Kari Patterson

*If you haven’t had a chance to meet our neighbor Ernie yet, I’d be most honored to introduce you to him here … Blinds and Jan Hagels. Flowers. Parsnips. Hope. And if YOU are a woman named Susan, from Alabama, who is having lunch with me right now (wink) — I THANK YOU with my whole heart for your selfless generosity to me. There aren’t words. Oh our God is amazing. And to all: Enjoy…

It was a Tuesday when we took the parsnips over, and his front door was flung wide-open.

We went as we were–kids barefoot, I wearing a huge hooded sweatshirt, Jeff still in his toolbelt, and Debra donning a tie-dyed t-shirt. We’d just eaten dinner out in the yard, the sun slanting in from the west.

We walked up the sidewalk, past the dry dirt-bed where we’d poked sunflower seeds down deep into the soil. Debra dug the holes, the kids and I dumped in handfuls of potting soil and carefully buried the seeds.

We’re still waiting for signs of life.

Or maybe we’re already seeing some?

We were just passing the statues, still lined up like graves, when I noticed the front door. I squinted in the sun. Was it really … open? 

This is the man who didn’t crack his blinds the first four months we lived here.

“Knock knock!” I called out as we approached. The TV blared, like last time, but Ernie appeared in no time flat, shuffling his walker toward the door.

“Well, hello there!” He looked surprised, but not unfriendly.

“I brought you some parsnips.” 

He smiled. 

We introduced Debra and immediately Dutch pulled his encyclopedia out from under his arm and began a detailed discourse on something scientific. Ernie listened patiently with … Was it? Yes I think it was--a twinkle in his eye.

“Would you like to come in?” I’m not sure who was more surprised, us or him, at his eager invitation.

“Of course!” We tramped in noisily, more loud-life and chaotic commotion than he’d probably had in ages. The smell of my grandma’s house, from when I was a child, enveloped me. Exactly the same smell. The living room was neat and tiny, the mantle filled with pictures, tiny knickknacks, dozens of figurines–an indoor version of the yard.

We talked long and animatedly. I looked out his enormous picture window (the blinds were pulled wide open) and saw what he would see, each day: Us. Our yard.

It’s so odd to see your life from another view.

He looked at me and pointed out the window. “You did a lot of work out there!”  

I smiled. I had wondered if he was watching. I’d spent several back-breaking days digging out years’ worth of weeds along the side of our lot–the side we share with Ernie. Although it was bright outside, so I can never see in his dark window, I had wondered several times if perhaps he was watching me. And I somehow knew he was. And it seemed right. Not in a weird creepy way, in a way that made me feel happy. Like me just being there, working the ground for long hours right outside his window, might somehow make him happy. Might make him remember. I wondered if my presence–just being there–might make him glad. It sounds weird as I write it down. Perhaps you understand?

“Yeah, it was hard work, but it looks so nice right now.”

“Yeah, it does. I had my yard guys do a treatment for the weeds too, so that should help.”

I smiled. “Great, thanks.”

A small black and white photo on the mantle caught my eye–a dark-haired young man, wildly handsome. I picked it up and showed Debra. “Who’s this good looking guy??!!”

Some emotion waved across his face. He smiled. Quietly: “That’s the old man.”

We hooted and hollered. “YOU?! That’s YOU?! Wow, Ernie! You were a hottie!” He laughed as we slapped his shoulders.

After we’d teased him enough, we asked about his kids. Turns out his son is 57 years old and has cerebral palsy, since birth. Lives in a care facility here in Oregon City.

Ernie visits him every Sunday.

Interspersed with joviality was plenty of profanity and bitterness. Several times we sat in awkward silence, wondering how to take the conversation somewhere, anywhere, fruitful. When we left I wondered to myself, “What do we do with that?”

As we walked back up the sidewalk I looked back down at his dirt-patch. The soil was full of rocks, dry as a desert, filled with weeds. I know there are sunflower seeds there below the surface. I know because we put them there.

I know they can grow.

But man, there’s a lot of junk on the surface.

Honestly, I don’t know if those sunflower seeds will ever break through. Don’t know if flowers will come through that rock-hard soil.

But we’ll keep watering and waiting:

Ernie, and his seeds.

 

 {May you be encouraged to water whatever seeds God has given you this week, patiently waiting, and trusting His grace. Thanks for reading.}

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