Over A Tuna Fish Sandwich
I met her my senior year in college. Brad and I were still newly weds. Her name was typed out on the list of cleaning jobs thumb tacked to the bulletin board in the student center. I put down my feather duster to jot down her name, Willette Lanning.
I was so relieved to get the custodial job at the school in August right before the semester started. Finally I felt better about the balance of college, married life, and a part time job. But even with both of us working we were still scraping to get by.
After I clocked out I decided to call Willette. The phone rang a few times before a bright little voice answered the phone, “Hellooo?”
As I talked to Willette she seemed excited to have me come. I was excited too because cleaning houses on the side was extra money we desperately needed. Deciding to pay for our education without taking out student loans took every cent we earned.
She lived on the other side of town, the nice part. When I drove to her house the first time it took a while to find the right street. This was before GPS, and I have never been good with directions. Finally I found the brick house on the corner of Merriweather Drive.
I took a deep breath and said a prayer before getting out of the car. I swallowed down the fear that she wouldn’t like me. But as I stood on the front step waiting after ringing the doorbell I could hear a sing songy voice from inside call out, “I’m coming Dear.”
Before I could respond the door opened to a tiny little woman. She couldn’t have stood taller than 4’10.” Her face lit up as she folded her hands under her chin, “Hello, you must be Dianne, come in.”
So I did.
She walked me through her house talking constantly. The vacuum was stored in the living room closet, and the hand vacuum was stored in the bedroom. Each room had dark brown carpet. Her kitchen was still decorated in 1970’s orange wallpaper. Her family room had dark wood paneling where pictures hung snapshots of her life.
She was in her eighties. Her husband had passed away some years before. He had been an accomplished cellist she told me while I dusted off her shelf. On the end table next to her gold velvet couch a picture stood of the two posed happily together with his cello. They were young then. He was a very tall man at 6’8” in contrast to her tiny frame and yet they looked perfect together.
When she mentioned him there was still a gleam in her eye. After she explained what she wanted me to do she let me start the vacuum and begin my work. When I got to the living room there she was stretched out on the couch watching as I stood on the step stool hand-vacuuming the curtains. A smile spread across her face as she laid back with her arms folded up behind her head like she was looking up at puffy clouds on a summer’s day.
The look of bliss on her face will always stay with me, as one of the most precious things I have ever seen.
A woman at rest, fully content.
As I worked I was busy wondering how I was going to fit all the homework in while I tried to think of something to cook for dinner. I was very new at cooking and not talented at it. I was grateful for the job, because Willette would pay me cash. This meant we could have a little more money for groceries that week upping the usual budget of $20 to $40. Even with the increase to our income, such thoughts could bring on anxiety, so I tried to work faster and harder to keep worry at bay.
After all, I had just finished going to counseling to help manage all the pressure of that first year of marriage. I was finally coming out of the deep depression, and as I cleaned I was grateful for the busy work of mopping the floor by hand. It kept my mind focused to scrub each square of linoleum.
One thing I didn’t like about Willette’s house happened to be the black spiders. I was thankful for the attachment on the end of the vacuum I stretched to suck up the fast little critters. As I lifted up a chair cushion to vacuum underneath one would often dart out, but I got quick with my reflexes and suctioned it away from sight. Willette didn’t seem to notice as she happily enjoyed relaxing on the nearby couch.
From time to time she would pop her head into the room I was cleaning to tell me a little story or to ask how my week was going. But at the end of my cleaning she always invited me to sit down with her to have a tuna salad sandwich. At first I wanted to refuse because I had never liked tuna salad, but Willette was so excited to have a lunch guest I found myself saying, “Yes, I would love to.”
So I would sit at the little wooden table across from her. She would serve me a tuna salad sandwich with chips on the side and a glass of juice. After she prayed over the food she would look at me with a grin and we would both take a bite. She watched carefully to see if I liked her tuna salad sandwich as much as she did.
I would look into her big blue eyes. She had a lovely face even in her eighties. Her white hair lay in little fluffy tufts around her face.
As I took the first bite I could taste the pickle she added to the tuna salad. It was delicious. There was a crunch as I bit down on the toasted bread. I was always hungry in those first years as a married college student. But it turned out I really did like tuna salad after all, so I smiled with my mouth full of sandwich, and her eyebrows lifted up all the way past her hair line, as she would say:
“See, I told you no one makes a better tuna salad sandwich.”
I loved Willette instantly. In those days I longed for friendship, but I had no idea it would come to me over lunch with a woman who was older than my own grandmother. Coming out of depression I felt isolated and afraid to reach out. Maybe Willette could see that in me, or maybe she just had the gift of putting a young confused college girl’s mind at rest with a good meal. Either way we became great friends.
That summer I helped her move into a smaller ranch style house. I loaded up the pictures of her and her sweetheart into boxes, labeled fragile. I helped her unload her clothes into the new closet. And I sucked up at least 10 more black spiders before it was all said and done. But as I was getting ready to leave for the last time Willette hugged me, “Dianne I will miss you very much,” she said.
I looked down at her standing there confidently with every inch of her small stature and I said, “Willette, I will miss you too.”
And I have.
Willette believed in God. She had served Him her whole life. Someday I know I will see her again in Heaven. But until then I hold in my heart the gift of an older woman’s friendship.
“How beautiful it is to find someone who asks for nothing but your company”
No matter what stage of life you find ourselves in, Willette showed me that we all have something special to share with others. I can still see her stretched out on her couch with hands folded behind her head and the biggest smile you have ever seen.
I want to be like her. I want to celebrate the little joys of life. I don’t want to miss a thing. And if possible I want to invite someone over for a bite to eat, perhaps even a tuna salad sandwich.