Grace

I'm sitting here, having a conversation (FB chat) with my aunt. She just drove a woman to the nursing home to see her husband. This woman can't drive herself because of eye problems. Just that much information made me sick to my stomach - I couldn't imagine not being able to see my husband every day. To not live with him? To know he was sick, in another place, and I couldn't care for him.

Then my aunt tells me that he is the woman's 5th husband.
Take that in. Makes you sick? You feel badly for her? Just wait.

Three of them died, one of them left her. The current husband was her pastor way back in the day (Wednesday? Nevermind...), and they recently re-met and married. 4 months after the wedding, he fell. He hasn't been the same since, and now he's in the nursing home. This woman has been left (one way or another) by men she loves at least 5 times in her 80 years. Five times. I don't know heart ache. I have never even tasted the heart ache this woman lives with on a daily basis.

And yet.
My aunt tells me this woman is 'that woman' in the church. The one who brightens the room when she walks in. When they were leaving the nursing home, a nurse stopped them because she 'needed a hug' from my aunt's friend. The nurse needed the hug!? How does that make sense? Has she buried 3 husbands? But that is who this woman is. She is the Jesus-figure in her community. I have had an enormously blessed life, and no one would say things anywhere near that great about me. I've been a bitter, jaded, gossipy woman most of my adult life. And for what? Because I've had a few tough-breaks? Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?