carrying lisa

when I was about 16 we got new neighbors across the street…when you are 16 and live in the country it is a big deal to get new neighbors especially when they have a daughter is only two years younger…we should have been friends, hanging out, talking about boys..but Lisa was not that kind of friend….she was about the size of a small child and her mom carried her everywhere…litterally carried her…see Lisa was not like me…she was not healthy, she had a severe form of CP and could not communicate (well, not like I understood…her mom had a way of knowing what she needed and thought) but her mom was always happy, always glad to see us…would walk the long rows of our corn in the garden, Lisa on her shoulder and talk…talk about everything and smile and she would pat Lisa on the back as she walked and swayed. Her mom enjoyed my mom, they would hang out and chat in the garden and Lisa just layed there, on her moms shoulder as I grew…I graduated high school and went to college, her mom would come over and talk to me when I came home on the weekends and ask about my life, always smiling, always interested and always Lisa on her shoulder. Over the years she watched as I went on with life, doing the things that Lisa should have been doing, falling in love, getting married, having children. I would bring my kids home to visit the grandparents and here her mom would come over…always excited to see the kids and always carrying Lisa…for Lisa it was if time stood still, her little body still the size of a child…Thru the smiles I had to imagine that her mom dreamed as she watched me…dreamed of what Lisa should have been doing…what it would be like if Lisa wasn’t on her shoulder, but instead was coming thru the door carrying a baby to see grandma….today my own momma called and said Lisa had died last night, peacefully on her bed, probably moments after being carried on her moms shoulder…her parents had chosen to keep her body at home last night and drove her to her final resting place on earth in their own car…she had never been away from them and they didn’t want her in a hearse by herself. Today as her Moms shoulders are suddenly lighter, I imagine they feel heavier than they have in years…their grief new. but today Praise God, Lisa is no longer that woman trapped in a little girls body on her moms shoulders, but a woman dancing, whole at the feet of Jesus…she was 37 and her life has just began…..