M is for Marty

In the first decade of my life, Betty and Marty lived around the corner from my house.  When I was barely five, Betty convinced my parents that I was old enough to walk there by myself.  Marty installed a bell with a long chain on their outside gate of their house because I was too small to reach the latch to let myself into the courtyard.  That was the same year that Betty took me (by myself, no parents, no sisters) with her on a plane to Chicago to visit her grandchildren.  I got to go on this trip because I was "good company" and "could handle it."  Betty and Marty were probably the first people to teach me that my worth was not a factor of my age.

When I was barely nine, Betty's brain tumor started to steal bits and pieces of her.  At first it was really just her hair, but little but little, the tumor took all of her from us.  At the funeral, many people -- including my dad -- spoke about Betty's inspiring life well lived.  I heard every word.  Afterwards, a smaller group of us joined Marty at gravesite where he stood pensively with his hands behind his back and watched me share in the honor and responsibility of placing shovels full of dirt on the wooden box in the deep hole in the ground.  His kind, sad eyes met mine.  "Do you want to say anything, Lesley?  You didn't get to speak before." I shook my head no.  But I smiled because I knew that my feelings and perspectives at age 5 or 7 or 9 were just as valued and real as those of the adults in the room.  Betty and Marty taught me that about myself. 

M is for Marty.  And Micah.