I wrote about my neighbor Pasha who died from cancer. As if that wasn’t enough, what I didn’t write was the hard part. The part where God really spoke to my heart and I blew it. You don’t have to write me and encourage me, and tell me not to take it all on my self, etc. etc….I haven’t. I’m not all depressed. I know people have their own choices to make. I’m not Jesus…and so on and so forth. But just the same, I blew it and I know it.
My neighbor Pasha was a kind of big bear of a man. He seemed nice enough and often tried to make jokes with me, which was sort of difficult since I kind of avoided him. But even so as I would walk below their balcony on my way to the metro, or the store, Pasha would lean out as he stood there smoking and make some funny comment. He usually thought I didn’t understand him (because of the language barrier) but usually I understood him fine, but it is difficult to easily laugh at a joke that someone just throws at you out of the blue when you are, honestly, a little scared of them and are doing your best to, (politely, mind you) avoid them.
See, the few times I did have personal contact with Pasha he was drunk. He would come up behind me in our local “gastronom” (mini-mart) and grab me around the waist and kiss me on the cheek (only because I turned my face away too fast for him to get my lips!). Now, I know that for many of you, this is freaking you out already. But for older Ukrainian men, this is not so strange. Not typically with foreigners they barely know, but hey, we were neighbors!
So, I avoided Pasha. I would talk to his wife, his daughters and lately to his little grandson who looks so very much like his “Dedushka” (grandpa).
A few months ago I was running late somewhere with someone (as usual) and I saw him sitting on the bench outside our apt. building. I remember he looked horrible. So skinny and gaunt. I thought for a second about talking to him, but knew that we were late. “Next time”, I thought. As we walked by I looked away and thought I heard my name called. As we walked a little further I looked back to see him looking, sort of pained, at me. He had called my name. I didn’t stop.
Next thing I knew my landlords told me Pasha had cancer. They asked for me to tell them if “anything happens”. I understood they meant they wanted to know when he died. How would I know? I wondered.
I saw one of the daughters outside our building after that and asked if I could see him. She said no, that he was in too bad a condition. Next I spoke with the son-in-law. The response was the same, no. I prayed that if the wife said I could see him I would go…and do what? I wasn’t sure. Pray for him, talk to him, I didn’t know. But I knew I had to. I wanted to even. But I was afraid.
Soon after I prayed I ran into the wife on the street near our house. She said of course I could come see him. That was my answer. But I couldn’t tonight, I had a meeting. Tomorrow. But then tomorrow people called, came over, and by the time I was free it was late. This happened one day, two, three…I lost count.
I knew I had to go soon or it would be too late. I was afraid and I thought - “what if I pray for healing and he isn’t healed”? In my head I knew all the answers…that it wasn’t my responsibility to heal him, just to be faithful to pray and to do what God had showed me. I knew this…in my head. But my heart was afraid.
I prayed again another night, while coming home late, and tried to be as honest with God as possible. I confessed my fear and repented for not being obedient. I told God I needed help to get over there, and I dind’t know how, but could He please help me to do what I could not do myself?
I stood at the bottom of our stairs, searching for my keys, and my upstairs neighbor was smoking crouched in the landing in between Pasha’s apt. and mine (in a way that only Ukrainian men can do…it looks terribly uncomfortable, but they can “sit” that way for hours without their bum touching the ground. Just an interesting little trivia I thought you’d like to know).
“Nu, kak Pasha?” “Well, how is Pasha” I asked. With only the slightest hint of surprise or anything he just matter of factly answered “he already died 9 days ago”. I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. God had so clearly spoke to my heart. So clearly opened the way with Pasha’s wife for me to go speak to him….and now I had waited too long. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t. This, more than anything, wasn’t about me. How could I cry, even for being disobedient to God, when Luda had lost her husband? Ira and Natasha were without a dad, and little Max without Dedushka. I had no tears for myself.
I nodded numbly and went inside. I hadn’t shut the door more than a few minutes when someone rang the bell. It was Luda. “Carochka, come eat with us, please, come, come. You must.”.
Now you have to understand. We barely know each other. She and I shared a cup of tea once when I first moved in and my lock was broken. She helped me fix it while all my drunk male neighbors tried to help to absolutely no avail. (Boy is THAT a story! There’s no time to tell it, but suffice to say, I’m sure the idea of using a syringe to pump lubricant into my lock mechanism was something they never taught her in her nurse’s training!) But really, more than “Priviet” on the street, we were strangers.
