"The world needs evidences of sincere Christianity. Professed Christianity may be seen everywhere; but when the power of God’s grace is seen in our churches, the members will work the works of Christ. Natural and hereditary traits of character will be transformed. The indwelling of His Spirit will enable them to reveal Christ’s likeness, and in proportion to the purity of their piety will be the success of their work." 28
“Good morning, Conny,” she said
greeting her friend with a broad smile and removing her purse
from the vacant seat that she had reserved.
As the train swayed rhythmically, she noted,
with feminine approval, the lovely pink two piece suit Conny was
wearing, conservative, in a liberal town, how strange. She was
amused, but then, good looks and a well dressed figure always
counted no matter the political persuasion of the boss.
Conny eased herself into the plush red seat
with obvious effort, setting her purse and attache case on the
floor, next to her feet.
“Your arthritis hurting again,”
Hazel inquired sympathetically. “It’s probably this
crazy weather, hot and humid one day, then cold and dreary the
next. Who would have thought we would need a coat in August.”
Conny smiled ruefully at her friend of three
years. “Its my back. I need to visit a chiropractor. It began
hurting last night, just after supper, Gary says its probably
a bladder infection, but what do men know about such things?”
Hazel looked concerned as she noted her
friend’s sallow complexion and drawn facial muscles indicative
of suppressed pain. Where normally, Conny was a merry sunbeam,
with an infectious smile, sparkling gray eyes, and a face that
seemed to radiate good humor, this morning, her eyes were dull
gray in color, which worried Hazel, and her smile was as flat
as her own chest when not artificially enhanced.
At this thought, Hazel sighed with barely
suppressed grief. If only she had been properly endowed like other
women, then perhaps she could have done better in marriage then
her Fred. Well, he couldn’t help his condition, either.
Arranging her skirt, Conny glanced at Hazel,
then past her at the rapidly moving landscape as the train crossed
the Maryland countryside, headed toward D.C., and their respective
jobs. “I almost wish I wasn’t going to work this morning,”
Conny confided.
“Has Arita been bothering you again.
You ought to report him to the counsels office. You don’t
have to tolerate this familiarity, you know,” Hazel said,
“not in this age. Women don’t have to put up with sexual
harassment from superiors. There’s laws to protect us.”
“I know,” Conny sighed, “but
I just don’t feel strong enough to fight him.”
Hazel’s preoccupation with her nails
shifted to her friend as she head the note of desperation in her
voice and the weariness. “Seems to me,” she said, “that
something’s bothering you awful bad. I can hear it in your
voice.”
“I went to the doctor yesterday, Arita
let me have the afternoon off, bless his heart,” she said
sarcastically.
“Bet he’ll demand payment for
that,” Hazel commented with a knowing wink.
“I guess I don’t care,” Conny
replied with an uncharacteristic resigned note in her voice.
This bothered Hazel who had come to rely
on her friends positive, cheerful, upbeat attitudes in the morning
to buoy her own downcast spirits after sleeping with her husband.
She had her own problems at the treasury department where she
worked.
“He said I have pancreatic cancer,
that’s why my health isn’t what it used to be.”
Hazel, preoccupied with her own thoughts,
missed her friend’s revelation. “What did you say, honey”
she inquired, glancing up from the examination of her nails. She
ought to stop at the manicurists this evening, she thought. Her
nails were cracking and splitting badly, probably her age. She
needed to ask her what could be done to stop this problem, perhaps
she needed a stronger nail polish.
“Nothing, honey,” Conny replied,
smiling at her friend with a won expression.
“You’ve got to fight for your
rights,” Hazel advised. “I hear he’s harassed other
women. Why its common gossip around the department that he’s
highly connected with someone at the White House, but that shouldn’t
stop you. Fight him, is my advice.” Resuming the examination
of her nails, Hazel missed the pained expression on Conny’s
face and the spasmodic twitch of her right hip. Overcome by curiosity,
she just had to know, Hazel queried, “you were going to tell
me about the latest episode, last night, before you got off the
train.”
Conny grimaced, but she did need to confide
in someone. “I was typing the weekly progress report, when
he snuck up behind me, reached over my right shoulder, and fondled
my breast. I didn’t hear him coming, nearly jumped out of
my chair with surprise. He has such cold, rough hands, reminds
me of a dog’s tongue.”
Hazel laughed as she secretly envisioned
the feel of his hand on her nonexistent breasts. If only, she
sighed, what I wouldn’t give for a little sexual harassment,
then I would feel like a woman instead of a store manikin with
plastic breasts. “Did any one see him. You got to have witnesses,
you know. No one’s going to believe you without corroboration,
otherwise it’ll be just another Hill/Thomas thing, his word
against yours.”
“He makes sure that no one is around,”
Coney replied, wincing in pain. The nausea was starting again.
She hoped the antacid tablets would control it long enough for
her to get to the ladies room. She hated what this thing was doing
to her, but the doctor hadn’t given her any hope. What about
chemotherapy, she had asked, only to see him turn his back to
write in her chart, but not before an infinite sadness over spread
his kindly face.
Coney understood the message of his body
language and could read the despair in the tilt of his head. Maintaining
his professionalism, he had discussed several options with her,
but, because of the advanced state of the cancer, he offered little
hope.
“How long,” she asked him, fear
welling up in her throat?
Again, he was evasive.
“Tell me,” she demanded, “I
can handle the known, but I can’t deal with the unknown.
