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Sunny Side Up
with Kathleen Gibson June 18, 2008 Distressed? Take God�s jolly good medicine I have a large purse, not well organized. One Saturday morning while the Preacher rehabbed from the worst of the pirates of West Nile Disease, and we sat in his hospital room, chatting, it began ringing. Rather, the cell phone inside the purse started ringing. I picked the bag up, placed it on the bed, opened the zipper and rummaged for the phone. But until they make a glow-in-the dark phone with an eighteen-inch antennae which rises ceiling-ward at first ring, I�ll never find our cell phone fast. (I�d like someone to lodge a complaint with the phone companies about their obsession with miniature phones. Whenever I hold our phone to my ear, I almost lose it in my ear canal.) I pawed in that dark interior for about fifteen rings, until finally the purse got quiet. I�d known it would, eventually. �Oh, they hung up,� I told the Preacher, but just then a wee voice floated upward, its clarity muffled by tissues and books and pens and old church bulletins. �Hello? Mom? Are you there?� It was our daughter Amanda�s voice. I don�t know why I panicked, but I did. In finest �Honey, I shrunk the Kids� tradition, I stuck my head inside the opening and hauled off hollering. �Amanda? Hello? Don�t hang up!� �Mom?� she said again. �Yes, I hear you, but I can�t find you!� �What d�ya mean, you can�t find me?� �You�re in my purse somewhere, honey, but I don�t know where!� While the Preacher watched in amazed amusement, I bent over the bag on the bed and talked, too afraid to stir things about, in case I lost the connection. I told Amanda about the goings-on at our end, and finished, ��so I�m standing here talking to my purse.� Laughter rose then, from deep inside dark brown leather thickly populated by more of the secrets that puzzle men every time they pick up a woman�s purse. (The sheer bulk of those bags bewilders men as often as their own bulging pockets frustrate women. (Here�s a tip for chronic pocket pack rats, ladies: snip out their bottoms�the pockets� not the men�s.)) Anyway, I spent the rest of that conversation bent over the Preacher�s hospital bed, with my head inside my purse. Fortunately, most rehab patients went home on weekends. If any of the staff witnessed the conversation between my purse and me, they had the grace not to mention it. We said good-bye, eventually, Amanda and I. Then I dumped the purse and found the phone, still neatly closed. The next day I auctioned the purse off on E-Bay as authentic Get Smart memorabilia and began wearing a waist pouch. All the above is true, almost. This is certainly true: during the Preacher�s battle with the pirates of West Nile, the God who comforted us in the midst of our most puzzled, hurting days, also provided frequent doses of his best medicine. Today I�ve shared some, in case you need it too. � 2008, Kathleen Gibson Respond Home |
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