But this is what you do in Ukraine. You serve others. Especially with food. Especially at times like these. It was 9 days after and this was the time to remember those who had died. And then again at 40 days (I believe). So that’s what they were supposed to do. But what was I supposed to do? Thankfully, at least part of my role, I knew well. I could not refuse. The best way I could serve her, was to let her serve me. I locked the door behind me and followed Luda, (with her black lace scarf on her head appropriately), into their apt. across the hall.
An exact replica floor plan of mine, our homes could not be more different. While my place is cluttered with “stuff” - not even rich stuff, just plain old stuff, all signs of the luxury of one person living in a 4 room apt. (two rooms are actually my office, the other two my bedroom and living room…with a million guests coming and going!)…their home was the neat, tucked away orderliness of a family of 6 (3 generations) living in the same size apt. I wondered where Pasha had been laid out after he died. I hoped not in the room where we now sat and ate. I doubted it.
The table was heaping with fried cutlets and fish, steaming boiled potatoes with dill, black bread, salo (raw pig fat, which is actually quite tasty) and more fish. There were salads, pickles, canned tomatoes…I forget what all. If it had been New Year’s (when the table would have been similarly ladened with the fruit of hours of work in the kitchen for Luda, her daughters and our upstairs neighbor) I would have loved to dig in! Ukrainian women are typically great cooks and I’ve grown to love all this strange stuff.
But now I nearly choked on the food. It was good, but I had no appetite. It was all just so ironic. Here I was, the ‘great missionary’ who wanted to serve Luda and Pasha, and she is serving me. In the midst of her sorrow and pain, she is serving me. I have never quite so deeply begun to understand the word “humbled”.
I could go on and on and tell you how I was thankful that it seemed that God did give me a few words of encouragement for her. I knew that the right thing to do was to have some kind rememberances of the dead…I prayed desperately in my head and actually remembered some of the funny things Pasha had hollered out the balcony. I repeated them and Luda laughed out loud remembering the man she had more than likely spent more years with than without.
I noticed, and commented on how much little Max looked like his Dedushka, and his mother was drawn into the conversation. And on and on….I tried to say the things that were expected, that would comfort Luda without just speaking to make myself feel better for not having spoken before. It was awkward, but manageable.
Finally, I left, and at the door I gave her a hug (making sure not to do this while standing on the opposite side of the threshold from Luda…that would be bad luck! I almost did that and she pulled me back in…startled that I would reach for her over the threshold! Heaven forbid!) I told her that this was an American tradition. That although we didn’t know each other very well, in this situation in America, how we would show our care for someone would be to give them a hug. She cried and held me tight. I have not spoken to her since.
So what’s the point of all this? I’m not sure.
I was back in the States once after I lived here and someone naively said “So I guess you just see hundreds of people ‘get saved’ every day, huh?” I actually laughed out loud. Poor lady. I didn’t mean to be cruel to her. It’s just that…well…if only!
A friend of mine calls Christianity “stumbling in the forward direction”…and I have to agree. So often I am stumbling and falling, and my only hope is that, as promised, God has placed His treasure in my “jar of clay” so that “the “glory would be of Him and NOT of me.”
The more I walk with God, the more I realize how little I have personally to give anyone. When I was in high school my wonderful youth pastor used to have business cards that said on the back “If you meet me and forget me you have lost nothing. If you meet Jesus Christ and forge Him, you have lost everything”. So true.
Don’t get me wrong. I love living here. I love doing what I can even if I don’t see a lot of outward overwhelming fruit. (And just FYI, LOTS of Ukrainians are already Christians! Its just getting those truths to go deep and begin to apply to all areas of their lives, ie. discipleship, that is our main issue here now).
And I know God is faithful. And I know that maybe He will accomplish a greater fruit now that the door is open for me to get to know Luda better, yadda, yadda, yadda. But the facts remain and it’s times like these that the rubber really meets the road on all our talk about grace.
So hopefully this hasn’t depressed you. In a melancholy way it has actually encouraged me. I always say it’s all about God and not about me…and these little wake up calls remind me how very true that all is. Please keep praying for Luda and her family in her time of grief.
