I was lamenting over the appropriate words for a sympathy card for a dear friend who recently had died at the same nursing home where he had worked many years ago. I smiled, in spite of my sadness. I could see his smile, I could hear his soothing voice speaking words of encouragement to his residents.
The words flowed from my pen onto the card I was leaving for the family. Ted was the closest thing I had ever met who was God in skin. I whispered this to Ted as I bid him a sad farewell and God’s blessings for just being himself.
As I dejectedly drove away from the funeral home, I could just see Ted hard at work. He was a physical therapy assistant. On my way to supper break when I worked at the nursing home, I would always meet Ted carefully walking all sorts of physically challenged residents.
One in particular struggled the hardest to walk. This resident had severe muscle spasms along with mental challenges. I could see Ted coming with him down the long hallway. His gait was jerky and strained. Ted held onto him very tightly as the resident would sway back and forth as he labored to walk. Ted’s hair would be falling down on his forehead and streams of sweat would run down his face and neck. Ted’s breathing was even more labored than the resident’s.
I marveled at the great mission they went through to get the daily walk completed. When the walk ended, Ted would lower the resident into his wheelchair. His body would be as stiff as a board and Ted would firmly but gently press him into a sitting position. As the resident would relax, his upper body would stop its quivering and jerking. His legs were still stiff and straight out from the hips. Ted would slowly rub his legs, “There, there, now doesn’t that feel good to sit.” His soothing voice seemed to soak into the spasming muscles and they would relax and melt like warm butter over the edges a stack of hot pancakes. Slowly the lower half of the body would assume a normal sitting position.
This resident would always have an ear to ear smile on his face whenever he was with Ted. “Ted, Ted, Ted, he my friend,” in a slurred happy voice.
I finally complimented Ted one afternoon after watching the daily ritual of such work and perseverance. “I don’t see how you can do this, day in and day out, it looks so hard!”
Ted smiled, sweat dripping off his nose onto his uniform top. His hair had fallen down again, in front of his glasses. He gently touched the resident on the shoulder,”He ain’t heavy, it’s never heavy when you carry the burden of a friend.”
The resident looked backwards over his shoulder towards Ted’s sweaty smile. “Ted, Ted, Ted, he my friend, he carry me, I walk. We buddies, we good buddies.”
This image is the one I carry of Ted and his life’s work, though it be decades since I last witnessed their daily walk.
As I kneel before the nativity this Christmas, I am humbled by Ted’s words,”He ain’t heavy, it’s never heavy when you carry the burden of a friend.” My mind wanders over the past year. I can remember being in a big hurry, being too tired or impatiently annoyed at someone who would need anyone, even me, to join them in their daily struggle with life. Sometimes I rationalized to myself as to why my arms wouldn’t reach out to help in that moment of their life. There were times I would join them in the struggle but I’d murmur to myself that I wished to get it over with as soon as possible.
As I kneel before the nativity, I see Ted’s smile and the sweat dripping off his nose. I never heard him complain under the daily tremendous burdens of his job. I also see the look of joy in this resident’s face when he would be up walking. Free of the wheelchair, he was free, if just for the fleeting time Ted’s arm was around him, his burden was lifted and he could walk again.
My gaze shyly lifts to the blessed nativity before me in the distance. The babe peacefully sleeping in the manger. Time will pass and He will bear inhuman burdens. He never murmured, He never complained, He never shirked from the cross He would carry. He would gently encourage the broken of body and spirit to come unto Him. He puts His arms around them and comforts them, saying, “Come unto Me all who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest.”
In Ted’s last fleeting moments on earth, the Comforter came and carried Ted to fields of flowers, where everyone walks free of pain and struggle. I could see Ted and the Christ walking across the meadows. Ted greeting old friends he had helped in the past. Yet, for all the burdens Ted carried here on earth for others, he too needed the greatest burden bearer of all to carry Ted’s burden of sin.
This Christ child sleeping before me with such little fingers. It’s hard to imagine those chubby hands one day would stretch out wide to carry the weight of sin for all of us. In His last fleeting breath, He whispers to His Heavenly Father, “They aren’t heavy, for Father, I carry the burden of friends.”