Annie

I met someone last night who touched my heart. Her name is Annie.

Annie has scleroderma, which is neither contagious nor genetic, and yet years ago her 17-year-old sister died from it. Annie currently is undergoing chemotherapy and respiratory therapy because her lungs are starting to be affected.

We happened upon each other in Staples last night as I was copying worksheets for the children's school and she was having a photograph enlarged of her father on his boat in Maryland. (Her father is a surgeon strictly to support his fishing habit, Annie assures me.) She ramped up from steriods and I naturally chatty, we of course struck up a conversation. And I did something I never did before.

I invited her to church.

See, Annie is mad as hell at God for taking her sister all those years ago. Every year a pastor friend sends her a Bible, marked and tabbed and ready for use, inscribed with these words: "Annie, I know you don't believe in God, but He still believes in you." Every year, Annie sets the Bible aside or gives it away. Her family lives several states away, so most of her support is via phone.

But I believe that Annie believes. She is a respiratory therapist (who can't breathe herself, she jokes) and she works with ill children at an Atlanta hospital. She says she watches the terminal ones die with dignity and grace, and so she can't give in to her fears about her own health. And because I know she can't have it both ways -- be angry at a God she doesn't believe exists -- I asked her for her name so I could pray for her and I told her about the amazing church home we've found.

She passes it every weekend on her way to work. "You mean the one with the recovery banner?" she asks. That's the one. The one where my Jimmy Buffet-loving (she's an officer in his fan club!) husband played a drum set made of trash cans on Easter Sunday. Where jeans and tee-shirts are more normal than skirts and heels. Where she can pick up a Bible, follow along with the service and return it to the shelf when she's done, if she doesn't want to take it home.

Annie is very interested. "Can I wear my 'Life is Beautiful' tee shirt? Will anyone notice my" (gestures toward the large bandage on her neck and the smaller ones in the crooks of her arms).

Absolutely, and not enough to stare and make her feel uncomfortable.

"If I'm not there tomorrow, it's not because I don't want to be there," she assures me after we exchange details and contact information. "This chemo is supposed to be rough, so I don't know how I'm going to feel."

Annie didn't show this morning, so I called her. She hadn't fallen asleep until 8 a.m. and the chemo wiped her out. She thanked me a dozen times for calling to check on her. I promised to call her again mid-week.

She said she was going to call me before then. I hope she does.