The Day I was Boo Hooing at a McDonalds In India

I don’t know that I can tell this story well, but I’m going to try. It seems that I should. It’s not one story, it may be many. I know that it encompasses at least two within it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many stories that rise up, more like pictures really, into your own mind as you read it.

Our “work” in India was done. This was the part that made our tourists visas honest. We were loaded on a bus to Agra, a four hour drive. This was to be a simple trip to see the Taj Mahal and we were a group anticipating seeing more of the beautiful country we had come to love.

On our scheduled stop for lunch at McDonalds where we can only eat nuggets and fries, and drink soda, we sat in small groups around the small tables and chairs with not enough space to be comfortable. I sat next to Gail.

Gail is beautiful. She is a mother and grandmother. She has traveled around the world, working with fashion designers, buyers, sellers, manufacturers and more. Her beautiful South African accent reveals her alien status, but perks our ears to listen more closely to her voice. A voice that was never overused. She wasn’t quiet or shy, simply patient to speak. She was one of the sweet souls on our trip that captivated me immediately. I had not known her before. We attend the same church but at completely different times so I had never met her there. Even now I’ve only seen her from a distance a few times.

She was indisputably refined. Yet she tied back her beautiful blond tresses, rolled up her sleeves, donned tennis shoes and allowed sweat to roll down her neck just like the rest of us. She would forgo make-up and other vanities for these beautiful dark children, and she danced, played and sat on the dirty, dry ground beside them, holding their hands and laughing.

This is the woman I sat beside, now more made up, but no less honest. She was telling us about her diet, why she never ate anything fried. She had had cancer. It had hurt her, hurt her family and though she had conquered, she knew it was still alive and waiting for a new opportunity to threaten her. When asked how bad it had gotten, she answered honestly and the questions that came didn’t rattle her at all.

“Did you lose your hair?”

“Oh yes,” she smiled her words.

She began to tell in detail of an intimate moment with her adult son. How she sat with him, held him and comforted him in her own moment of physical weakness. I listened carefully, hoping I could separate myself from her story. Hoping I wouldn’t see myself with them, feeling the loss and vulnerability that accompanies such times. I couldn’t. I’m a hopeless bundle of emotion sometimes.

Her son was heartbroken for her and for himself. He must have hated the disease as much as I do. He wanted to be positive, encouraging.

“You won’t lose your hair mom, not you.”

She tried to prepare him, she knew the chemo was already weakening her body, but can anyone be prepared for the world turning upside down? Even as they sat there having their conversation he reached around her neck and with the unintentional brush of his hand, her entire ponytail separated from her head.

I sat there so still. I was desperately trying to hold in the tears that were fighting to come. The other faces around the table seemed so much less affected. What is wrong with me? I was questioning it as she continued her story.

I was there though, with her, with my mother, with her son, feeling the pain of change, loss, weakness and frailty. So much sorrow was boiling in me and I was pressing the lid down as hard as I could to keep it from escaping, but that’s impossible.

My tears flowed mercilessly and I smiled at her to see if she would understand. She wrapped her arm around me and as embarrassed as I was I let her. The other faces wondered I think, why did a small story have so much affect. I couldn’t explain then, but I was thankful for something we had built over that week in India. Thankful that we had learned to trust each other. They did not shy away from my tears and I did not shy away from their silent questions. I couldn’t answer with my voice but I could smile at them and say “I love you all” by not looking away.

Even now I question my reaction. Was there something un-excavated in my sorrow? Somehow I suppose hearing the honest telling of her son’s sweet hope and sorrow mingled together with hers over the loss of her beauty, a defining element of his mother, not a vanity, but a part of who she was, triggered the feeling in me. It wasn’t a conscious comparison, but I knew exactly what they felt and maybe I had never cried over the definition of it before.

When my mother died she grew thin, she grew so frail, unable to lift a glass to her lips. She had stopped baking bread months before, she had stopped cooking and serving, a defining element of my mother. I was not close enough to put my arm around her during those surrenders, but I spoke with her, I laughed with her over the phone and then apologized for making her laugh as it always brought on a coughing fit. She made me feel like a terrible, wonderful daughter.

And so it surfaced, there in a sunny little corner of a McDonalds in the center of India. How strange. How simple. God does amazing things when we are willing to sit and listen. He purged a cry of despair that I had been longing to loose and I was in a place, at a time, when I was able to let it out.

Sorrow isn’t so bad I thought. Sorrow wants to escape us, sit on the outside, run it’s fingers gently through our hair and leave tiny ribbons of silver behind. Sorrow isn’t trying to bury us, nor is it trying to weaken us. Sorrow comes to soften us and make us more like Christ.

Man of Sorrows! What a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined Sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior! ~Philip P. Bliss

How could He be more trusted than to be a friend acquainted with our grief?

“He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Isaiah 53:3

When this Man of Sorrows was crucified and resurrected He changed everything. Sorrow still exists but it walks hand in hand with hope, faith and love. He wept in Luke, I weep in Him. In this sorrow I can stand up straight, acknowledging the pain of loss and embracing the truth of victory.

Again from Bliss, I sing:

When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring,
Then anew His song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah! What a Savior!