braces – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

June 23, 2015August 28, 2017

The Matter of Sister Opaline

When the Sun-glint from her brace caught my eye that Summer day I wondered. About Opaline and her story.

When yet a toddler her body was attacked by the same disabling illness that redirected my own world. For Opaline, however, the impact was evident; dramatically so. Not for months, but years.

In short-order polio wrenched strength and mobility from her lower limbs. Rigid braces received her feet and legs, more or less imprisoning them there. And – like a prisoner whose parole date is postponed – the waiting lengthened. Then lengthened further.

The shiny hip-to-heel fixtures lent support through one elementary school year. Then another, and yet another.

Every morning she rose and called up the ritual – maneuvering each foot into a special shoe. She fitted the cold steel and leather padding about her dormant limbs. At nightfall young Opaline reversed the process. Detaching the braces, she leaned further forward. Then she manually lifted her legs onto the bed.

Lying motionless Opaline sometimes wondered. What would normal movement be like? Running? Dancing?

But this girl was unusual. She carried something within. Resolve. And a zest for living. Ironically, like a distance runner, Opaline entered the Marathon of Life.

Nothing, it seemed, could sideline her. The theme song of her journey could be, “Life’s an adventure. Bring it on.” She matured, completed high school, then college. Friends in our church community regarded her warmly. Smiles typically greeted her when she approached. Neither the crutches nor the braces mattered to anyone. She was Sister Opaline.

Sister Opaline, Sunday School teacher .

Sister Opaline, Vacation Bible School director.

Sister Opaline – High School teacher (her “handicap-fitted” car carrying her to waiting students in another town a distance away).

Sister Opaline, Christmas Play director. . .

Delightful Opaline.

She owned her personal imperfections. Opaline looked to encourage others – especially the younger others. Parading either gossip or whining into Sister Opaline’s presence proved mostly futile. Her knack for winsomely shifting subjects was magic. She mined for the best in people. Her naiveté about human nature was flagrant (though no-one accused her of being naïve).

Wherever she seated herself, Opaline’s crutches lay at the floor or leaned at a wall nearby. Her underarm muscles suffered from bearing much of her body weight over the years. Still, her face easily sprang into smile. The smile seemed visually fragrant like a rose coaxing a passerby to inhale.

Sister Opaline – Spouse. In a marriage with challenges and hardships of its own.

Our church minister and the common people who worshipped together strove to trust the Bible and its message of God’s big love. And of his available power to bring healings, even miracle-healings. As a nine-year-old, with the aid of crutches, I walked from a hospital. This was weeks after being gravely ill – and after a doctor predicted I would not walk again. And after prayer. By all accounts, through simple trust in a loving healer, continued believing prayer played its role in my astonishing recovery. Was this triumphant faith? To the church family there seemed no doubt. God touched me. Radically so.

And yet there was the matter of Sister Opaline. Would she soon have her miracle?

At a particular church service one Sunday evening I watched keenly, hopefully.

The gangly movements of my Angel-lady comrade entered the center aisle. And moved toward the altar. She was a little over five feet tall. Her smartly-groomed auburn hair fell an inch or two above her shoulders. Beneath the shoulders, the ever-present crutches. They bore her along, steadying the balance of a lady hardly a hundred pounds in weight.

Opaline positioned herself in the prayer line.

May 19, 2015August 28, 2017

Commonality

The Plymouth sedan rolled to a stop in the parking lot of our little house of worship. The left door opened and a metallic glitter caught my eye as the driver began the process of exiting her car. It was a process. She swiveled slowly so both her legs, framed in stainless steel braces, dangled to the outside.

What caught my eye next was her face. Angelic? The adjective wasn’t in my word-store then but, yes. A quality beamed from the young woman’s face. Almost like a glow. Opaline’s smile overtook me. It has never left.

Falling in love with Opaline was more enchantment than romance. An unlikely combination of hardware and disposition fueled the attraction. Full limb braces on both legs combined with her smile. My meeting her at roughly age five spawned a long journey of regard. And affection. How can full-length leg braces and this kind of smile converge? My gaze dropped. I surveyed my malformed shoe fashioned so by pressure from an equally malformed foot. I smiled just as the reason for the smile caught up with the action itself. I shared a common affliction. . with an angel!

