It Has a Name

Nineteen years after we moved into our brand new home as newlyweds, my Mister and I packed up and moved to another home a few weeks ago. It’s bittersweet, of course. We’d poured a lot of love into the Hodge Lodge as we learned by trial (and error) about home improvement, strengthening our marriage, and raising our kids.

The new home (Hodge Lodge 2.0) has lots of features we love, but probably the best is the incredible flower garden in the backyard. Since it’s spring, almost every day some new flower is opening up for us to ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhh’ over. Except for this one plant in a back corner–some kind of holly but with big, dull, spiny leaves. I added digging it up and getting rid of it to my mental to-do list. Then, one day it did this:

The plain, uninspiring leaves transformed into bright yellows, oranges, and reds. Big clumps of beautiful blue berries appeared. Wow! Turns out my ugly duckling plant has a name. It is Mahonia. And because I can now see its beauty, Mahonia will live. As I posted the beautiful pic to my FB feed, a memory popped into my mind about another time I almost overlooked beauty.

It was a warm spring day (which in Charlotte means 80 degrees with 80% humidity) and I had jury duty uptown. The bright spot of the day was that I could walk to a nearby restaurant and meet my Mister for lunch. My journey there, however, was impeded by a pile of blankets on the sidewalk. Not kidding, it was a three-foot pile of blankets with some plastic garbage bags mingled in.

I figured out as I got closer that this was the lodging of a homeless person and I stepped around with only a brief thought about how awful (and hot and smelly) it must be for the person underneath. After lunch, I grabbed a bottle of cold water from the cooler near the cash register to take back with me for the afternoon of continued tedium of jury selection panels.
As I approached the perfect place to cross the street, the blanket pile in the distance caught my eye and I tensed up as I thought about encountering it again. So I decided to cross over a little further, making up my mind to pass by on the other side of the street then a wave of shame passed over me as I thought of Jesus’ parable of the religious leaders who passed by the man in need. Renée, don’t let that be you.
I crossed the street on a course to walk right by it again, determining on the way that, if I could make eye contact with the person beneath, I would give him or her my bottle of water. I had to study the pile to see the brown eyes that peered out. Stooping down, I made eye contact with her and offered the water. She reached her left hand out of the fortress to take the bottle. Then, she pushed the blankets from her face with her right hand and extended it to me as formally as one would do at a cocktail party.

“My name’s Lisa.” The pile of blankets had a name!

My heart jumped into my throat as I realized that Lisa wanted someone to know her name as much, maybe more, than she wanted cold water on a hot day. I shook her hand and introduced myself and she smiled. There was little time to talk because the courthouse was waiting. It was probably just as well since I was at a loss for words anyway. I told her I had to go to jury duty and admonished her to take care of herself. I’ve never seen her again but I’ve never forgotten her.

Beauty, my friends, is not always obvious, but it is worth looking for. I’m thankful that Mahonia and Lisa reminded me.