The Penny (23 page)
A
long time has passed since the day I picked up the penny in the middle of Grand Avenue and the Pevely milk truck swerved to avoid me and Bennett Mahaffey went diving for his LP, which got me the job working for Miss Opal Shaw. In my mind’s eye, I still see Miss Shaw, but I don’t picture her in the dark workroom, holding stones beneath the light, counting facets. I picture her as I saw her that day when she talked to Del at the edge of her display case, her face soft as it turned toward the light. In that light, it wasn’t gemstones that glittered; it was facets of her character I saw.
Miss Shaw isn’t at the jewelry store anymore, but we stay in touch, and I am sure we always will. Del Henry’s son runs the shop now. After Miss Shaw and Del got married, they went on a trip down the Mississippi on a riverboat. She told me she woke with expectancy every morning, met by long-legged birds on the far wooded banks, mists rising where cool morning touched the warmth of the river, the pewter water buoying them south to the sea.
My sister, Jean, and I did nothing but grow closer after she graduated from secretarial school. We shared family memories, bound together by both good and bad. We found strength when we accepted what had happened in our lives and saw that the days would be new, that we could help others, that we could go forward in expectancy and laughter.
How excited I was when Jean and Billy finally went on a real grown-up date! But that ended soon after when a gentleman walked into the Chicago office where Jean was typing a memo one morning. He’d come to keep an appointment with her boss, but he canceled that and took my sister out to lunch instead.
Just a few months after that first lunch, Fred took her hand and told her he’d been praying to find a wife who needed him and he believed she might be the one. It terrified her. Jean kept telling him she didn’t need
anybody,
until he finally hired a painter to hoist himself up on scaffolding ropes and paint J
EAN, YOU ARE THE ONE FOR ME
on every window of the high-rise insurance-company building. Everyone in her office was furious because they couldn’t see out. They told her if she didn’t give poor Fred a chance, they’d start deducting the cost of window-washing from her paychecks.
When I was the maid of honor at Fred and Jean’s wedding, I cried buckets, not because I’d lost my sister, but because we’d had to fight so hard to find each other.
As I grew up, my wirey hair got longer and settled down. I lost the pudgy look I had as a young girl. As for romance, I am dating a wonderful man and waiting to see if God has permanent plans for us.
The seeds Jesus planted in my heart first began to grow because Miss Shaw didn’t give up on me. The more her kindness nurtured me, the more the decent parts of me flourished. I wanted to give hope away to people the same way I’d given away pennies. I’d found out there could be plenty to hope for, with the heavenly Father by my side. I never gave away that first penny I found, but I gave away a lot of others.
Sharing hope with other people when they were hurting, sad, or lonely made a big difference in how I felt about myself, too. God did such an amazing work inside of me, I never stopped wanting to share it. There had been days I’d gotten plenty discouraged, thinking that my small acts of kindness didn’t make any difference.
Until that one particular day when everybody started giving pennies back to me and letting me know that some of my smallest gestures had helped them have hope.
There had been so many times I’d wanted to give up, but I’m glad I didn’t. Now I can see the good that has come from taking care of little things.
I helped Darnell with his lessons so he could get into Washington University. I started baby-sitting Mrs. Shipley’s boy. I worked for Miss Shaw off-and-on all the way through high school. And when I told her I wished we could find a way to help other girls like us, she took me straightaway to talk to Mrs. Huffines—who had become principal at my old haunt, Harris Elementary—to invite girls to come to Miss Shaw’s for warm chatter and ice-cream sodas. I learned how a person could take what had been meant for bad in the world and turn it into something meant for good. I could help other people by listening to them, and by telling my story.
When I saw it was not God’s choice that Daddy still controlled my life, I realized it didn’t have to be my choice, either. I did not have to hang on to the wrongs my daddy had done me. It might take some time, but as long as I was willing to search God’s Word and trust where he was leading me, the day would come when I would be healed from all the pain of my past.
Miss Shaw had once said, “
Don’t ever let someone pass off this earth without forgiving them, Jenny. Unforgiveness will hurt you every day of your life.”
