For Wilshire Baptist Church
I got a box of books this week from Millie, an old friend from work. She didn’t mail them to me or drop by the house because she doesn’t know where I live. She didn’t call or reach out on social media because we don’t have each other’s numbers and she isn’t on social media. The sad truth is that we haven’t kept in touch very well since I left Dallas Area Rapid Transit in early 2010.
But she knew where she could find me: at Wilshire. She left the box with a receptionist and I got a phone message that the box was waiting.
Inside I found six paperback reference books – the type that some writers keep close at hand: dictionaries of clichés, regional slang and colloquialisms, business anecdotes. Included with the books was a handwritten letter on yellow legal paper explaining that she is selling her small house in Lakewood “for more money than I ever dreamed,” and with no family in Texas she’s moving to Ohio to live near her sister and brother-in-law. They recently retired as Baptist missionaries in Brazil after more than 30 years.
Millie and I worked in communications at DART; she did the internal work and I did the external. We shared cubical walls, a boss who was hard to work with, and a government agency culture that was painfully slow compared to our faster-paced journalistic training. We were mostly work colleagues but we shared an occasional lunch where we talked about music, church, writing and family. Millie was good to check on me when Debra was ill and later when I was grieving. Early during that time she coaxed me into a few excursions to places like the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.
The letter in the box opened with these words: “I have always admired you as a Christian, a husband, a journalist . . . ” I’m pleased that perhaps my faith showed and that Millie knew my other “home” was at Wilshire. She came to some of our Wilshire Winds concerts and our wedding a few years ago. But I’m not pleased that my Christian witness didn’t lead me to invite her to Wilshire on an ordinary Sunday, even though she was a regular at a Methodist church. And I’m not pleased that I didn’t stay connected enough to invite her to my real home.
Millie closed her letter with these words: “I would appreciate it if you would keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I embark on this major milestone in my life.” Yes, I can do that, and I can also drop by her house because I know where she lives and wish her well in person. And I can thank her for her friendship and give her my address and ask for hers so that maybe we can bridge the miles between Texas and Ohio better than we did between Garland and Lakewood.