This past week I got a box in the mail. It had been a stressful week already, filled with a lot of tension and situations I could do nothing to solve. I opened the box and took a moment before I dug through the shredded newspaper for the item inside. I knew from the return address what it was, something I wanted, and yet something I wasn't sure I was ready for. Muttsy. When I dug through the paper and held the soft Gund stuffed dog in my arms... well, I lost it. Fortunately, I have a husband who completely understood what was going on.
When I was a senior in high school, a new couple came into the adult church choir practice one Thursday evening. The woman, a woman named George (she said her father had wanted a boy), sat next to me in the soprano section. She and her significant other, Bruce, soon came to be our family friends. When I learned that George gave voice lessons, I begged my Mom to let me take lessons with her.
We didn't have a piano at our house, so we made an arrangement to meet at another of her student's houses and have my lesson after hers. Usually I drove myself over to the house and parked behind George's familar Honda Prelude. I was still very shy, but our lessons were fun. George made me laugh, and she pushed me to sing out, to not hold back, and she thought I had a beautiful voice worth hearing. She even made me try out for my first solo in the high school choir, the solo part of the Spring Musical Revue, as Laurey from a segment of "Oklahoma!" I was so scared at the audition I'd been up all night trying not to throw up. But George believed in me. I got the part! She brought me roses the night of the performance.
Sometimes I asked one of my parents to drive me to my voice lesson and I'd get a ride back with George. I did that on purpose, because it gave me a chance to spend time with her. She'd pull into my driveway and I wouldn't leave. We'd sit and talk, listen to Christian music on her cassette player and talk. Often she gave me pep talks, as I was pretty down on myself. It was just a quiet, intimate time, just the two of us, sitting in the stillness of her car, listening to music. A safe place. Even holy in the sense that we were connected. Finally she'd tell me she had to get home, and she'd say, "I love you Peggy Sue," and kiss me on the cheek and maybe muss up my hair playfully. I went into my house, warmed by the blessing.
Over the years, when I'd come home from college and after I graduated, I often spent time hanging out at George and Bruce's apartment. On the couch in their living room was a soft, adorable stuffed Gund dog named Muttsy. I would sit on the couch, holding Muttsy like a real puppy and stroke her for comfort. Whenever I was at George's I was usually holding the dog, unless of course we were fixing supper or baking cookies.
Often on the weekends after college, I would tag along with George and Bruce to local flea markets. Or I'd visit them at their mobile home down at the shore and George and I would walk the boardwalk and go shopping. I was just comforted by her presence, even if we didn't talk a lot. Her whole demeanor toward me was gentle, loving, and in her eyes I saw myself as cherished. She and Bruce often came to our house for dinner and games, and were regulars for Thanksgivings for many years in a row. She picked on my father, though she loved him dearly. We laughed a lot. George and I sang a lot of duets in church together, so after awhile, it wasn't a big deal anymore singing in front of people. I felt pretty cool being her singing partner at church, though she had others, I felt pretty important that she considered me good enough to sing with her.
When I graduated from college, George gave me my own Muttsy dog as part of my gift. When my daughter Sarah came along, George brought her a mini Muttsy dog when she was two and George came to visit us out in Nebraska. When Sarah was a little older, she found my Muttsy and loved him up pretty good, so that he was as ragged and worn as the Velveteen Rabbit. I still have him, but he has one bald spot and his fur is no longer soft from years of sticky-fingered-loving from my child. But he still comforts. When my friend Karen died, I slept with old worn-out Muttsy for months as a comfort-- my husband was very understanding of that Linus phase..
George sang at my wedding, and sang every song I gave to her, which was a very long list. But she did it for me. I got her and her husband Vince (Bruce died in the early '90s) to sing at my parent's 50th wedding anniversary party in New Jersey. Her face is all through our family pictures, especially of my later teens and young adulthood. She didn't keep in touch well when I moved to Nebraska, but whenever we got back together it was as if no time passed. She still had that smile of love in her eyes when she looked at me that I'd needed so desperately as a teenager.
In September of 2009, I was sitting at my husband's desk having just gotten The Call from the Bishop's office that instructed me to Be There at the Bishop's office in Lincoln that following Tuesday at 9 a.m. It was the summons that eventually led to my giving up my ordination. At the time of the phone call, I didn't know why I was being summoned, but I figured it wasn't good. After The Call, I got online and got the email from my mother that George had died 10 days previously after a short battle with ovarian cancer. I was stunned. And angry. I hadn't even had an opportunity to decide whether it was possible to get back east for the funeral. I had no one who knew her, really, to share my grief with. That news, too, coincided with my severing my ties with the United Methodist Church just five days later.
There was a whole lotta grievin' going on.
I hadn't seen George in several years, and had in the last year gotten connected with her online, but she hadn't told me about her illness. I think it all happened so fast, she wasn't worried about emailing the news. I grieved not being able to be there for her at all, not being able to connect with her during that time and say goodbye; tell her what she'd meant to me all those years. She gave me my voice. She pushed me out on stage, almost literally, and told me to share my voice, my singing, and she stood by and smiled. My singing was a big part of my ministry.
At someone else's funeral I heard the song by Celtic Women called "Send Me a Song." It fit perfectly what was going on in my heart. I sang along, almost as a prayer, a message to George, of course never sure of how all that works. The day I went to the Bishop's office and waited for 45 minutes for the Bishop even to enter the room, I imagined George leaning against the shelf. She had on that somewhat bored expression, but smiled, letting me know this was no big deal, really. The Bishop was just a person. She smiled that loving smile. "I love you, Peggy Sue."
One day I took a nap, and was thinking of that song, "Send Me a Song," as I'd listened to it so many times during those days. Then in that place between sleep and awake, I heard another song. A song that I hadn't heard in years; "Looking Through the Eyes of Love." The first song that George introduced to me and had me sing in our lessons. I'd forgotten all about that song, and it played in my head as I drifted off to sleep. "Please, don't let this feeling end, it might not come again, and I want to remember...." It was ok, somehow. I knew. She knew. Eternity is not limited by something so petty as physical boundaries. She knew. I loved her.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I wondered if Vince still had Muttsy. It'd been 2 1/2 years, he'd probably gotten rid of a lot of stuff. I emailed him. He sent me a picture. Yep, he had him. I asked him if I could have him, and told him the significance. He didn't answer. Until last week when I got the box in the mail. The Muttsy. Still soft, still had all his fur, after at least 25 years. Somehow just having something of hers, something that she had when I knew her and was with her... was intensely healing. As if to say, she was real. Our friendship was real.
Love lasts forever. And I don't believe there is much distance between us and those we love who are no longer here. I don't get the details, but I believe they know.... we love them.
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