With Resilient Eyes

My car stalled. I had just dropped off a library book and purchased a copy of Elizabeth Edwards’ Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities for fifty cents, and then stopped to fill my tank with gas. Starting the car wasn’t a problem, but it stalled and I was going nowhere. I called Triple A and settled down to enjoy my new / used book.

The irony of the subtitle did not escape me.

As I waited for the Triple A roadside assistance to show up, I sat at a small table by the window overlooking 18 gas pumps. After awhile an older gentleman came to use the table for his scratch-offs — he must have had 25 tickets or so. He had the most striking cornflower blue eyes.

We struck up a conversation. One of the first things he asked me was “Do you like poetry?” I said I appreciate it, yes. I asked him if he enjoyed it. He said he has written many poems over the years… would I like to hear one? I said yes. He said his poetry was often about God — was I open to spiritual things? I said yes, I’m a Christian and I have a blog, and I often focus on spiritual reflections. He nodded as though recognizing he’d have an appreciative audience, and recited his poem to me. It was about reconciling ourselves with God on a daily basis, and he said he had written it at the request of the leader of a reconciliation (or confession) class for youth at his church.

Having heard some original poetry before, my expectations weren’t especially high, and I was taken with the pleasing rhythm and easy flow of the verses, not to mention the ease with which he delivered it from memory. He had more trouble recalling the title. Reflections. He remembered after stopping to think for a moment.

He had a gentle, companionable demeanor as he told me he was a recovering alcoholic — sober for 30 years or so. He was not proud of his early years as an adult, and had spent the years since striving to make up for it. The piercing blue eyes conveyed his earnestness, his wire readers giving him a look of wisdom. Originally from New York, he ended up in Minnesota for a job when he was a younger man, and he and his wife decided they liked it here. He told me about his wife and kids and grandkids in glowing terms, and shared a few more poems with me. The content of each was simple, straightforward, sweet and inspiring. One of his poems was dedicated to Eileen, his wife, and spoke of wanting to strive each day to be a better partner to her.

All the while he patiently scratched off bubble after bubble on his scratch-off tickets, and chuckled that he was “up to ten dollars!” in winnings. He went back to the counter to purchase more tickets and was soon back at the table, where he seemed to have even more success. He began telling me about the scratch-off tickets but I was busy inwardly marveling at the unlikely nature of our encounter and I couldn’t quite hear him with the noise going on around us. I think he said he was walking away with something like $100 for his efforts. I thought about asking if I could take his picture because I knew he’d find his way into a blog post, but rejected the idea as too creepy. He spoke a bit more about how lucky he had been over the years, in his sobriety, with his jobs and his family, and I said “it sounds to me as though you have been blessed.” Yes, he agreed, “I’ve been blessed.”

The steady gaze of his clear blue eyes as he talked to me reminded me of another person whose limpid blue eyes made a strong impression on me in another serendipitous encounter nearly 40 years ago.

I hadn’t thought of Eugenie much since 1984. I went to the nursing home in New Brighton for a feature-writing assignment during the second semester of my senior year. When I got home last night I searched through my journals to find what I had written about her at that time:

“While I was at the reception desk, a tiny, fragile woman with clear blue eyes stood beside me. She waited patiently while I wrote a note, then took my hands and asked me if she could go with me. I decided to stay for awhile.

“We walked up and down the halls, she gripping my hands tightly. She kept saying things like ‘I’m alone. Terrible.’ We sat down and I showed her the family pictures (of my nieces & nephew) in my wallet. She said ‘Beautiful’ again and again.

“Eugenie is French, I found out, when she counted them in French. We sat quietly much of the time, always clasping hands. At one point she just looked at me and said ‘thank you.’ I was touched deeply by her. When I was preparing to leave she said ‘ten more minutes.’ So I stayed. When I really left, I hugged her. She hugged me and kissed my cheek. Four times.

“When I got home and told Mary about her (my roommate — Brinkman, now Hoffer), she said she knew of Eugenie because her sister (Beth) visits her. It seems she and her husband were quite wealthy in France, and they had a daughter, Galea, who was a child actress in Charley Chaplin movies.

“During World War II, Eugenie and her husband hid Jews and were caught. They were sent to a concentration camp, and Mary thinks her husband died there. After the war, Eugenie and Galea came to America, and Galea married an American soldier. She became a concert pianist and singer. She later performed with a group, touring various churches, and that’s how the Brinkmans learned of her. Galea stayed in their home when she performed in their church.

“Galea died of cancer a year or so ago (1982-1983), leaving behind a daughter and her mother.”

I was profoundly touched by the story of Eugenie’s life, and even now remember the crystal-clear blue eyes peering up intently into mine as she took my hands, and her gnarled fingers lightly touching the photos in my wallet. Originally struck by the unique experience I had with this charming aging woman, I was fascinated to then learn the details of her life story. I felt honored to have met her and shared a few moments with her.

What these two encounters share, other than the startling clarity of two senior citizens’ blue eyes, is that they gave me a reminder of God’s goodness in an everyday or unpleasant moment. God does that. Before I even had much opportunity to wallow in self-pity yesterday, I was invited into a sweet conversation over scratch-offs that lifted my own blue-ish eyes above my circumstances. And if that’s not one of the best ways to face life’s adversities with resilience, I don’t know what is.