Judge Not

May 11, 2011: For the past two mornings, there have been "new" people in the treatment waiting room (when you go at the same time every day, you learn to recognize what's new). They were there yesterday, but I only briefly observed them. Today, I openly acknowledged them - and there is one of my tender mercies for the day.

Yesterday, I sat in the nearest chair to the hallway, which meant that the "new" people were several chairs away from me. My first glance - only a split second observation - put adjectives in my mind: two people (one man, one woman), 80-ish year-old woman, 60-ish year-old man, rumpled clothes, man with long scraggly hair, woman with deeply-lined face and obvious lack of teeth, skin etched with rough living. Imagine two homeless people pushing shopping carts with their worldly goods inside - that's what I thought I saw. From the hallway, I heard a child's voice, calling, "Mama, I'm all done. All done, Mama," and into the waiting came a slight figure with very short gray hair and an adult woman's wrinkled face, clutching the dressing gown in her two little fists, smiling as she told the woman sitting there, "Mama, I'm done now."

Now, I'm staring. "Mama" gets up and tenderly puts her arms around "Betty", her daughter, who has just had radiation. The sweet nurse, Sandra, pats Betty's back and says, "You did well, Betty!. We'll see you tomorrow," and then Mama and Betty go into one of the dressing rooms and shut the door. Sandra turns to me and says, "We're ready for you, Lisa."

This morning, Mama and Betty's brother (he has to be) are sitting in their same chairs when I walk in. My heart is still full from yesterday. I smile at them and say, "good morning," and they both smile and say it back. Mama calls me "honey". "How are you today, honey?" We start to talk. Brother asks if I have breast cancer too. No, I say, and tell him snippets of my story. Both their faces are instantly concerned. He tells me that Betty has had a mastectomy and that "we almost lost her - she only had a week to live." Their love is heavy in the room. We talk about our treatments - Betty has to have 25, compared to my 30 - and then, she'll go on to chemo. My little brain wonders how they'll pay for all this, which is one of my biggest worries, but they only think about Betty. We laugh when we realize that we are both crossing days off our calendars, and Mama admits that it's the only way she can keep track. Then, we hear that little voice, saying, "Mama, I'm all done," and Mama says sweetly, "There's my girl," just like my mama would say, just like any mama would say, and in comes Betty, grinning from ear to ear, a handmade knitted cap on her head. The nurse motions to me that it's my turn, and as I pass Betty, I pat her on the back. Mama stands to take her into the dressing room and says to me, "Good luck, honey." "Thank you," I say. "Good luck to you, too."

I hear the Savior say, "Judge not." We are not our bodies. We are not our scraggly hair, our wrinkled faces, our rumpled clothes. We are not our missing breasts or our scarred necks or our bald heads. We are not the burns, the broken parts, the dirt, or the weight. We are what is inside, and no one can "see" that unless we reach out with our hearts. Thank you for teaching me that - again - today, Lord. See you tomorrow, Betty and Mama and Brother. We'll chat more then.