Then one day, she said, she got up, put her clothes on, and went about the business of living. 

“How long were you in the bed?” I asked, remembering an acquaintance of mine who once stayed in the bed over two weeks because of depression.

“Oh,” she said, “I’d say two or three years, as best I can remember.”

Two or three years!  I was dumbfounded.  Had her husband ever wondered if she had lost her mind?  I asked her as much.  She said, “He was a good man.  You know, you cannot rush grief.”

Really?  I thought.  You can on the surface.  We do it every day.  Someone dies.  Friends and family gather at the graveside.  Flowers are sent.  Prayers are prayed.  Handwritten notes or Hallmark sympathy cards are sent.  But these days no one is allowed to check out of life for two years.  Instead, we prod and push the bereaved to move on, to go through the motions of living.  Grief has its own timetable.  What a concept.  The time it takes to heal is the time it takes.

My thoughts drifted away to a train station in Africa, back to a time when I was visiting my friend Jeannie, who was teaching school in the western province of Kenya.  It was January of 1985, and we were standing on the platform, wishing we had time to grab a warm Coke (the only kind there was in Kenya) before our trip.  No schedules were posted that we could see, and we wanted to be on the next train.

Finding an attendant, we asked, “Can you tell us when the train will be leaving the station?”

The tall African man in uniform said, “De train will come up dis track.  De peoples will get off de train.  You will get on.  Den de train will leave.”

“I understand the process.  What I need to know is the time frame.  My friend and I want to leave the station for a few minutes.  Can you tell me approximately when the train is expected?”

Once again he explained.  “See dis track?  De train will come up dis track and stop at dis station.  De peoples will get off de train. You will get on.  Den de train will leave.”

We nodded and smiled.  Point taken.  When it happens is when it happens.  We continued to talk with Dorothy about her life now, what it was like, who comes by, how she spends her time.  She told us that at night when she lays her head on her pillow, she looks back over the details of the day, and every night she asks herself the same question:  “Did I live this day in a way that honored the One who gave me this day?”

Then she turned to Vince, who was kneeling on the floor beside her chair.  Her face was so full of love and kindness toward him (she had told him earlier in the evening that her friends and family always called her anytime he was on television, knowing she cared about him like a son).