I knew I couldn’t ever forgive Daddy on my own. That was something possible only by the grace of God. But I’d also learned God never tells us to do something without giving us the means to do it.
God strengthened me so that Daddy’s awful choices ended with him, and didn’t go farther. That was God’s victory in my life.
I’ll always remember the summer of the penny, the summer of Aurelia and the Six Blue Notes, the summer that my seventeen-year-old sister left home. Now, years later, the summer sunshine seems gentle as I visit the nursing home in Cedar Hill where we visit Daddy now that Mama’s gone. They never did get back together. The hurt was too deep in Mama, and she could not face living with Daddy again.
Now that Daddy’s health is too bad for him to live alone, Jean and I moved him to Cedar Hill because he needs constant care and this is a hopeful place for people to go. The sun warms the trunks of the nut-colored forest behind the main building, radiates from it, lays over the retirement center like a prayer shawl. Today, I am praying as I walk toward Daddy.
His wheelchair is parked on a concrete patio beside an ornate table with scrolled benches in the shape of half moons. His face is shaded beneath a thick plastic umbrella, the kind they used to have at the hamburger stand near our two-story flat.
“Daddy,” I whisper. He is not leering at me; he simply looks up helplessly. In another twenty minutes, a nurse’s aid will wheel him to lunch.
“Do you need anything?” I ask him. “Something I can bring you from the store this week? RC Colas? I know you love them.”
There are some things I need to say to my father, and I know all too well how futile it will be to wait much longer to speak to him. I run the risk—the same as Miss Shaw ran the risk—of talking only to packed earth, conversing only with vacant sky. I will tell him that God loves him, that he is forgiven, and that he does not need to worry about what will happen to him as he ages because I will take care of him. It is God’s will, and God’s way of showing love and mercy to those who don’t know him. God has called me to honor my father not because Daddy deserves it but because God knows it will mean healing for me. I am also hoping that through my love and forgiveness, Daddy will receive God’s love and forgiveness.
I can finally let go of my father’s choices without resentment. I am ready. At last.
I forgive you,
I will say.
I forgive you.
I know that as I sincerely say those words, a burden will lift off of my soul, and I will move closer toward being the woman God intends me to be.
Here where Daddy lives, all the world is the color of Del Henry’s bricks, and it makes me think of Miss Shaw’s window displays. I recite the shades in my mind as if I were naming crayons from my girlhood. Sunset pink. Granite grey. Burnt brick. Lemon dust.
All of these colors are beautiful when the light strikes them.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t need anything. Your being here is enough.”
I think,
No, it isn’t enough, Daddy. I have been asked to give you more. I have been asked to let go of bitterness. I have been asked to be a part of your life. To stand strong because I know how much I am loved by my heavenly Father and I want you to know his love, too.
In my skirt pocket, there is a penny. It’s a wheat penny, not worth much to anybody else, but it is of great worth to me. I touch it with my fingers, feel its weight, and I am fourteen years old again.
I often reflect on the good things in my past, sorting through them like I’d sort through a postcard collection or stamps or coins or photos. I remember a night in summer when Mama laid wet laundry on us to keep us cool. When T. Bone Finney got a dirty look from Chick Randle because he’d started toe-tapping. “No rhythm with the feet, T. Bone. I’m percussion,” he said. “I run the rhythm.”
I always felt that penny in Grand Avenue had something to do with my destiny, but it took me a good while to understand how. God puts his love right in the middle of your path. He drops it right there to catch your eye, to show that he can change your life if you’ll just let him.
I think that’s what he’s been telling me every day of my life. Ever since the day of the penny.
Composed by Tinsley Spessard
1. Jenny prayed two heartfelt prayers even when she didn’t understand much about prayer or about God. When Jenny prayed the “prayer of salvation,” nothing magical happened. She wondered if being saved by Jesus would change anything at home. Again when Jenny prayed for Aurelia, she wasn’t sure of the results. Talk about God’s faithfulness to answer our prayers, and the answers that may or may not look like what we expect or want.
2. When Jenny decided to pick up the penny, her action began a series of life-changing events. “Then the noise of Grand Avenue went silent.
