The Flemings are Back

Hello everyone and thanks so much for your kind comments. Today, in honor of the Fleming's return from internship, and another U-Haul in the parking lot, I wanted to repost something from the liver vigil aka the care page.

*January 14, 2007 at 11:50 AM CST*
The Missionary Smile Goes to Colorado.

For the past five years, James and Hannah's family lived next to us, as the building angles from the outside, our apartments both tuck into a corner. Bedroom windows literally inches apart, separated by 90 degrees of space. Sometimes at night the kids would talk to each other through
the screens. "Hey are you awake?" Weird wolf noises back and forth. Amanda would complain, "Maaa-aam, the boys are howling." And sure enough, there's Aidan in his pajamas, mouth right up to the dark of the window. All the moms would order it to stop immediately and get back to bed.

When Hannah had her baby -- who by the way is now running with the pack of kids out in the hall -- her mother came from Liberia. A cute little woman with a wrinkled face who doesn't speak a lick of English. The best time to call West Africa is when I go to bed and that's when Hannah's mother would stand at the window and phone home. Her sharp Liberian tongue, as forceful as can be, would transmit like a megaphone directly into my ear. Aahh, Sandgren Hall. Like a loud lullaby, it would make me smile to imagine this mother, so far from home, asserting her love and influence, albeit in secret code to me.

Hannah had a thing about smiles. About 'missionary smiles' as she would call them. She hated them because they were fake, she said. And then she would plaster a great big toothy grin on her face in mockery. It could be intimidating. Exactly how, then, is one supposed to greet Hannah?

One day Bob passed by Hannah on campus and just looked straight ahead with a stone face. "Bob, aren't you going to say hello?" Is what she said in the Hannah command tone.

"Would you like a missionary hello or just a regular hello," Bob responded. Hannah busted out laughing and from then on they were bonded. They even chaperoned kids together at the ELCA National Youth Gathering last summer, where Bob found all sorts of ways to push Hannah's buttons. "Baaa-aab, you stop that!" Hannah would say, smiling and laughing, authentic and contagious.

James is doing his parish internship in Colorado, and so they are not here this year. But last week they were back for a wedding and heard that Bob was sick. In what seems to be the African way, they knocked on our door, walked right in, and saw Bob as he was before September. They seemed not to notice that he was as emaciated and yellow as can be. James all pastoral and Hannah all glamorous, we held hands in a circle and prayed.

Three a.m. last night when Bob's itching medicine was wearing off we decided to do imagery. Let's go to Colorado. The snow and the mountains seem so soothing against the burning of Bob's skin. We'll rent a car with a DVD player and let the kids go haywire in the back seat with
movies. And we'll drive around to all the tourist spots, breathing in that fresh, cool air. Take in the rugged, rocky white scenery. Stop at a trail head and hike. Amanda will take pictures. On Sunday morning we would go to that one church with the Liberian pastor and his queen-like wife, missionaries to the snow people.

Bob went back to sleep. I smiled and did likewise.

With much love to all of you, T