The Hula Teacher & Me
The text was nagging me. Automated and persistent, it kept reminding me that two prescriptions were overdue for pick up.
Thank the Lord for drive-thru pharmacies. After leaving the surgical consultation, my feet felt leaden. I hardly had the will to walk inside, even though my steps would be few with the shiny new disabled placard hanging from the rear-view mirror.
The “Full Service” sandwich board directed me to the window where predictably, the young attendant shrugged as soon as I drove up, and waved the “closed” sign in front of his face. He pointed toward the front door.
“Oh man,” I mumbled and reflected for a minute or two, assessing the energy it would take to actually park and pay for something inside. I pictured the shiny Twix Bars at the check-out, though, and with fresh resignation, hobbled into the store.
Grabbing a shopping cart for balance, I noticed a woman in front of me in a blue denim dress pausing to reach for a small book on the display-round titled, “What the Bible Says About Difficult Times.”
“Hm. People actually buy those things. Cool.”
I skirted the Twix area hissing, “Satan, get thee behind me,” and scooping up the Rxs, I found myself wandering down the aisle which boldly announced Feminine Needs. (We girls know that one can always find something in an aisle like that.) I stopped to wonder at the towering wall of soft sanitary packages in front of me. How in the world did we go from one simple word that I learned in junior high, ”Kotex,” to the mountain of options piled in front of me?
Just then I noticed the lady in the blue denim dress alongside me and I casually remarked, trying to sound witty,“How in the world are you ever supposed to figure out what kind to buy? Organic, overnight, hypoallergenic, contoured, ultimate, woven, winged, no-winged. This is crazy.”
When I spoke, the woman looked directly at me. “Carole, it is you.”
Seeing her face, I recognized the blue-denim-dress-lady as my former hula teacher .I had such a teacher a few years back because my daughter decided that I should do the hula for the children at my grandson’s luau-themed birthday party. A sort of free entertainment for humans too young to know that I could not, by any stretch, pose as a Polynesian dancer. (It is true, though, that the toddlers loved it and were duly impressed by the authentic costuming that this teacher had dug up.)
Polite niceties followed until I apologized for not being able to field a rather mundane question.
“I’m sorry. I just left a medical appointment that I haven’t quite processed.”
“Ah…your knee?” she replied, nodding to the wrapped leg.
“Well,, uh, no…I mean, yes, the knee needs work, but actually, I have to have kind of a scary heart surgery first.”
What followed was a jumble of juxtaposed descriptions borrowed from internet searches, the too-young-looking surgeon I had met with earlier and some words of a faith-sort, probably like the ones in that little book she had picked off of the display round just a few minutes before. Out they came, tumbling from my mouth before I realized how candid I had been.
“Can I pray for you?” the hula-denim-blue-dress-lady asked.
“Sure. I’ll take any and all prayers.”
So in aisle 17, she placed her arm around my shoulders and lifted up my fear and worry and sadness before our Father.
Woman to woman.
Sister to sister.
Hula girl to Hula teacher.
In the most tender way that touched me by its authentic spontaneity.
When she finished, I wiped the tears from my cheeks and noticed a woman, also on aisle 17, who had obviously been watching us—two women huddled together with bowed heads, stationed between the purple and pink packages of wings and no-wings, under the sign that read Feminine Needs.
When I hobbled back to my car, I wept at the wheel knowing that the Father had gifted me with a human who had simply been available and open. (And that I had a Father who understood the in-the-moment care required of His daughter).This was the kind of experience I refer to as a “Thin Space Moment,” when heaven enlarges and the distance between it and earth diminishes. I write about thin spaces in my book and the times and places where I sense them. This was one of them.
Thank you Hula-blue-dress-denim-lady. You blessed me today in the most unexpected and loving way.
Bear one another’s burdens. Galatians 6:2