Go back
, something inside me insisted.
Don’t miss this chance
” (p. 9). “I wasn’t going to let him use me to hurt somebody I loved” (p. 114). Discuss the difference between deciding on our own to do something, and being drawn by the Holy Spirit into something beyond ourselves. John 6:44 sheds some light on this. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (NIV).
3. Throughout the story, Grace Kelly was an idol for Jean while Jenny put Miss Shaw on a pedestal. For Jean, going “bonkers over Grace Kelly” was a way to escape to a different world. On the other hand, Miss Shaw slowly became a trusted friend to Jenny. Discuss the pros and cons of having an “idol” versus a true friend who has problems of his or her own.
4. 1 Peter 3:1 speaks of a relationship between a husband and wife when it says, “They may be won without words by the behavior of their wives” (NIV). Apply this Scripture beyond the confines of marriage and point out ways Miss Shaw, Aurelia, and Aurelia’s family lived out the gospel in front of Jenny.
5. Miss Shaw gives a great example of extending grace to others. “But here’s the thing with Miss Shaw: she surprised me. . . . When I took my anger out in the jewelry shop, she didn’t react the way I expected her to. . . . I waited all day for her to chastise me, but she didn’t” (p. 137). Miss Shaw acknowledges Jesus as the source of this grace: “That’s one of the things about Jesus. . . . Once you know how to receive the love he’s pouring into your heart, then all of a sudden, out of the blue, you start knowing whom to give it to” (p. 71). To whom do you feel God’s prompting to extend grace? What is holding you back?
6. The need for forgiveness is huge in this story; the most obvious is Jenny’s need to forgive her father. Discuss what it means to forgive someone of such atrocities. C. S. Lewis states, “Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery”
(Mere Christianity)
. How do you think Jenny would react to that? What does the Bible say about it?
7. As Jenny pushed Aurelia and Miss Shaw away, she was fighting an inner battle. Inside she was crying for help, for someone to see her pain; outside she spewed fury toward her friends. Jean acted similarly toward Jenny. Jenny seemed to realize something was going on with her father: “You probably hurt Jean and me, Daddy, because somebody hurt you” (p. 227). Have you ever been tempted to hurt someone to cover up your own hurt? Explain.
8. Discuss the role of sacrifice in authenticating the sincerity in a relationship, using Jean’s sacrifice for Jenny and Jenny’s sacrifice for Aurelia as examples. How does Jesus Christ’s ultimate sacrifice of his life confirm his love for us?
9. Jenny asks, “Is it different when life gets taken from you moment by moment than when it gets taken all at one time?” (p. 134). Discuss the difference Jenny was talking about, comparing Eddie Crockett’s circumstances and his outlook on life to Jenny’s daddy’s attitude.
10. Similarly, does a slow revelation of truth have a different impact than a sudden understanding? Jenny’s transformation took place over the entire summer through a series of small glimmers of hope—pennies. How do you think she would have responded if she had found a fortune all at once?
11. Jenny says, “I saw the pain behind Jean’s words, and I couldn’t have felt more betrayed. Mama was supposed to take care of us” (pp. 141–42). How did Mama’s lack of intervention increase Jenny’s feeling of abandonment?
12. Jenny experienced a shift in her understanding of reality as she began to spend time with Aurelia’s family. We measure things by what we know. Do you ever measure God by your meager earthly understanding? How can we come to a complete and accurate understanding of God?
13. A question that comes to mind in light of any abuse is, “How could a loving God allow this horrible thing to happen?” Can you see ways that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28 NIV)? Can you see ways that God took what man had meant for evil and turned it “to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20)? Discuss how Miss Shaw was uniquely able to minister to Jenny because of her similar experiences.
14. The way her father treated her left Jenny with a damaged and diminished sense of self worth. She said, “I suffered Daddy’s reminders in my head. I knew everyone looked at me and did not like what they saw. . . . When wrong happened, it would always somehow be my fault” (p. 97). How did Miss Shaw point Jenny to Jesus as the foundation for her self-esteem? If we are confident in Jesus’ unconditional love for us, how will that affect our relationships with others?