Read Those Directions to Me

In the early 2000s, I had a friend named Maryann.

We were an unlikely pair.

I was a full-time teacher. She was a stay-at-home mom homeschooling two teenage boys. I liked sports, music, and my jeans. Maryann was a girly girl who loved lacy dresses and probably would have worn white gloves if she could have gotten away with it.

But we went to church together. We were in the same small group. We sang in the church choir together. Tom and I went out to dinner with MaryAnn and her husband, Bob.

Somehow, despite all the ways we were different, Maryann and I became friends.

Then Bob got sick.

Bob was self-employed, and he and Maryann didn’t have medical insurance. As his symptoms became more concerning, Tom asked his brother Todd, who is a physician, if he would take a look at him.

He did.

And he told them Bob needed serious medical attention.

Bob had a brain tumor.

Over the next several weeks, we helped however we could. So did our small group. So did our church.

Eventually, Bob needed to go to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for a biopsy and more testing.

Someone from church offered to let Bob and Maryann borrow a car because theirs wasn’t particularly reliable. Baltimore wasn’t terribly far from where we lived in Western Maryland, but there was another problem.

Maryann was uncomfortable driving into the city. She had never been to Baltimore. She and Bob were relatively new to the area, and Bob’s symptoms had progressed so quickly that he could no longer drive.

So I took a couple of days off work and drove them.

The Waiting Room

We arrived at Johns Hopkins with plenty of time to park in the garage and find the area where Bob was having his tests. Eventually, Maryann and I settled into two seats beside each other in a packed oncology waiting room.

And we talked.

I had brought a book, but I never opened it. Maryann had brought a piece of cloth from an old baby blanket and was stitching a border around it. It gave her something to do with her hands.

So she stitched, and we talked.

About what, I have no idea.

Whatever girlfriends talk about when they’re sitting together for hours.

We chatted. We laughed. We passed the time.

Quite a while later, a doctor came for Maryann. She followed him back to the examination room, and I stayed behind.

I picked up my book.

And suddenly noticed something.

The waiting room was completely silent.

It was still packed with people. But no one was talking.

No one.

This was 2002, so nobody was staring at a phone. There were no earbuds. No scrolling. Just an entire room full of people sitting quietly.

And that’s when it dawned on me.

Maryann and I had been the only people talking in the entire waiting room.

For hours.

I started feeling a little sheepish.

Then a woman sitting nearby said something to me about one of the things Maryann and I had been discussing.

Oh.

They hadn’t just heard us.

We had apparently been entertaining the entire oncology waiting room.

Oops.

So I went ahead and had a conversation with her until Maryann came back.

I suppose if you’re taking your husband to appointments for a malignant brain tumor, it helps to bring a talkative friend.

Eventually, we got Bob settled into a hospital room. We spent some time with him and then left for the night. Someone else from our small group had paid for a hotel room for Maryann and me.

One Thing Too Many

We walked back through the parking garage.

By then, ours was the last car left in that section.

And it had a flat tire.

Great.

We walked back into the hospital and asked if there happened to be someone around who could help two women change a tire.

No one.

So we went back to the car.

And Maryann started to cry.

“Goodness, Maryann. Stop it!”

“But I can’t help it! What are we going to do?”

I popped the trunk, lifted out the false bottom, found the instructions, and handed them to my blubbering friend.

“Read those directions to me.”

I found the little jack.

“We can do this. Just stop crying.”

And I went to work.

I managed to jack up the car and was wrestling with the lug nuts when a security officer pulled up in a golf cart.

“Need some help?” she asked.

“I would love some.”

The female security officer climbed out and helped me finish changing the tire. Before long, the spare was on and we were on our way.

The rest of the trip was uneventful.

And we learned what we already suspected.

Bob was dying.

Quickly.

He was going home to die.

There was nothing I could do about that.

I couldn’t fix Bob’s cancer. I couldn’t make the diagnosis different. I couldn’t make MaryAnn less frightened or change what was coming for her family.

But I could drive to Baltimore.

I could sit beside her in a waiting room.

I could talk and laugh with her while she stitched a border around an old baby blanket.

And when the car had a flat tire and my friend had finally reached the point where one more thing was simply one thing too many, I could open the trunk, find the jack, and hand her the directions.

Sometimes loving someone doesn’t mean knowing how to fix what is wrong.

Sometimes you just do the next thing that needs to be done.

Even if that means changing a tire in a nearly empty parking garage while your friend stands beside you crying.

Sometimes you do what you need to do for a friend.