How long do I have to live?”
She was shocked by his answer. “Six
weeks, perhaps two months. All I can do is give you pain relief,
you will need to be hospitalized if the pain gets too severe.”
Like the proverbial thunderbolt from the
clear sky, she reeled from the news.
“O dear God,” she cried on her
way back to the office. “I can’t deal with this, not
this.”
She pulled off the road and dabbed at her
eyes with a Kleenex. Panic seized her mind, as another wave of
nausea threatened to empty her stomach of her lunch of salad and
tea. Clinging desperately to the steering wheel for support, she
poured out her fears to her Lord. I don’t want to die, she
sobbed, no, dear God, not now, not this way.
For an hour she cried as the horrid thing
inside her ate its way through the pancreas into the blood stream
while her Lord remained silent.
“I can’t handle it, Lord, unless
you strengthen me.”
Amidst her tears, and pain, a quiet voice
spoke to her. “Lo, I am with you, alway, even unto the end
of the world.”
Conny drew courage from the calmness of
the voice and dried her tears. Staring out of the window at some
children playing on the school swings, she felt her Lord’s
arm supporting her limp body, felt his grace filling her with
strength to endure the agony of the coming weeks. With renewed
resolve, she confessed her lack of faith and determined to trust
her Lord, even unto death.
“I like Petrovitch,” Hazel was
saying, ignoring Conny’s unaccustomed silence. “The
things he says makes since. It’s about time a politician
gave more then lip service to women’s issues.” As the
train gave a sudden lurch, Hazel turned to her friend and said,
“I hope that driver slows down a bit.”
“We’re fifteen minutes late,”
Conny said, “he’s probably trying to make up for lost
time.”
“As I was saying, Petrovitch is rumored
to be considering a woman for Vice President. Its about time a
male candidate takes women seriously.”
“Baines has some good ideas,”
Conny replied, her nausea momentarily restrained by another antacid
tablet. “I like his no-nonsense attitude about Social Security
and the other entitlement programs, besides, he’s got a cute
wife. I like her pug nose, it makes her look, well, a little more
like the rest of us.”
Hazel laughed as the train jerked and the
breaks squealed. She cursed the engineer, as her newspaper fell
to the floor. “Grow up, Conny,” she said sarcastically,
“Baines is out of tough with the American public. People
don’t want to go back to the Victorian age, besides he’s
a grouch.”
Conny suppressed a sharp tongued retort,
hearing the cautioning voice of her Lord. “I think its Petrovitch
who’s out of touch with reality. Sin is always popular while
morality often comes in second best.”
“Then why does Baines insist on loosing
the race even before its started,” Hazel retorted?
“I didn’t say morality never wins,
but it has to work harder at it then sin.”
“You saying I’m a sinner,”
Hazel retorted. She barely tolerated Conny’s holier-then-thou
attitude. Who does she think she is, lecturing me on morality,
why, she ain’t any better then me, she thought.
The breaks squealed again as the car leaned
precariously to the left, then righted itself.
“I wish he’d stop that,”
Hazel said. “He scars me when he drives that fast.”
“Hazel, if the train crashed this morning,
would you be ready to meet God?”
Hazel laughed. “Honey, God and me are
strangers, but, sure, why not. Them preachers says everybody’s
going to heaven, anyway. Don’t matter how we live on earth.
God’s going to take all us sinners, you and me, to be with
him.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Sure’s I’m born, honey,”
she said, reverting to the course speech patterns of her youth.
“We all goes to heaven to be with the Lord when we die.”
Conny remained thoughtful while Hazel, hopeful,
that the conversation wouldn’t go any further in the present
direction, returned to reading the front page of the Washington
Post.
“Hazel.”
“What!”
“God loves you!”
Hazel deliberately folded her paper, placing
it in her purse, before looking at Conny. “Sure he does,
just like Fred loves me.”
“Your husband has a medical problem,”
Conny said sympathetically.
“And I suppose God loves me so much
that he just forgot to give me what everyone woman has.”
Conny was sympathetic. She knew how much
Hazel hated her prosthesis, hated how they made her feel. “Sometimes
things happen that we can’t understand.” Like my cancer,
she thought, then confessed her bitterness. “But just because
things don’t go as we expect, doesn’t mean God has stopped
loving us.”
Hazel sighed, then attempted to change the
subject. “Petrovitch is getting thick with the gays. I’m
not sure I like that. Their dirty and disgusting. Always shoving
their faces into ours. Why can’t they accept that their queer
and leave us straight people alone.”
The train speeded up slightly, crossing
signals flashed past the window, the hoot of the whistle could
be heard, as houses were spaced closer together, signaling their
immanent arrival at their station.
“Don’t put off a decision any
longer,” Conny urged with uncharacteristic concern in her
voice. “We never know when our time on earth may be over.”
Hazel laughed. “Honey, don’t try
to frighten me that way, to scare me into accepting Christ. When
I’m ready, someday, then I’ll think about God, but not
now. I got more important things to worry about then loving God.
When I’m good and ready, then....”
Without warning, the train car was violently
thrown sideways. People screamed. The glass windows shattered.
The lights went out.
Hazel’s face turned pale, as she seized
Conny’s hand. For one brief moment, the two friends looked
into each others faces, the one calm and composed, the other contorted
with fear and anguish. “Its too late,” Hazel screamed
with her last breath as the ceiling collapsed.
