after church and find the deacons counting the collection and say, ’Fellows, there’s been a mistake.  I gave more than I really wanted to’? He now felt fully alive for the first time all day.  He felt terrifically awake.  He had given all he had in the checking account and a little more.”

Love this book! Love good stories.  Love the gift of friends and family.  Ones “who give all…and a little more”…sometimes unintended but, hopefully, never unappreciated.