She was very small.  If I had to guess I’d say in her life she never reached 100 pounds, and about 80 of those were heart.

You know, we all owe God a life, and when you’ve lived as long as I have, you generally are able to hear the bad news of a death in the community with some measure of composure and acceptance.

Every now and then, though, you hear a bit of news that makes you hunch your shoulders and shrink a bit, as if a cold North wind had sent a shiver down your spine.  Sometimes, someone’s passing leaves a hole in the world which will not be filled, like a missing tooth you never stop probing for, a gap in a community’s landscape that is never refilled.  Everyone whose path I crossed this week brought up Nita in conversation.  I smiled when the guy at the elevator said, “If she’s not in Heaven, none of us have a chance.”

No doubt, for a Heaven that Nita could not get into would be a vast and empty space.  The mind does not entertain the thought of anyone qualifying if she did not.

Nita was a person who did things.  Sweet, generous, helpful, invasive, meddling, wonderful things.  I would panic a little whenever she wanted to talk to me, because I knew that I was about to become involved in a project that previously had not been one of my priorities but was about to become one.  Every hour of her every day was full to bursting with good deeds; from rubbing cold feet to giving Demerol shots to a guy who didn’t want to go back to the hospital but couldn’t get to sleep through vicious pain, to helping widows cope and ministering to a legion of lost dogs.  Time and space do not permit even a cursory listing of her beneficiaries or her causes. 

“No dog ever ran away from our place,” her husband told us.  “Why would they?  They were already living in Paradise.”

She did take exquisite care of all the animals, including occasionally repossessing a pup that’d gone to an owner who she did not feel met her standards of animal care.

When we heard the news of her death my wife made a hot dish for her husband and a plate of cookies for her grandchildren and we took them over on Sunday evening.

Her sons were there, but left almost right away, off to borrow a refrigerator to hold the overflow of food that was coming from the neighbors. 

Her husband was so sad that it was painful just to be in the same room with him as he reminisced.  Even so, it was also…kind an honor to just be there, to share even a little bit in the hurt and the longing. 

Amongst the outpouring of grief and memories he did say one foolish thing.  Nita died of cancer and he suggested that maybe the outcome could have been postponed if he’d made her go to the doctor sooner.

Please.  In her entire life no one ever made Nita do anything and in my lifetime I can’t remember anyone even trying.
Bill walked us out to our car as we were leaving.  Scuffing the gravel and looking around the yard he said one more thing.
 
“Whenever the lottery would reach a hundred million dollars I would buy a ticket, just so that if I won I could give to her and see how long it would take her to spend it.”

It wouldn’t have taken her long.  There are so many stray dogs,  so many children who need cherishing, no end of sad, lonely and hurting people, folks who need a smile, a back rub, or a helping hand.  There is an ocean of need out there, more broken than can ever be fixed.

But Nita tried.

Copyright 2010 Brent Olson