What could a flooded pasture and a paralyzing disease have in common? Perhaps nothing.

My father, Clyde Lout, was a living testament to a rural adage. Dust bowl issues succeeded in taking the boy out of the country and on to California urban centers. Nothing prevailed however at taking the country out of the boy. Oklahoma soil, long recovered from the droughts of the 1930’s, beckoned.

We moved to a small acreage outside town. Twin pear trees in the pasture – limbs heavy with their treasures most summers – supplied Tim and me with climbing and feasting pleasures. Don’t eat them when they’re green! was our mother’s (sometimes-heeded) admonition.

Our sister Betty exercised more wisdom than her young siblings. Tim and I first learned to swim near the same pear trees in the pasture. Not in a pond or in a stream running through the pasture. We set in motion our first-ever strokes in the pasture itself.

A red-brown waterway called the Deep Fork River snaked through the countryside west of our place. During a late spring season in the mid-1950s continued rains flooded the Deep Fork. Ongoing downpours overflowed every creek and stream.

Rising waters flooded lowlands, submerging much of our five acres. Once the rain stopped my brother and I splashed about in the chest-deep mix of water and floating debris. Discovering buoyancy we propelled our way through tree bark, sticks and limbs, assorted leaves and hollowed pecan shells. And here and there – given it was the habitat of farm animals – other matter as well.

My second bout with the polio virus far exceeded the first in its severity. Whether my pastureland swim factored into the soon approaching paralysis is unresolved.

I was nine years old. My legs simply stopped working.

May 12, 2015August 28, 2017

Tents and Braces

In the Summer of 1949 sounds of homespun music, clapping hands and shouts of Amen ascended into the night at the north end of our town. A tent meeting was underway.

Things about tents fascinate me. My mother-in-law’s Danish mom – Grandma Sadie – called up memories as a settlers’ daughter. People from Denmark are evidently tough. The family spent their first winter in Montana living in a tent. Sadie’s beguiling reflection, “but it was a pretty mild winter” prompted a reflection of my own; ‘there can be no such thing as a mild winter in Montana – in a tent.’

In my adult years, while living in a tropical region, I bought a weathered six-man camping tent. A patch in the roof presumably marked the spot where the tusk of an elephant punctured the dwelling. The agitated mammal, I was told, raised the edge of the tent off the ground before moving on.

In the ‘1940s and ‘50s open tents seated fifty to a hundred people and served the purposes of transient American preachers. Our visiting preacher, a lady minister oversaw with the aid of her husband, the tent’s inauguration on a vacant lot. A sawdust floor, wooden folding chairs, worn hymnals and a guitar or perhaps accordion completed the setting. The tent’s older visitors kept hand-held fans in easy reach. The preaching was Bible-centered, the messages vigorously delivered, the singing pulsing with strength.

Clyde and Thelma began attending the meetings with my sister, brother and me in tow. The music, preaching and testimonials seemed to usher in the Presence. The family never tired of experiencing the nearness of God in the company of other Jesus followers.

After a few weeks of conducting meetings the minister and her husband felt drawn to remain in our Northeastern Oklahoma town. They rented a vacant building. The Living Way Tabernacle became our church home.

After the polio experience my left leg was fitted with a knee to shoe brace. In my fifth year the brace came off for good. I was active without it and, lacking the benefit of therapy coaches in that era, my folks simply retired the brace. My limp became a little more pronounced from that time.

Support structures and supportive people. Good things to have in our lives. They are wonderfully provided (some would say from above) to help meet real needs, to make up the lack. It’s true that personal betterment can sometimes actually be hindered through over-support. That is, when a kind of assistance or a certain level of it is no longer appropriate.

Still, help is needed by all of us, through all of life. Different types of help and in differing amounts, for different seasons. Prematurely withdrawing support (as with braces) may damage or hinder progress along a road to wellness. Or, at least, better mobility.

I fell in love at age five. Her name was Opaline. She was beautiful. Even in braces. . Especially in braces.