Lessons from a Rolling Pin

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

I have a marble rolling pin in my “weapons” drawer. There are also metal skewers for baked potatoes, leftover chopsticks from Chinese takeout, and a couple of heavy trivets intended to protect hot dishes on my dinner table. But as a long-time lover of sci-fi series on TV, I may or may not have considered what kind of materials I might have available should an emergency alien invasion leave me in need of immediate and unexpected defensive weapons. The rolling pin is at the top of my list. It’s perfect for piecrust and yeast rolls, but it would be formidable armament in case of an attack from Zombies—which appears to be unavoidable at some future time.

The rolling pin was a gift from a neighbor when a good part of my house went up in flames. The ashes of my entire kitchen supplies and equipment were swept into a single dustpan and deposited in the nearest garbage can. The neighbor and I were unlikely friends.

She lived down the street. Years before, my Visiting Teaching companion and I had been assigned to visit her. As far as anyone knew, she’d never been inside a church. Thankfully, my partner was one of those extroverts who introduced herself to the people waiting in line for a teller at the bank or to the family across the pump from her at the gas station. So, we faithfully visited this neighbor on her front porch every month for more than a year. She never let us in the house, until one day—she did.

She was probably 20 years our senior; I never knew exactly. Over time, we learned pieces of her story. She’d been a welder in a generation when that profession couldn’t have boasted more than a dozen women in the whole state. She was tough; she swore effectively and often. Her live-in partner was in construction. He was as weathered in appearance as she was. They’d been together for quite a few years when I met them, but he wasn’t the father of any of her 11 children–there were more than a couple of fathers, as far as I could tell. I remember on her wall next to her favorite ancient easy chair was a small display case of commemorative spoons, which her children brought her when they visited places she’d never been. Once, they surprised her with a weekend trip to Las Vegas. It was the only time she had ever been further than 100 miles from home.

My Visiting Teaching companion eventually had 11 children of her own, and I had eight, so we had a good deal in common with this neighbor. We got in the habit of bringing a freshly baked good to her house every time we visited. Over chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes, we thought we were leaving a gospel message when, in fact, she was teaching us what it really meant to be a mother. She always had a grandchild or two staying with her or coming to her house after school,–sometimes just dropping in, grabbing a bite, or borrowing a dollar from the two-quart mason jar filled with change on the shelf in her kitchen. She told me once they were saving to go to Disneyland.

One of her adult children was divorced; his ex-wife had a busy social life, so their two children were often at my neighbor’s house for weeks at a time. She saw that they were fed, went to school, visited the doc if necessary, and let them know in no uncertain terms when they stepped off the path of approved behavior.

I remember the day when we came to visit and asked where those two kids were. She told us her ex-daughter-in-law had taken up with a new man. He was chasing a dream in Florida, so over my neighbor’s heated–and I’m sure colorful objections, this mom had loaded up the kids and headed out. My neighbor was beside herself. She knew that meant she’d never see those beloved children again.

A couple of days later, she got a call from the ex-daughter-in-law. Their truck had broken down; they were stranded in some motel in Kansas. The new man thought the kids were too much trouble; he was tired of having to stop every couple of hours to feed them or take them to the bathroom. He gave their mom an ultimatum. Get rid of them, or he’d dump the mom. In desperation, she called my neighbor, gave her the name of the motel, and said if my neighbor wanted the grandkids, she’d better come get ‘em. The mom and the guy were heading out as soon as the truck was fixed.

My neighbor and her partner never thought twice. Within a few hours, they had loaded up a mattress in the back of his camper truck, grabbed the jar of Disneyland change off the shelf, and headed out on I-80. Neither of them had ever been east of the Utah border. Less than a day later, they loaded those children onto the bed in the camper, turned around, and brought them home.

Then maybe two or three years afterwards, one day, when we were visiting, my neighbor’s partner confided in us that he had bought a ring. He was going to surprise her by taking her to the courthouse and getting married. We baked a cake.

I often wondered why my Visiting Teaching companion and I had ever been assigned to visit a home where there had never been any members of our church. When I asked my neighbor how she thought that had happened, she told me she had been to church once years before when one of her adult sons had chosen to be baptized and invited her to the ceremony. She figured the missionaries had added her name to the ward list.

Though we don’t live near each other now, more than once I’ve left a commemorative spoon in her mailbox when I have traveled somewhere I know she will never see. But I have a lifetime of lessons and a marble rolling pin to remind me that extraordinary people come in all sizes, shapes, colors, and philosophies. I think Heaven intended it that way.