Dancing with Grandpa

I was upstairs folding laundry when 8-year-old Marthy came upstairs crying.  She walked past me without saying anything, went into our bedroom, and flung herself onto our bed.

I finished folding the last few items of clothing and went into the room and sat down on the bed next to her.  I asked what was wrong and started rubbing her back.

Marthy is the child I often worry about.  Things don’t come easily for her.  She struggles frequently.  Reading and writing are difficult for her.  Riding a bike was a huge hurdle.  One which she cleared two full years after her twin sister, Emma.  Marthy is language delayed.  Fairly significantly so, I think.  She often misunderstands things, thinking that people are being mean to her when really, they were simply teasing her good-naturedly.  All these things result in Marthy often feeling bad about herself, and often getting her feelings hurt.

A sob erupted.  “I’m just always breaking things, or losing things,” she cried.

There was some truth to that, and I wondered what had been broken or lost this time.

“What happened?” I asked.

She proceeded to tell me of her latest little mishap.  I listened to the whole story, assuring her that I thought it would be okay.   She stopped talking for a moment, overcome with body-wrenching sobs again.  Then she blurted, “I miss Grandpa.”

My dad had died ten months earlier.  He’d been blind the last 10 years of his life.  All the kids loved Grandpa.  But to Marthy he was a special friend.  When he and Mom would visit, he’d spend most of his time sitting on the couch in our living room, limited by his loss of sight.  Marthy was the one always content to sit next to him, holding his hand.  I never knew what all they talked about on those visits.  I just knew that Dad always told her she had a beautiful smile, and that no matter what, she shouldn’t let anything keep her from smiling. “Put on your smile,” he’d say to her. And she adored him.

“We all miss Grandpa a lot,” I reminded her.

She sniffled.  “I know,” she whimpered.

My thoughts went back to an afternoon several weeks previously when Marthy had been playing dress-ups.  She’d come downstairs in some fancy get-up and started dancing around the living room. A smile had lit her face.  I was sitting on the couch at the time, watching her. Watching a glow on her face. Understanding, I think, that she was someone else just then.  Someone grown up and beautiful.  Someone confident.  Graceful and lovely.  She floated around the living room, staring off at nothing.  Glowing.  And at the time I’d had the strangest feeling, wondering if somehow Dad was there. If he was right there in the living room right then.  Dancing with Marthy.  At the time, I’d had to fight to hold back the tears as I watched her face that afternoon.

“You know, Marthy,” I began, as she continued crying hard into my pillow, “a few weeks ago you were in dress-ups and you were dancing around the living room. And I started tearing up watching you because I had the strangest feeling that maybe Grandpa was here dancing with you right then.”

I was silent then.  Giving her time to let it sink in.  Sure enough, she stopped crying, and rolled over to look at me.  Her face was damp with sweat and tears.  Her eyes were puffy, and red.  She wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked up at me seriously. Studying my face.

I held her gaze. Though I couldn’t help thinking there was something more in her eyes.  She wasn’t studying me trying to see if I was serious.  It was something else.  More like she was trying to see if she should tell me something.  Trying to see if I could handle it.  If I could be trusted.

After a second or two, she sat up and took hold of my face with both of her sweaty, little hands.  Then, still looking into my eyes, she said, “Mom, can I tell you something?”

That was it.  She had been trying to decide if I could handle it.  If it was safe to reveal a secret to me.  Whatever that secret was.

“Yeah, Marth, you can tell me something.  I’ll believe you,” I assured.

She paused for a moment, still looking into my eyes.  Then she said simply, “Grandpa dances with me all the time.”

I started tearing up.  She continued to hold my face with both hands and look at me.  I was the one crying now. Marthy was very calm   and the words, the secrets, started flowing out of her.

“I hear Grandpa a lot,” she said.  “He whispers to me.  I tell him that I miss him.  I say, ‘I just miss talking to you on the telephone, Grandpa.  I wish I could just talk to you sometimes.’  And he tells me that he loves me and that he misses me, too. In my heart I hear him telling me, ‘Put your smile on, Marthy.’”

I laid back onto the bed then and put my arms around her.  We laid there for a while that afternoon.  Me missing my dad.  And Marthy missing her best friend whom she had adored.

Marthy is the child we often worry about.  We watch her struggles, and the huge efforts she puts forth for even the most minor successes.  We often have to wipe away her tears and try to explain that no one was being mean to her, that she had just misunderstood.  Again.  She, more than any of our other kids, struggles to learn new things.  Struggles to feel good about herself.

And yet.  And yet. There is a giftedness there, as well. I see it all the time.  And I know that I don’t understand how God’s universe works.  That it simply isn’t for me to understand it.   But it makes complete sense to me that even now God allows Dad to continue being Marthy’s best friend.  Reminding her to put on her smile.   And, every once in a while, since he’s no longer limited by blindness, even joining her in the living room.  For a dance.